Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has entered a heated debate about the future of artificial intelligence, stating that he does not see a single clear transition scenario to superintelligence (ASI). In his view, humanity is stuck between "naive" and "naive squared" development options.
The statement was prompted by a controversy surrounding the "AI 2040" predictive scenario and its critics. Buterin emphasizes that both sides of the conflict are "locked into mutually incompatible worldviews" regarding the speed of AI development.
The essence of the debate: speed vs. control
The "AI 2040" scenario suggests that superintelligence will emerge by 2040 under almost any development path — except for titanic efforts to completely halt it. Critics, according to the developer's observation, call such a forecast naive in assessing people's ability to coordinate. However, as Buterin notes, they themselves fail to see the naivety in assuming that the transition to ASI will by default proceed smoothly.
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. Buterin himself admits to uncertainty: if he were confident in at least one of the scenarios, he would join the corresponding camp. However, he currently does not understand which world humanity lives in.
Concerns about power concentration
Buterin finds the rhetoric of major AI companies particularly discomforting. He is alarmed by the mindset: "open source is bad, and a good outcome is where our guys achieve controlling world domination." In his view, in a "normal" world, such statements should trigger all political alarm bells simultaneously.
Vitalik views superintelligence itself as a huge 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 lies in their usefulness in both future scenarios.
Seeking 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," Buterin notes.
He proposed pre-agreeing on a set of triggers signaling that "something serious is happening" — for example, super-pandemics, unemployment 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-commit to seriously considering a slowdown or pause.
According to Buterin's plan, critics would accept this expecting the triggers not to fire, while the concerned would expect the opposite. Separately, he addressed the heads of tech giants, stating that if he were Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg, he would restructure social platforms to seek such mutually beneficial deals. However, he admitted that this idea is also naive.
Expert opinion: Buterin's position is a rare example of a rational view of the AI race in an industry dominated by either techno-optimism or alarmism. His proposal with triggers is an attempt to inject elements of smart contract logic into ASI risk management. However, as with DeFi, the key question is who will control the oracles and guarantee the execution of the agreement when the stakes become truly high.