AI debate: Interests behind regulation

The development of artificial intelligence has entered a new phase. AI systems can no longer “just” write competent texts or generate images, but can increasingly independently plan and carry out complex actions and identify and use useful tools. Is that dangerous? Naturally. Is a major catastrophe inevitable? Of course not.

Apart from this, the newly flared debate about the risks of AI reveals who pursues which interests. Now the Nvidia boss has intervened. There is no need for new rules and regulations, says Jensen Huang, market forces will ensure that only what works and is safe prevails.

Trusting in the market is initially a very sensible attitude. In this case, it should be particularly easy for Huang because the AI ​​market in one central area consists primarily of one provider: his company. Nvidia produces the most powerful AI chips in the world, the share price is developing breathtakingly, and the valuation is rather adventurous. It is based on the fact that Nvidia reports strong business growth quarter after quarter - and promises enormous growth. Investors like to believe that so far. New regulations could definitely have an impact on them. Huang has little interest in it either.

The same applies to Donald Trump. Finally, the American president immediately scolded those tech entrepreneurs who are now suggesting that AI should be developed more slowly together. The electorate is already annoyed enough with Trump because prices are not just high at the gas station. If economic growth based on AI were to decline, approval for him and his Republicans would continue to decline. And then, as is well known, there are the Chinese, with whom Trump sees himself in the most important race of all: “Whoever wins AI, wins.”

So everyone pursues their own AI interests in the current debate. That doesn't mean that the arguments are necessarily wrong. But in its own way it illustrates that at least the serious warners have a point.