Vitalik Buterin opposes AI "world domination": criticism of giants and the search for compromise
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has once again found himself at the center of a debate about the future of artificial intelligence. This time, his criticism is directed at the rhetoric of major AI companies, whose ambitions, in the developer's view, border on dangerous naivety and a desire to concentrate power.
Two Camps of Naivety
The trigger for Buterin's statement was the "AI 2040" scenario, which predicts the emergence of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) by 2040 in almost any course of events. Critics of this forecast, in turn, call it naive, believing that humanity can coordinate and stop this process.
Buterin, however, sees the problem more deeply. In his opinion, both sides are "locked into mutually incompatible worldviews." Critics of the "AI 2040" scenario fail to see their own naivety, believing the transition to superintelligence will be smooth and controlled. Proponents of accelerated development, essentially, propose a world where "our guys get controlling world domination," which, as Buterin notes, should cause political alarm.
Risks of Power Concentration
The Ethereum creator is particularly concerned about the rhetoric that "open source is bad, and a good outcome is when we control the world." He emphasizes that superintelligence itself represents a colossal risk of power concentration. This is why Buterin consistently promotes the d/acc platform, which includes the development of formal verification, cryptography, secure open hardware, and pandemic resilience.
The value of these areas, he says, is that they are useful in any future scenario—whether with fast or slow AI development.
Seeking Compromise: Triggers and Deals
Buterin proposes a pragmatic approach: pre-agree on a set of triggers signaling serious problems. As examples, he cites super-pandemics, unemployment rates above 25%, or the emergence of autonomous weapons. If a sufficient number of such triggers are activated by an agreed-upon deadline, the parties commit to seriously considering a slowdown or pause in AI development.
"A winning deal will be one that both sides accept based on their current beliefs, albeit for different reasons," Buterin notes. Critics of acceleration will accept this expecting the triggers not to fire, while the concerned will expect the opposite. He also appealed to leaders of tech giants, suggesting they restructure social platforms to seek such mutually beneficial deals, though he acknowledges the naivety of this idea.
Expert opinion: Buterin's position is a rare example of common sense in the hysterical AI race. His proposal for "triggers" is not a technical solution but a political tool. However, given the current market dynamics and corporate ambitions, it is unlikely that any of the giants will voluntarily agree to a "red button." The crypto community should pay attention to this discussion: the decentralization and formal verification that Buterin promotes could become the only real counterbalance to the centralization of AI power.