First question on AI. Is the problem superintelligence or distorted intelligence? This is a question I tried to address in this piece. I can add the following additional comment here. I believe the debate is being obfuscated by equating goal-driven, autonomous behavior with intelligence. Plants and insects have goal-driven, largely autonomous behaviour. But this isn’t what we mean by intelligence in general. Intelligence is general-purpose and holistic, and is typically well-adapted to its environment. There is no doubt that current AI models have impressive capabilities. But in attempting to achieve these capabilities, AI labs may be creating distorted intelligence rather than superintelligence, as I explain in this article. This matters because the dangers we should watch out for, the kinds of policies and regulations we should adopt, and the hope we should hold depend on the answer to this question.

Dear followers, Over the next few days, starting today, I will post a number of threads on AI. My focus will be on uncomfortable questions for our current AI discourse. I am doing this because I feel that the public conversation on AI is not tackling the big issues and dangers, and what I view as important questions are not being asked by industry insiders and the media. I must preface these posts by saying that I am not an AI scientist, so my understanding of some of the issues may be faulty. And I do not claim to know the answers to these questions. My aim is to make a small contribution by emphasizing the questions that I believe are important but are being neglected. Thank you