What We Tell Our Kids About AI

Between us, we have six children. The oldest is 12. None of them has a phone yet, and none has asked us whether artificial intelligence is going to ruin their lives.They will.They will learn that some of the people building the most powerful AI systems have warned that the technology could become dangerous in ways we cannot yet control. They will hear predictions that many of the jobs they might want in the future may disappear. They will encounter arguments about truth, power, safety, and whether our institutions can possibly keep pace with machines advancing faster than our ability to govern them.We will not be able to tell them that any of it is nonsense. We don’t think it is.But another danger looms over this moment. As the conversation around AI grows darker, we risk becoming so consumed by what might go wrong that we stop paying attention to what is beginning to go right.That is not an argument for complacency. The risks are real and demand immediate action. It is an argument for something we think is becoming equally necessary: pragmatic optimism.We work in one of the most failure-prone fields there is, trying to understand disease and determine which medicines might work in...