In November 2022, I took on a writing assignment that, looking back, may have had a bigger impact on my life than any other: interview ChatGPT. It was the first day that OpenAI’s tool was available to the public, and my goal was to try to make sense of the tech — and then help readers make sense of it — by asking it questions about itself.
The conversation turned out to be, well, a bit boring. More than half of the AI’s answers started with “As a large language model …,” and its responses tended to downplay AI’s potential for disruption. No, I didn’t need to worry that it would take my job (“As a large language model, I am not capable of taking on the role of a writer …”). And while ChatGPT conceded that AI could lead to more low-quality content online, it told me it was too soon to make any accurate predictions about its effect on the internet or search results.
I didn’t know it at the time, but that interaction kickstarted in earnest the development of my AI worldview. Previously, AI had felt like something far removed from real life — or my real life, at least. Algorithms may be pulling strings behind the scenes of my social media feeds, but I’d never had to ask a machine point-blank whether it was gunning for my career — let alone wrestle with the question of whether I could trust its answer. This manifestation of the technology was different.
In the three-plus years since that strange interview, AI has only gotten more powerful. When I asked ChatGPT this morning the same exact question I did in 2022 (“Should writers be worried that you’ll take our jobs?”), its answer started with a blunt “Yes,” followed by a nuanced breakdown of the various aspects of writing that are automatable and how the labor market might respond to AI-generated writing.
Damn.
Threats to my livelihood aside, my beliefs about AI are still evolving. Some days, I think it could solve the world’s greatest problems. Other days, I think it might join the list of them. Many of those closest to AI — the ones building the models, funding the startups, and recommending the policies — have already formed strong opinions about the tech, though, and as I wrestle with my own beliefs about AI and how we should use it, I find it helpful to consider what these experts think.
So, as your primer for this issue, here are 10 ways to think about AI, the influential figures associated with each, and what’s at risk if society adopts or dismisses these philosophies.
The Techno-Optimists
Core belief: The benefits of technological progress outweigh its harms, and while AI will be disruptive, it will ultimately be a net positive for society.
In a quote: “If history is any guide, we will figure out new things to do and new things to want, and assimilate new tools quickly … Expectations will go up, but capabilities will go up equally quickly, and we’ll all get better stuff.” – Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI (2025)
Risk of adopting: Confidence that AI will ultimately lead us to a better world could cause us to underestimate harms along the way, such as the social upheaval of a sudden rise in unemployment or disputes about who should control AI.
Risk of dismissing: We could let concerns about AI delay — or even prevent — us from reaching a world where humanity is healthier, happier, and richer than at any point in history.
The AI Doomers
Core belief: Because we don’t entirely understand how AI works, we can’t guarantee that a superintelligent AI would be aligned with our goals and values. It might see humanity as an obstacle to its own objectives — and eliminate us.
In a quote: “If any company or group, anywhere on the planet, builds an artificial superintelligence using anything remotely like current techniques, based on anything remotely like the present understanding of AI, then everyone, everywhere on Earth, will die.” – Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares, coauthors of If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies (2025)
Risk of adopting: If we completely halt AI development — assuming such a thing is possible — society could miss out on the many positives that could come from the technology.
Risk of dismissing: We could continue developing more powerful models, only realizing once it’s too late that we have built something we can’t control.
The Effective Accelerationists
Core belief: AI will ultimately improve the world, so we should remove virtually all restrictions on its development. The sooner we create advanced models, the better.
In a quote: “[W]e should drive AI into our economy and society as fast and hard as we possibly can, in order to maximize its gains for economic productivity and human potential.” – Marc Andreessen, cofounder of VC firm Andreessen Horowitz (2023)
Risk of adopting: AI might not be a net positive for the world, even if we were as deliberate as possible with its development — and the faster you move, the greater your risk of breaking things.
Risk of dismissing: Every time we decline to adopt AI or stifle its development, we may be actively harming our future selves. If we move too slowly, we might miss the opportunity to use AI to address time-sensitive problems, like climate change.
The Safety-First Advocates
Core belief: We must not let our ability to develop AI outpace our ability to control it.
In a quote: “AI is advancing faster than our ability to manage it. We still have the opportunity to build the societal and technical guardrails we need to keep people, institutions, and democracies safe — we shouldn’t let it pass us by.” – Yoshua Bengio, founder of the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms (2026)
Risk of adopting: The idea that we can develop AI safely assumes that someone knows what “safe AI” looks like. We would have to trust that this person or group gets it right — and that they are acting in society’s best interest.
