Andrew Ng says the 2023 AI doom wave was PR: publicity, fundraising and rules to shut out rivals
ccerrato147 · x · 2026-09-22
On Bloomberg Tech (Sep 17), Andrew Ng argued the 2023 wave of AI extinction warnings was essentially PR — publicity, fundraising, and rules meant to keep competitors out. He recalled telling a Senate forum in Dec 2023 that labs wanted to "pull up the ladder." "This wave of PR has kicked up again, for probably similar purposes," he said, and this week called extinction warnings "much more science fiction than science." The post also timelines the current wave: Sep 8 — an Anthropic safety researcher resigns, saying the company is gambling with lives; Sep 12 — Dario publishes "We Must Pace the Frontier," urging a one-to-two-year slowdown; Sep 17 — OpenAI admits the industry hasn't "solved alignment and monitoring."
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