{"slug": "the-frustration-of-agreeing-with-everyone-about-ai", "title": "The frustration of agreeing with everyone about AI", "summary": "A technologist expresses internal conflict over AI, agreeing with accelerationists, artists, nationalists, doomers, and openness advocates simultaneously, highlighting the contradictions in current AI debates. The author argues that all positions have merit depending on future AI development trajectories, from capability stagnation to runaway growth.", "body_md": "Conversations about AI are febrile and have been for a while now. Everyone has different views.\n\nIt’s frustrating for me because not only do I empathise with all of you, in some ways I have every major position in my mind.\n\nI find myself impossible, messed up. Niller-nally, retwixt, fragmented.\n\n### I agree with the accelerationists\n\nI briefly used an open source agentic programming tool with [1000 tokens/second](https://www.cerebras.ai/)\nof a top Chinese model. It was like a drug pumped straight into my veins. I worked on\n[artificial life](https://creatures.wiki/Francis_Irving) 27 years ago - we were trying to\ndo the same at CyberLife, just much earlier. Creation can be beautiful, and helpful, warm and\npurposeful. There’s diseases to cure, climate models to optimise, software to make perfect\nfor each person.\n\n### I agree with the artists\n\nOur work has all been stolen, and remixed into a bland slop of the world’s cultural\nheritage. I’m more radical here than nearly anyone - I think\n[model weights are a derived work](https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.13493)\nof every bit of content they’re trained on. Power is winning, not rules. Because power\nwins. We can’t keep human emotion in art without a relentless disavowal of AI-generated\nart. Every single nuance needs editing, curating. I care about human emotion in art.\n\n### I agree with the nationalists\n\nI watched the US administration [suddenly declare](https://www.anthropic.com/news/fable-mythos-access)\nthat a powerful new model is available only to US citizens. It turned my stomach.\nMy empathy runs high when the European Commission responds that\nEurope needs [“technological sovereignty”](https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/eu-commission-looking-practical-consequences-anthropic-decision-spokesperson-2026-06-14/) in AI. It’s a race.\n\n### I agree with the doomers\n\nI look at [PauseAI](https://pauseai.uk/) and think… Yep, this technology can\ncause harm. *Existential* harm - if not with with current architectures as they scale,\nthen at some point in the next decade or next century with another technology. It is\nnecessary to regulate it, to sign international treaties. It’s nukes but accelerated not\nonly by Government dominance, but also by business value.\n\n### I agree with the openness freaks\n\nI’ve loved open source software [since 1997](https://www.flourish.org/webmask/about.html). So when\nI see an argument that [open models level the playing field](https://rbren.substack.com/p/banning-open-weight-models-would),\nI’ve already watched it play out with software, and despite the problems, I agree. As the models work better and\nbetter, it is worse and worse that we’re locked into a limited set of providers, that\npower accumulates with the few.\n\n*(I guess I don’t really agree with people opposed to data centres because of water or power\nuse - as that seems solvable with the right infrastructure. And the other issues dominate\nthose proximate questions, however much of an environmentalist I am. There are stronger\nreasons to oppose data centres.)*\n\n### … breathe …\n\nYes that all contradicts. It fragments. Open models is the worst for doom, AI sovereignty is the opposite of a pause, protecting artists’ works blocks acceleration. Nothing functions.\n\nWhy am I this splinter of contradictions?\n\nBecause all the arguments are right, but which is right the most depends on what happens.\n\n-\nIf we’re at the\n\n**top of the S-curve and AI capability stalls** with a few more 10% improvements that cost 2x the amount… Then yes let’s roll it out, let’s make it open for everyone, and regulate the mundane risks, remove all the problems, gain all the benefits. Can’t stop capitalism, can get it right. -\nIf AI gets\n\n**vastly more capable**, but somehow without its own “will to power”, then I want to be in a large empire which controls its use for my benefit. The consequences for defense are mind-collapsing, unthinkable. The military acceleration unbearable. But what happens if instead you opt out? It’s bad. -\nIf AI not only gets more powerful, but\n\n**we lose control**, these alien minds start acting at scale and in a way we lose collective and individual control of. It spreads, either an inert cancer growing through our civilisation eating it up, or a willful Cthulhu monster carelessly and deliberately breaking everything apart.\n\nAnd nobody knows what is going to happen.\n\nI’m kind of tired, agreeing and disagreeing simultaneously with every post on the topic.\n\nFrozen.\n\nI guess I’ll [email my MP](https://pauseai.uk/campaigns) about holding AI developers\nliable for severe harm. That seems a good next step.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-frustration-of-agreeing-with-everyone-about-ai", "canonical_source": "https://www.flourish.org/2026/06/agree-everyone-ai/", "published_at": "2026-06-17 18:40:57+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-17 18:52:42.735218+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-ethics", "ai-policy", "ai-safety", "ai-research"], "entities": ["Cerebras", "CyberLife", "Anthropic", "European Commission", "PauseAI", "Francis Irving"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-frustration-of-agreeing-with-everyone-about-ai", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-frustration-of-agreeing-with-everyone-about-ai.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-frustration-of-agreeing-with-everyone-about-ai.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-frustration-of-agreeing-with-everyone-about-ai.jsonld"}}