Two possible futures of AI

What matters is what story you tell about the future of artificial intelligence. Is artificial intelligence just a tool that can be used by humans, like any other software? Is it a malignant force that destroys creativity? Will he create robots bent on destruction? Or will it make the world amazing, pretty, equal and perfect in ways we can’t even imagine?

This will shock you, but some people running major AI companies believe it’s the latter. Both OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei recently wrote blog posts – Altman’s short and conciseAmodei long and accurate — about the AI-powered world they hope to lend a hand create. These are powerful people with huge teams and huge resources; what they think they are building is very critical.

ON this episode Vergecast, EdgeKylie Robison joins the show to discuss the blogs of warring CEOs, including what Amodei and Altman agree on and what they don’t. He also tells us about some of the huge model launches coming this year, and what it means the endless fun of honing your LLM skills may soon come to an end.

Will Needy then tells us the story Shock alarman app and platform designed to warn millions of people about an upcoming earthquake. If you’ve ever read the famous one New Yorker articleyou know why Will gets nervous about earthquakes. It turns out that we have several ways to lend a hand people, although we face some rather surprising challenges.

Finally, Allison Johnson joins Will to answer a question from the Vergecast hotline (866-VERGE11 or email at vergecast@theverge.com!) about the Camera Control button on the iPhone 16. Apple had a lot to say about its speed . ..but we had to see for ourselves.

If you want to learn more about everything we cover in this episode, here are some links to get you started with AI:

And in camera control: