Will it take a ‘Chernobyl-scale disaster’ for us to regulate AI? | Stuart Russell

Unsafe AI systems are leading to cyber weapons of mass destruction

• Stuart Russell is a computer scientist known for his contributions to AI and a new Guardian US columnist

The AI company Anthropic has been making major headlines recently. Its trillion-dollar IPO plan and its blood feud with secretary of defense Pete Hegseth have attracted much attention, but two other events may be even more consequential.

In early June, the company posted an article describing early signs of recursive self-improvement (RSI), a process in which an AI system devises ways to increase its own intelligence, leading to a greater ability to improve itself, and so on.

Stuart Russell is a distinguished professor of computer science at University of California, Berkeley, the president of the International Association for Safe and Ethical Artificial Intelligence and a Guardian US columnist