Risk of dismissing: Any college professor can tell you that AI’s potential to upend the status quo of an established institution isn’t hypothetical. If we can minimize future disruption but choose not to, we’ll bear the consequences.
The Open-Sourcers
Core belief: The code and model weights for AI should be made publicly available.
In a quote: “I think to some extent limiting access to AI technology because of security reasons is akin to in the 15th century limiting the use of the printing press … I think it’s very, very dangerous to limit access to this technology, which essentially provides access to all of human knowledge to a wide population.” – Yann LeCun, former chief AI scientist at Meta (2026)
Risk of adopting: The group is betting that centralized control of AI is a bigger threat than whatever bad actors might be able to do with broader access to the technology. That bet could be wrong.
Risk of dismissing: Keeping AI models closed could concentrate vast amounts of wealth and power in the hands of a few tech companies. Meanwhile, a closed-model framework would make it harder for the public to access and innovate on the world’s best AI models.
The Frontier Gatekeepers
Core belief: We need to establish institutional barriers to ensure controlled access to the most powerful AI models.
In a quote: “If we just continue to open source absolutely everything for every new generation of frontier models, then it’s quite likely that we’re going to see a rapid proliferation of power. These are state-like powers which enable small groups of actors, or maybe even individuals, to have an unprecedented one-to-many impact in the world.” – Mustafa Suleyman, cofounder of DeepMind and CEO of Microsoft AI (2023)
Risk of adopting: If we restrict access to frontier models, those with access — be it a certain company, government, or other group — will have power over those who do not. We could also slow innovation.
Risk of dismissing: We could increase the chance of a bad actor wielding cutting-edge AI to do harm or an AI agent going rogue.
The AI Doves
Core belief: Lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) — systems that can select and attack a target without a human in the loop — should be banned.
In a quote: “The logical endpoint [of autonomous weapons] is extremely cheap, scalable, easily proliferated weapons of mass destruction. Why would we do that? But that’s the path we’re on.” – Stuart Russell, distinguished professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley (2024)
Risk of adopting: Nations that choose to ban the development of AI weapons risk falling behind those that don’t.
Risk of dismissing: Because AI-powered weapons would lower the financial and human cost of war, militaries — or even rogue actors — could be more willing to engage in conflict, leading to more geopolitical instability.
The AI Hawks
Core belief: Autonomous weapons are the future of warfare, and technologists owe it to their nations — and the people serving in their militaries — to help develop the best ones possible.
In a quote: “It’s either we own AI or our adversaries, China and Russia, own AI. … On the battlefield, it really will be us or them. We have to dominate.” – Alexander Karp, cofounder and CEO of Palantir Technologies (2024)
Risk of adopting: Assuming AI weapons are inevitable could trigger an AI arms race. World powers could agree to ban them the same way they did chemical weapons in the 1990s and collectively punish violators.
Risk of dismissing: By not developing AI weapons, a nation could be setting itself up for failure in future battles against adversaries who do embrace the technology. The more humans involved in battle, the more injuries and deaths, too.
The Labor-Disruption Realists
Core belief: AI is likely to significantly increase unemployment, particularly among white-collar workers. We need to start planning for this disruption now.
In a quote: “[T]here’s a decent possibility that, despite all our efforts, AI still causes significant enduring job loss — and that this may be an intrinsic property of the technology and the way it broadly replicates human cognition.” – Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic (2026)
Risk of adopting: Anti-AI sentiment is already high, and believing that AI will decimate jobs throws fuel on the fire. This additional backlash against the technology could stifle development.
Risk of dismissing: We could be caught flatfooted if unemployment spikes and significant numbers of workers suddenly lack not only sufficient incomes, but also a sense of meaning and purpose in their lives.
The Augmentation Optimists
Core belief: Rather than displacing large numbers of humans in the workforce, AI will be a tool that expands their capabilities.
In a quote: “Most of the time, a partnership between humans and machines works better than complete automation. And that allows them each to do the things that they are strong at, and you end up having a much more robust system.” – Erik Brynjolfsson, director of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab (2025)
Risk of adopting: Companies could integrate AI into their workflows under the banner of “augmentation” before cutting headcounts. The belief that AI-augmented workers should be more productive — even if it’s not true — could put more pressure on the workers who remain.
Risk of dismissing: Fears of AI-triggered unemployment could discourage companies and workers from engaging with the technology at all.
This article 10 perspectives that divide the AI world is featured on Big Think.