Mary Martin

Quanta interviewed 19 current and former NLP researchers to tell that story. From experts to students, tenured academics to startup founders, they describe a series of moments — dawning realizations, elated encounters and at least one “existential crisis” — that changed their world. And ours.

Uncertainty is our only certainty when it comes to AI and the future of work. This does not mean workers, busi -nesses, and the government have no options to prepare for that future. The most important step they can take is to promote and strengthen workers’ noncognitive skills to enhance their ability to adapt and persevere amid rapid change.

There is indirect evidence to support this idea. For instance, individuals tend to act in a way that is consistent with or constrained by how they have imagined themselves in those situations (Johnson and Sherman, 1990), implying that some record of that simulation influences later behavior. There is typically a high correspondence of stated... See more

A lot of effective altruism organizations have made AI x-risk their top cause in the last few years,” explains Sayash Kapoor from Princeton. “That means a lot of the people who are getting funding to do AI research are naturally inclined, but also have been specifically selected, for their interest in reducing AI x-risk.”

Thus, the interest in AI... See more