I started thinking about my grandchild, and I thought, in 20 years, he’s going to be 22; will he have a life? Will he live in a democracy? Whoever will control very advanced AIs in the future will have huge power. And they could use that power in ways that are good for them, maybe, but not for most of us. Democracy is about sharing power. If the power is concentrated in the hands of a few, that is not democracy — that is a dictatorship.
I think the key thing here is that human institutions and humanity writ large are ceeding control to tech companies. Its less “AI” and more “bad actors”
Quote Citation: Davide Castelvecchi & Benjamin Thompson, “‘It keeps me awake at night’: machine-learning pioneer on AI’s threat to humanity”, 2025-11-12, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-03686-1