Latest Interviews
Showing 1–2 of 2 transcripts.
Clear all filters- The Economist7 min
Anthropic’s CEO explains why he took on the Pentagon
Zanny Minton Beddoes, Dario Amodei
A technology executive highlights a strategic conflict with the Pentagon over negotiating a new, broader AI contract that includes restrictions on fully autonomous weapon deployment due to current safety limitations and the risk of a normative oversight vacuum. While the speaker asserts 99% alignment with government goals on non-autonomous capabilities, the dispute centers on the Pentagon's rejection of operational constraints, which the executive warns could force the effective nationalization of private AI firms. This tension is framed as a long-term challenge where both private companies and state actors possess unprecedented power that requires balanced oversight to prevent abuse or overreach.
- The Economist14 min
AI bosses on what keeps them up at night
Demis Hassabis, Dario Amodei, Zanny Minton Beddoes
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis offer diverging timelines for Artificial General Intelligence, with Amodei predicting arrival by 2026–2027 and Hassabis estimating a 50% probability only by 2030. Both leaders warn of severe geopolitical risks from authoritarian dominance and catastrophic safety failures, advocating for an international "CERN for AGI" framework and new global institutions akin to the IAEA to manage the technology. While Amodei emphasizes the danger of a self-improving threshold moment and the potential for lab-tested autonomous agents to cause immediate harm, Hassabis highlights regulatory imbalances and the medium-term potential for AI to solve major scientific challenges like curing diseases.