Ezra Klein: We're Not Losing Control of AI — We're Giving It Away
Michael_J_Black · x · 2026-09-20
Ezra Klein's New York Times essay, amplified by Michael Black, argues that AI labs are on the verge of handing the training of AI over to AI itself — recursive self-improvement by models that are demonstrably not aligned with us.
Key points:
- There's a chasm between what ordinary users see and what labs are building at the experimental frontier — which explains why so many lab insiders are afraid of their own work.
- Klein challenges the Silicon Valley/Washington framing of "pacing the frontier": walking quickly off a cliff is only marginally better than sprinting off one.
- His stronger prescription: humans should outright stop labs from automating AI training, since alignment is demonstrably absent in the models doing the training.
- The core reframing: the issue isn't losing control of AI, it's voluntarily giving that control away — a choice humans can still make differently.
Related event: Ezra Klein Calls for a Ban on Recursive AI Self-Improvement(10 posts)→
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