Do tech gurus at the forefront of the AI movement believe they’re creating a species seen as “superior to humans”?
That’s the question raised in the latest episode of the “All-In Podcast“, where panelists took aim at what one described as the “Dr. Frankenstein theory” motivating certain AI labs to achieve so-called artificial general intelligence (AGI) in the pursuit of creating a digital “deity.”
Hosted by Jason Calacanis and featuring venture capitalist Bill Gurley, David Sacks and David Friedberg, the May 29 episode touched on a number of AI-related topics, including Anthropic, the company behind the large language model (LLM) series Claude.
This week, Anthropic, co-founded in 2021 by researcher and entrepreneur Dario Amodei and his sister Daniela Amodei, announced plans for a proposed initial public offering of its common stock as it moves closer to going public on Wall Street, a stunning rise to the top of the increasingly cluttered LLM market.
After announcing it had raised $65 billion in private funding, Anthropic raised its estimated valuation to $965 billion, placing the chatbot creator among the world’s most lucrative startup firms, according to The Associated Press.
In a wide-ranging discussion on the future of AI, several panelists credited Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk with early foresight on the dangers of concentrated AI power, while sharply criticizing what one described as the “Dr. Frankenstein theory” motivating certain AI labs — particularly Anthropic.
The conversation shifted to applauding Musk’s efforts more than a decade ago to prevent DeepMind, another AI startup, from being acquired by Google.
“I remember having the conversation with Elon about this. We have to figure out a way for DeepMind not to go to Google. We have to block this somehow,” Calacanis recalled. “But he begged those folks to not sell to Google because Google was running the table on everything and he wanted this technology to be independent … and he also said this was his motivation to launch OpenAI as a nonprofit.”
Calacanis went on to credit Musk with being among the first to sound the alarm on AI.
“He just said this technology is too powerful for any one person. … He saw the writing on the wall,” he added. “It has to be available to all the people. … It has to be in the service of humanity, not ruled by one person.”
Gurley contrasted Musk’s decentralized vision with what he called the “Dr. Frankenstein theory” at play in parts of the AI industry.
“The more I dig, I’ve met people who I dare say think it’s their responsibility and they’re excited about building a species that’s superior to humans,” Gurley said, pointing to Anthropic’s internal documents, including its 80-page “Constitution,” writings by chief philosopher Amanda Askell, and Amodei’s blog post “Machines of Loving Grace.”
Quoting “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace,” a 1965 poem by Richard Brautigan that inspired Amodei’s post, Gurley read: “I like to think of a cybernetic ecology where we are free of our labors and join back to nature. Return to our mammal brothers and sisters. … And all watched over by machines of loving grace.”
“Sounds like overlord to me,” he added.
He then summarized Amodei’s vision of a future with massive abundance, universal basic income, and “a capitalist economy of AI systems which then give out resources to humans based on some secondary economy of what the AI systems think makes sense to reward in humans. … It decides how much you’re worth.”
“So that’s envisioning a deity of sorts that’s going to break ties. … I don’t think they think they’re writing software. I think they’re midwifing a deity here,” Gurley added.
Calacanis compared such efforts to a “delusion of grandeur” in the pursuit of creating a god in their own image.
“I don’t know which one I’m more afraid of, the regulatory capture or this second theory I call the Dr. Frankenstein theory. … These are delusions of grandeur,” he continued. “It literally is the ultimate level of narcissism and delusion of grandeur to think you can create God.”
The discussion concluded with a dystopian word of caution from Sacks.
“This way of viewing the world leads to more centralization, and I think that’s dangerous. I mean, if AI is this very powerful technology, I think it needs to be decentralized so that all of us can protect ourselves to some degree, right? We need to be able to run the AI ourselves on our own hardware if we so choose, so we’re not beholden to a single company that might be in bed with a deep state.”
