Altman vs. Dario: In the Age of Superintelligence, Are Humans Masters or Pets?

Beating AI News Flash: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted publicly opposing a future in which humans live in ways that AI deems worthy of reward, and AI then decides what rewards to give.

In his view, humans must always retain control over the future. Even if this means limiting the development of superintelligence, the power to decide must not be handed over.

Altman did not name names, but the statement he quoted actually comes directly from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's 2024 long essay "Machines of Loving Grace."

Amodei at the time raised a question: if AI ultimately becomes better than humans at almost all work, and at a cost so low that humans lose economic competitiveness, how should society function?

He discussed several possible paths, including universal basic income, and an economic model in which AI creates vast wealth and then distributes resources based on human behavior it deems worthy of reward.

In the latter scenario, humans may no longer need to work to make a living, but how many resources they receive would depend on how AI evaluates their behavior.

However, Amodei did not present this mechanism as a formal proposal. He acknowledged that these options all have serious problems, and he also warned of possible exploitation and dystopian outcomes.