As Meta’s high poobah Mark Zuckerberg tweeted, “Every lab has the responsibility and incentive to move at the pace required to train its models safely, and the ability to take its own actions to ensure that happens.” He then goes on to explain that that’s why Meta delayed shipping Muse. Sure, Mark, sure.
Let’s get real. The big American AI companies may hope a slowdown will ensure that their lesser rivals, in the US anyway, can’t catch up. But given how OpenAI’s circular financing keeps leaking money, another reason OpenAI might welcome a slowdown is to save cash on R&D.
It’s not going to work. We’re in steamboat time. Steamboat time? While we remember Robert Fulton for building the first commercially successful steamboat in 1807, everyone and their uncle were making steamboats as fast as they could. Soon steamboats were everywhere, and they sparked an economic boom. But they also caused many deaths because of shoddy construction and pilots racing them to ever greater, unsafe speeds. Hmm, does that remind anyone of anything recently?