>in the summer of 1970, Newsweek ran a cover story titled “Is Privacy Dead?” detailing the “massive flanking attack” of computers on modern society. Growing awareness of that threat led to broad appeals that echo modern proposals to regulate A.I. “Eventually we have to set up an agency to regulate the computers,” Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina said in 1970.

>But instead of regulating all computers, the government sought a targeted approach tailored to specific problems, passing regulations like the Equal Credit Opportunity Act in 1974.

Thereby solving the problems of digital intrusions on privacy, and credit scores forever. Oh wait, no, I guess those both those things are incredibly broken. Digital privacy is notoriously non-existent, infringed on by the state, criminals, and business. Credit and financial information is impossible to keep safe and available to any cyber criminal who wants it.

It's odd that the author's two examples of when the government got something right by not preemptively intervening both turned out so poorly.

AI is fundamentally different from privacy, credit, or any other invention that has happened before. The implications of this technology are too vast for us not to spend time and money thinking about how to proceed safely. We may only get one shot at developing true AI correctly, and establishing a public office to help figure out how to do that seems like the least we could do.

If anyone finds themselves agreeing with this author, I highly recommend Nick Bostrum's book Super Intelligence. If you don't have the time for a whole book Sam Harris has a good TED talk on the subject.