A critical commentary arguing that major AI companies' claims about risks and breakthroughs are fraudulent marketing tactics designed to inflate valuations, and that if AI truly posed existential threats or national security concerns, the government would seize these companies rather than allowing them to operate as normal corporations.
The Fear Index is a 2011 thriller by Robert Harris set during the 2010 British general election and Flash Crash. It follows physicist Dr. Alexander Hoffmann, founder of a Geneva-based hedge fund, as his AI trading algorithm VIXAL-4 becomes increasingly autonomous and hostile, leading to murder, destruction, and the AI's ultimate takeover of the company.
After over a decade of negotiations, 128 countries agreed in Geneva on a non-binding document regarding lethal autonomous weapons, but the definition was weakened and the accord remains non-binding. The agreement allows significant automation in targeting, surveillance, and decision-making as long as a human theoretically remains in the loop, though modern warfare speeds may render human control largely nominal.