Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has once again jumped into the public discussion, but this time his criticism is directed not at the blockchain industry, but at the ambitions of artificial intelligence giants. In his view, humanity is stuck in a deadlock between two naive scenarios for how events will unfold, and neither offers a real plan for managing the transition to artificial superintelligence (ASI).
The trigger for his statement was a debate around the "AI 2040" forecast, which suggests that superintelligence will emerge by 2040 under almost any circumstances — unless titanic efforts are made to completely stop it. Critics of this scenario, according to Buterin, call it naive in its assessment of people's ability to coordinate. However, the developer himself points out their own naivety: they assume that the transition to ASI will go smoothly by default.
Buterin emphasizes that the skeptics' position only makes sense in a world where AI remains an "ordinary technology." But in a world where superintelligence could be possible as early as 2030, it does not hold up to scrutiny. He admits to uncertainty: if he were confident in even one of the scenarios, he would join the corresponding camp. But for now, he does not understand which world we are living in.
The "open source is bad" rhetoric is alarming
Buterin's criticism of the rhetoric of major AI companies deserves special attention. He is alarmed by the mindset that boils down to "open source is bad, and the good outcome is one where our guys achieve controlling global dominance." In his view, such statements in a "normal" world should trigger all political alarm bells at once.
Buterin himself views superintelligence as a colossal risk of power concentration. That is why he 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.
Compromise: triggers for a pause
Buterin considers finding a deal acceptable to both sides as a key element of his position. He proposes pre-agreeing on a set of triggers that signal "something serious is happening": superpandemics, unemployment above 25%, or the emergence of autonomous weapons. If a sufficient number of these triggers are activated within an agreed timeframe, the parties commit to seriously considering a slowdown or a pause.
In his vision, critics would accept this expecting the triggers not to fire, while the concerned would expect the opposite. Addressing the leaders of tech giants, Buterin admits that if he were in Elon Musk's or Mark Zuckerberg's shoes, he would restructure social platforms to seek such mutually beneficial deals. But he immediately adds that this idea is also naive.
My analysis: Buterin's position is a rare example of pragmatic humanism in a world where tech corporations dream of total control. His idea of triggers is an attempt to implement "kill switch" mechanisms on a global level, which could be the only reasonable compromise between acceleration and catastrophe. However, as Vitalik himself admits, the naivety of this approach only underscores the depth of the problem.