The biggest risk with AI is that we don't go big enough
The subject line is a direct quote from Peter Thiel in Crusoe’s funding announcement from last December where Thiel calls for a greater ambition given the opportunity that AI has presented us.
There’s a lot of truth in what Thiel stated. AI is the one technology vector where we see real progress that can meaningfully change how we live our lives. There are a a lot of accounts how exactly AI could improve our lives. Here’s one from Dario Amodei, the co-founder and CEO of Anthropic, the AI Lab that created the Claude. Whether specific predictions are correct is less important. The magnitude of what the technology can do for us is clearly unprecedented and has potential for a larger improvement than any of us have seen in our life times.
AI might be a catalyst for something equally important. In the developed nations, the 1973-74 oil crisis marked a significant shift in attitudes toward energy use, prompting the rise of energy conservation and efficiency measures. Before this, utilities and policymakers largely promoted increased energy consumption as a path to prosperity. After the crisis, conservation and efficiency became mainstream policy goals. 1973 onwards economic growth also slowed significantly compared to the previous 100 years.
It remains to be seen whether AI will give us everything Amodei is predicting, but we already know AI will force us to generate a lot more energy and improve the technology we use to do that. AI has refocused our attention back on the importance energy. If the past is any indication of the future, increased energy consumption alone will lead to economic growth and increased prosperity for all.
Energy consumption has been tied to our progress as a species. Being able to be wasteful in using energy could unlock things we can’t yet imagine. It enabled the invention of AI after all.
Whether it’s AI’s singular potential alone, or the increased energy production because of it, the biggest risk with AI is that we don't go big enough.