AI as Normal Technology
AI Snake Oil Arvind Narayanan
Researchers published a 15,000-word paper arguing that artificial intelligence should be understood as normal technology—a tool society controls—rather than as a potentially superintelligent autonomous agent. The paper distinguishes between AI invention (development of methods), innovation (creation of applications), and adoption (actual use), noting that diffusion of AI in high-consequence domains lags decades behind capability improvements due to safety requirements and regulatory constraints like the FDA and EU AI Act. This framework predicts that AI's transformative economic impacts will occur gradually over decades, with control remaining primarily in human hands, requiring policy focused on reducing uncertainty and building resilience rather than preventing hypothetical superintelligence scenarios.
Why it matters
A new paper that we will expand into our next book
