CNN Tech Journo Alarms Anchors with Talk of AI Creating Bioweapons: ‘Holding Hands and Running Toward a Cliff’

CNN contributor Jacob Ward had anchors Boris Sanchez and Brianna Keilar visibly nervous after laying out the dangers of AI, including the possible creation of “bioweapons.”

Ward, a tech journalist, joined Sanchez and Keilar following Jacob Coxon, who worked as an artificial intelligence researcher at Anthropic for three years, announcing his resignation and warning that AI is moving so rapidly it could “kill us all” within a decade.

Sanchez noted that he asked Anthropic’s AI model about the chances of AI killing off humans within a decade and it eventually told him there is a 2-5% chance.

“I think the question many of us would want to know is, how would AI try to go about this?” Sanchez asked.

Ward said the risks grow daily when it comes to the potential dangers of AI.

He said:

There the the list of threats grows by the day. We know, first of all, right, that there is a a growing body of evidence that this technology has capabilities in the creation of bioweapons and the creation of cybersecurity hacks that are unprecedented and unguardable against. We just saw just a couple of weeks ago a California research facility basically saying that they had created through ai in two days a cybersecurity hack that would basically infect one of the largest messaging apps in all of the world on your phone without you really even having to ever touch the phone. There are incredible amounts of danger coming here.

Ward argued the amount of AI researchers and workers who are resigning and giving public warnings should concern people. Ward noted that even the Manhattan Project only saw one person, Sir Joseph Rotblat, walk away on moral grounds.

The tech journalist also noted there has been little to no oversight for AI and even the companies themselves acknowledge they are rapidly heading toward a “cliff.”

“I mean, this is the thing, right? Is that what all of these researchers seem to agree on is that we are holding hands, that these companies are holding hands and running toward a cliff, and they don’t seem to be able to agree among themselves how to slow down,” he said.

Ward continued:

I’m headed to Europe in a few weeks to speak to a couple of conferences on this, and I’m really hoping to speak to people there and understand how can we build some sort of international coalition that can actually slow this thing down. The way we have looked at bioweapons, the way we’ve looked at regulating aviation, this is the kind of thing that Bill Gates, who used to not care about this stuff, but we were just talking about this last week, he’s changed his tune and says an international body is going to be necessary here. This is truly on the order of nuclear weapons, on the order of genetic experimentation, which have in the past produced international treaties, international agreements. We are not in that place right now because there’s so much money to be made in the short term off of this, and because we just lack the political will at the moment to do the kinds of incredibly high stakes international negotiation you would have to, to create something that can withstand, you know, the dangers that are posed for all humanity, not just for individual industries or in individual nation.

Sanchez and Keilar were both visibly taken aback by Ward’s blunt warning.

“On that optimistic note…” Keilar said.

“Very positive!” Sanchez said, laughing.

“Jacob Ward, I know. Keeping it real. Tough to hear,” Keilar added.

Watch above via CNN.

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