Hey there,

It’s been a strange month for AI safety – starting with a round of alarm from current and former Anthropic employees about “recursive self-improvement” (more on that in a moment), and ending with…

Anthropic releasing a new frontier model, and the U.S. and China doing nothing in particular in the “AI race.”

Today I am going to share my thoughts on the more sensational side of this story, but more importantly, I’ll talk about how it does (and, largely, does not) affect daily life for professionals using AI (or helping their teams or organizations adopt AI safely).

The big takeaway for me from September is that AI doom is great for people who seek attention and “eyeballs.” That does not necessarily mean the claims are valid, accurate, or worth our limited time and attention.

Like pretty much everything in life, it’s largely up to you as an individual to stay calm, take it slow, and thoughtfully navigate a rapidly changing landscape. That includes understanding when maybe someone is pushing your emotional buttons in a not-totally-honest way.

At the same time, even if no new AI improvement ever takes place again, simply adopting the AI that exists right now is going to be a decade-long project that dramatically improves the efficiency and productivity of most organizations. Doing it in a human-centered, careful and thoughtful way is probably the most important thing you can focus on for the next few years. The process is going to be disruptive and at times emotionally taxing. It’s also generally going to make the things we do every day better, faster and cheaper.

So, my basic view – that AI will produce net positive effects in the form of better, faster and cheaper services and products for just about everyone – hasn’t changed much in the last three years.

The debate – around sci-fi doom fantasies (mostly silly), cybersecurity (real and important) and the environment (a mixed bag, depending how each country generates electricity) – is shaping things around the margins of that big idea. But it’s not really changing the big idea.

With that, let’s dive into this month’s most high-profile claims.

What to make of “AI doom” claims?

An Anthropic employee quit his job and his reasoning went viral. Another employee joined the conversation too. The key quotes:

You can see why this would make a good viral news clip. Reminds me of the old saying in journalism – if it bleeds, it leads.