Buterin vs AI Giants: Dreams of World Domination and the Naivety of Scenarios
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has sharply criticized the largest players in the artificial intelligence industry. In his view, humanity is stuck between two extremely naive scenarios for future developments, and neither offers a real plan for managing the transition to superintelligence (ASI).
The trigger for the discussion was the "AI 2040" forecast scenario and its opponents. Buterin notes that both sides are "locked into mutually incompatible worldviews" regarding the speed of AI development. According to his analysis, the "AI 2040" scenario assumes the emergence of superintelligence by 2040 under almost any circumstances, except for titanic efforts to completely halt it. Critics, the developer observes, call such a forecast naive in assessing people's ability to coordinate, yet they themselves fail to notice the naivety in assuming that the transition to ASI will by default go smoothly.
Buterin emphasizes: the critics' position only makes sense in a world where AI remains an "ordinary technology." In a world where superintelligence is possible as early as 2030, he says, it does not hold up to scrutiny. Vitalik himself admits to uncertainty and does not understand which of the two worlds humanity is living in.
Concerns about the concentration of power
Buterin is particularly uncomfortable with the rhetoric of some major AI companies. He is alarmed by the mindset of "open source is bad, and a good outcome is where our guys gain controlling global dominance." In his view, in a "normal" world, such statements should simultaneously trigger all political alarm bells. He sees superintelligence itself as a huge risk of power concentration.
This is why Buterin promotes the d/acc platform, which includes the development of formal verification, cryptography, secure open hardware, pandemic resilience, and public epistemology. The value of these areas is that they are useful in both future scenarios. At the same time, he positively assessed that the "AI 2040" plan has become more friendly to open source and even mandates it.
How to find a compromise
The Ethereum developer considers finding a deal acceptable to both sides as key. "A winning agreement would be one that both sides accept based on their current beliefs, albeit for different reasons," Vitalik noted.
He proposed agreeing in advance on a set of triggers signaling that "something serious is happening"—for example, superpandemics, an unemployment rate above 25%, or the emergence of autonomous weapons. If a sufficient number of such triggers are activated within an agreed timeframe, the sides would pre-agree to seriously consider a slowdown or pause. In his idea, critics would accept this, expecting the triggers not to activate, while the concerned would expect the opposite.
Buterin also addressed the heads of tech giants. According to him, if he were in Elon Musk's or Mark Zuckerberg's shoes, he would restructure social platforms to seek such mutually beneficial deals. However, he admitted that this idea is also naive.
Cryptalist analytical commentary: Buterin's position is not just criticism but an attempt to propose a decentralized framework for managing ASI risks. In a world where blockchain and cryptography become coordination tools, his ideas about triggers and d/acc may prove more pragmatic than they seem at first glance. However, the naivety he himself acknowledges is a challenge that will require not only technical but also political maturity from both sides.