- Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch said the obsession with developing general-purpose AI is “creating a god.”
- AI CEOs don't believe Elon Musk and Sam Altman's predictions that AI will surpass human intelligence.
- Mensch warns about big tech imposing AI standards that conflict with the world's culture and values.
Mistral founder and CEO Arthur Mensch doesn't believe in God. Therefore, he also does not believe in artificial general intelligence.
Artificial general intelligence, also known as AGI, is a level of AI that can outperform humans. Although we haven't reached that goal yet, the topic has become a hot topic as leaders grapple with the possibility that their AIs will become smarter than humans, and in the near future.
Leaders have expressed concerns about the potential negative consequences that could arise from AGI, such as jobs being replaced by AI. Even worse, humanity will become extinct.
The 31-year-old CEO recently made headlines after the AI company he founded in Paris with two college friends emerged as one of the world's most promising technology companies and one of Europe's hottest companies. .
But in an interview with the New York Times, he set himself apart from other big tech CEOs. Mensch said he is uncomfortable with Silicon Valley's religious interest in AI in general.
“AGI.'s entire rhetoric is about God's creation,” Mistral said in an interview. “I don't believe in God. I'm a strong atheist, so I don't believe in AGI either.”
He was referring to technology CEOs like Elon Musk and Sam Altman who have said that AI could become smarter than humans, with negative consequences for humanity.
Others in the tech industry are going even further, creating a new religion around AI.
Anthony Levandowski, the self-driving car pioneer pardoned by President Donald Trump for stealing trade secrets, has announced that he will reinstate the Church of AI. episode What's on Bloomberg's AI IRL Podcast for November 2023.
Levandowski, now CEO of Pollen Mobile, founded Pathway to the Future Church in 2015 while working as an engineer at Google's Waymo.
Although the church closed several years later, Levandowski's new church already had “thousands of people” who wanted to form a “spiritual connection” with the AI, he said in an interview.
“Here we're actually creating something where you can see everything and you can know everything no matter where you are,” Levandowski said in an interview. “And perhaps help us and guide us in ways that we would normally call God.”
Lewandowski said in an interview that the church is a mechanism for people to understand and participate in how technology can improve us.
A more pressing threat than AGI, Mensch said, is the threat big tech poses to cultures around the world.
“These models generate content and shape our cultural understanding of the world,” Mensch said. “And as it turns out, French values and American values differ in subtle but important ways.”
Mensch echoes widespread concerns among world leaders that big tech companies like Microsoft and Google could dominate the AI industry. This dominance could lead to global AI standards that conflict with other countries' cultures and values.
The European Union enacted an artificial intelligence law in March. This is the first large-scale effort to protect people from AI risks. Other countries, such as China, have also enacted smaller rules regarding the use of AI.
Mensch also said in an interview that vocal concerns about the open source model reflect Big Tech companies trying to push laws that eliminate competition.
