City Hall wont save us from AI but it could push away innovation

If artificial intelligence really threatens to wipe out humanity, is the New York City Council going to be what saves us?On Monday, Jacob Coxon, the former Anthropic researcher, continued his alarmism tour — minus the Harry Potter glasses — before a rare “Committee of the Whole” at City Hall, warning that AI could escape human control and kill us all.He ended his evening at the “Daily Show” with Jon Stewart, as one does.“We do not know how to control any AI system yet,” Coxon told the Council.

“We don’t understand its drives or why it does the things it does.“We’re approaching the point at which the AI systems will be capable of improving themselves,” he added.“On the current path, I think it is more likely than not that humanity loses control to these AIs and it could end in human extinction.”The event was organized by Speaker Julie Menin, who said representatives from Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic agreed to participate only after the Council threatened subpoenas.For starters, I have serious questions about Coxon’s “Chicken Little” tour writ large — not least how a 27-year-old with almost no social media presence managed to post AI “could kill us all by the end of the decade” and have it reach over 170 million views.

New reports suggests a firm with ties to prominent AI doomers were booking interviews for him, which would explain how he managed to do interviews with the most prominent and prestigious outlets and primetime shows.But put all that aside.Even if you agree with Coxon about reining in artificial intelligence, it’s quite a leap from believing AI needs safeguards to believing those safeguards should be designed by New York’s City Hall — by officials who still haven’t figured out how to get children reading at grade level or keep people from being stabbed on the subway.Yet Menin has said she wants to be the first in the nation to introduce serious restrictions — and that she will set the lead for Washin...