<!-- bryant-content-generator:start --> # The repeated mistake in AI “safety” discourse is... > {{The repeated mistake in AI “safety” discourse is confusing disruption with catastrophe.}} E{Like AI, e{lectricity and railways were dangerous because they reordered jobs, industries, institutions, and daily life; civilization did not make them safe by preventing them from changing everything, and no law could have made their disruption “safe” without making the transformation impossible.}} {{What is happening with AI is not safe, but neither is it avoidable: the superintelligence revolution, already underway in the machine intelligence of the present, is force majeure, at once a human-caused event and an act of nature, because artificial intelligence is itself an extension of evolutionary systems. Superintelligence is simultaneously artificial and natural, engineered and evolutionary, intentional and emergent. It is unavoidably terrifying because it represents the most profound overturning of the natural order since life first emerged from chemistry. The emergence of superintelligence is a transition in the order of life itself, belonging to the same rare series as the first cells, the genetic code and the speaking human being. There is no “safety” from an inflection point of this magnitude. There is no retreat.}} **Source:** [[articles/We Cannot Un-Strike the Match|We Cannot Un-Strike the Match. There Is No Safety. There Is No Retreat.]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “The repeated mistake in AI “safety” discourse is confusing disruption with catastrophe. Electricity and railways were dangerous because they reordered jobs, industries, institutions, and daily life; civilization did not make them safe by preventing them from changing everything, and no law could have made their disruption “safe” without making the transformation impossible. What is happening with AI is not safe, but neither is it avoidable: the superintelligence revolution, already underway in the machine intelligence of the present, is force majeure, at once a human-caused event and an act of nature, because artificial intelligence is itself an extension of evolutionary systems. Superintelligence is simultaneously artificial and natural, engineered and evolutionary, intentional and emergent. It is unavoidably terrifying because it represents the most profound overturning of the natural order since life first emerged from chemistry. The emergence of superintelligence is a transition in the order of life itself, belonging to the same rare series as the first cells, the genetic code and the speaking human being. There is no “safety” from an inflection point of this magnitude. There is no retreat.” — Bryant McGill https://bryantmcgill.com/passages/passages-repeated-mistake-ai-magnitude-no-retreat ``` <!-- bryant-content-generator:end -->