Is artificial intelligence (AI) now the new electricity?

Electricity comes with a plethora of regulations and safety protocols. Recently, Sam Altman compared artificial intelligence (AI) to electricity (again), saying: “It would be approximately as bad an idea to say we’re not going to have AI in our country as it was to say we’re not going to have electricity in our country… 100-plus years ago.” It’s “non-negotiable”, he told the G20’s Innovation Ministerial in North Carolina, where you couldn’t move for tech bros lobbying politicians for “sensible” regulation of AI. Previously, he suggested we’d eventually end up getting AI bills alongside our electricity bills. Before that, he said the enormous resources required in training AI were like raising humans, who require multiple energy inputs to grow from useless babies into productive adults. He never said the other thing, not aloud anyway: that sometimes adults are unproductive, needing loo breaks, food and sleep, unlike AI. No matter, because I’ve been stuck on his latest electricity analogy. I desperately wanted Altman to be wrong. And then it dawned on me that I needed to come at this from a different angle: what if Altman is right? What if AI is the new electricity? Because it probably is. And would you look at that? Electricity comes with a plethora of regulations and safety protocols, from its generation to its installation to its usage, in an attempt to reduce its undeniably hazardous potential. That is why we don’t let children stick their fingers in sockets or give naked wires to teenagers to play with in their bedrooms. It’s why electricians exist and why selling a house requires an electrical compliance certificate. It’s why bathrooms don’t have plugs, why we don’t overload power points, why we switch the mains off – or they trip – when there’s a problem. It’s why we need circuit breakers, so we aren’t fried alive. In hindsight, we also know the pollution caused by our hunger for power – for coal, oil, and gas – has driven the planet to the brink. So yes, Altman, electricity and AI are comparable, which must mean strict regulation is vital, too. Nonetheless, the G20 adopted the Carolina Principle for Emerging Technologies, merely agreeing to: “Review and adapt regulatory approaches… when existing regulatory requirements are no longer appropriately calibrated to deployed technologies.” And the live wire dangled closer to the swimming pool. But jump right in, the water is divine.