“We must be all the more concerned about the uncertain threats of AI as the disorders in the world considerably reduce the ability to respond”

LThe apocalypse is back. It was pandemic a few centuries ago, then potentially nuclear. It now bears the initials of artificial intelligence (AI), from which we expected the best but which has become in record time an anxiety factory.

When it was only a question of energy-intensive data centers, the relationship between the immediate cost and the expected benefits could still be argued. Then AI was associated with the destruction of jobs, and now experts from the belly of the beast set the possibility of humanity’s destruction following a machine takeover at 10%. Enough to calmly and reasonably fuel the panic. We will have to wait a little before knowing if the latter is rushed or legitimate.

This situation is unprecedented, due to the elusive nature of the potential dangers. The nuclear apocalypse at least had the good taste of not moving forward in disguise. Fissile material, a bomb, a vector: we were on familiar ground. It is different with an AI which would become capable of resisting any control. What form of conflict with its designers would this resistance take? How would it manifest? Defensively or offensively? By the paralysis or collapse of essential infrastructure, by the massive hacking of military systems?

We must be all the more concerned about these uncertain threats as the world’s turmoil considerably reduces our response capabilities. There is not much left of the very imperfect attempt at global governance set up by the United States after 1945. The current fashion, which consists of draping itself at every moment in its little sovereignty to give the illusion of action in the face of transnational challenges, is a guarantee of additional impotence in the face of an AI gone rogue, or its own condottiere.

The call for a pause launched on September 12 by Dario Amodei, boss of Anthropic, one of the engines producing the current boom in the United States, was immediately dismissed out of hand by the tenant of the White House (who makes delusional anecdotal use of it). Donald Trump returned to the White House on the bulwark of Meta, Amazon and the Musk empire, to whom he promised unlimited deregulation, immediately translated by presidential decree. He won’t come back.

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