Your Undivided Attention

‘We Have to Get It Right’: Gary Marcus On Untamed AI

Episode Summary

Computer scientist Gary Marcus has been called AI’s loudest critic, and he predicts AI’s exponential curve will soon flatten out. He also thinks we’re unprepared to handle the AI we already have. In this episode, Gary discusses his AI skepticism and what we need to do to get this rollout right.

Episode Notes

It’s a confusing moment in AI. Depending on who you ask, we’re either on the fast track to AI that’s smarter than most humans, or the technology is about to hit a wall. Gary Marcus is in the latter camp. He’s a cognitive psychologist and computer scientist who built his own successful AI start-up. But he’s also been called AI’s loudest critic.

On Your Undivided Attention this week, Gary sits down with CHT Executive Director Daniel Barcay to defend his skepticism of generative AI and to discuss what we need to do as a society to get the rollout of this technology right… which is the focus of his new book, Taming Silicon Valley: How We Can Ensure That AI Works for Us.

The bottom line: No matter how quickly AI progresses, Gary argues that our society is woefully unprepared for the risks that will come from the AI we already have.

Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on Twitter: @HumaneTech_

 

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Link to Gary’s book: Taming Silicon Valley: How We Can Ensure That AI Works for Us

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Further reading on the deepfake of of an explosion near the Pentagon.

The study Gary cited on AI and false memories.

Footage from Gary and Sam Altman’s Senate testimony.

 

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Correction: Gary mistakenly listed the reliability of GPS systems as 98%. The federal government’s standard for GPS reliability is 95%.