Humans as pets...

Casar urges AI whistleblowers to ‘speak the truth’ as worst-case predictions mount

The Texas Democrat said he has heard from experts who have hesitated to speak out about the technology’s risks for fear of sounding alarmist.

By Owen Dahlkamp

Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) called for activists and whistleblowers to speak more forcefully about the threats arising from advanced artificial intelligence, saying the time for “tempered” rhetoric has passed.

His remarks were delivered Tuesday at the Pro-Human Assembly, a conference on AI organized by the Future of Life Institute, which advocates for keeping humans at the helm of the technology. His comments follow warnings from employees at frontier labs, including Anthropic whistleblower Jacob Coxon, that have fueled widespread public concern about the technology’s advancing capabilities.

Casar said Tuesday he has heard from experts that “they’ve held back on describing how dangerous the technology has become because they’re afraid they’re going to sound crazy.”

The Texas progressive added that as once-hypothetical fears about the technology come to fruition, “we need people who are sounding the alarm to speak clearly and directly about what needs to happen next.”

“The only way we can build the mass awareness and mass organizing necessary [is] to push politicians to stop mass destruction,” said Casar.

Casar also called for the U.S. to lead on AI diplomacy while advocating for a ban on superintelligence, a type of sophisticated AI that would far surpass humans’ cognitive abilities, and a pause on advanced AI development until a government-enabled vetting regime can be put in place.

In an interview earlier this year, Casar said Democrats were “in the wilderness” on AI issues and called for the party to be “AI populists” who “stand with working people who know in their gut the potential for AI to exacerbate inequality.