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An AI executive's dire warnings about the future are chilling  but his
solution is worse than the problem

Date:
Wed, 12 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Description:
AI has enormous disruptive potential, but trusting tech companies to guide
society through the danger is foolish.

FULL STORY

AI is making for a fraught future, with problems that DeepSeek senior
researcher Chen Deli believes tech companies are best suited to solve.
DeepSeek is one of China's hottest AI upstarts, albeit one facing some
political and technical headwinds, but for a startup that jolted global
markets with a low-cost AI model that spurred a wave of open-sourcing from
competitors like OpenAI, DeepSeek has been unusually quiet. So when one of 
its leaders warns that AI could eliminate most jobs over the next two decades
and cause major disruptions that society is not ready for, people pay
attention. 

The honeymoon phase we are in now will end, and people will face a wave of
layoffs vast enough to reshape social contracts and institutions. He made it
sound like a less immediately deadly Black Plague for its rewriting of
people's lives. It's certainly not the most outlandish claim. But Chens
proposal for corporate saviors sounds as nonsensical as any AI hallucination. 

"Tech companies should play the role of guardians of humanity, at the very
least, protecting human safety, then helping to reshape societal order," he
said, setting off every warning bell imparted by the entire history of
dystopian science fiction, not to mention actual tales of history. 

The word reshape alone ought to chill the bones. Hes effectively saying the
corporations building the tools that might upend society should also be in
charge of designing what comes next. Its as if Oppenheimer had asked the
Manhattan Project to write the postwar constitution, but only after nuclear
reactors had an IPO on Wall Street. The suggestion isnt just nave. Its deeply
dangerous. 

The changes wrought by AI go well beyond who gets replaced by a chatbot 
that's sometimes adequate at the job. Deli's not wrong to point out that AI
systems will increasingly outperform humans. But what kind of world are we
building when those jobs are gone? 

AI already sets the tone for what we see online, what we buy, and how we
behave, with the tech companies monetizing every bit of us and our data they
can. The idea of these same companies, insulated from meaningful oversight 
and beholden only to profit margins, serving as the selfless custodians of a
chaotic society, is laughable. If anything, theyve made it abundantly clear
that theyll prioritize growth, revenue, and everything else above humans and
the broader project of civilization, even when the collateral damage is
obvious. 

Every week, there seems to be another embarrassing or outrageous story born
from the flaws and foibles of AI, and plenty more about how people are
misunderstanding and misusing the technology. Yet the response is almost 
never more than a shrug and a promise to fix it eventually, right after they
complete their next crucial investor call.

Human intelligence regulating the artificial kind

To be fair, public regulators havent exactly dazzled us with their speed or
savvy. The EUs AI Act is a good step, but not enough on its own, and the U.S.
regulatory frameworks are fragmented and mostly reactive. The average
congressional hearing on AI is a grim parade of buzzwords and tech executives
politely nodding at lawmakers who dont understand what theyre talking about.
China, where DeepSeek is based, has been more aggressive in some areas, but
its hard to argue that centralized authoritarian control is the better model
for tech governance. Surveillance concerns and speech limitations dont get
easier to swallow just because they have a human signing the rules. 

The current state of regulation is uneven, inconsistent, and often too slow.
But that doesn't mean the answer is to hand over the reins to the developers
like they are benevolently neutral. They are not your friends or your
representatives. They are certainly not suited to be physical and
civilizational caretakers of humanity. They are commercial actors with
products to sell and quarterly metrics to hit. When push comes to shove,
theyll sand down any ethical qualms until they fit neatly inside a slide 
deck. 

You cant mitigate harm when the very act of mitigation threatens your 
business model. If an AI-powered hiring system turns out to be 
discriminatory, fixing it costs money. If an automated content generator
floods the web with low-quality sludge, turning it off affects revenue. 
Theres no incentive to do the right thing unless someone forces their hand,
and by that point, its usually too late. 

The tech industry has shown repeatedly that its not equipped to self-regulate
in a way that prioritizes the public good over private gain. In fact, the 
mere idea that the architects of disruption should also be in charge of
constructing what replaces the old order should terrify anyone whos ever been
on the wrong side of a platforms algorithm.

It's not anti-progress, it's pro-humanity

None of this is to say that AI doesnt have incredible potential for good or
that demanding safeguards means you're anti-technology. Despite confusion 
over the term, it's worth remembering that the Luddites weren't against
technology either; they were anti-exploitation. Their protests weren't about
looms, but about factory owners who used those looms to undercut skilled 
labor and impose miserable working conditions. 

Chen Deli is right to ring the alarm, but wrong about who should hold the
bell. Whistleblowers dont tend to emerge from boardrooms. We dont yet have a
coherent framework for what responsible AI governance looks like. We have
pieces, but no connective tissue to make those ideas stick, and we lack the
political courage to impose them on the people with the most power. 

Still, Im not entirely pessimistic. The frameworks we need could exist. They
could be built by coalitions of governments, civil society, independent
researchers, and yes, even some principled voices from within the tech world.
But theyll only come into being if enough people demand them. 

If the next decade really does bring the kind of transformation Deli 
predicts, well need more than corporate promises. Well need rules with teeth
to preserve the safety and dignity of humanity without trying to make it a
product for sale. 

======================================================================
Link to news story:
https://www.techradar.com/ai-platforms-assistants/an-ai-executives-dire-warnin
gs-about-the-future-are-chilling-but-his-solution-is-worse-than-the-problem

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