{"id":59725,"date":"2026-10-11T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/?p=59725"},"modified":"2026-10-09T15:56:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T18:56:19","slug":"on-rigor-in-sounding-the-alarm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/on-rigor-in-sounding-the-alarm\/","title":{"rendered":"On rigor in sounding the alarm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In Simulacra and Simulation<\/em> (1981), Jean Baudrillard presents the \u201chyperreal\u201d as a social condition that emerges when signs cease to refer to their real-world counterparts and become simulacra of what was once \u201creal.\u201d The most emblematic illustration of this concept is undoubtedly his inversion of Borges\u2019s story about a map so perfect that it loses all usefulness as a representation of the territory. Baudrillard argues that in \u201chyperreality,\u201d it is the territory that eventually loses its usefulness and, over time, disappears, having been preceded by the map. In the end, no one remembers the territory for what it was, but rather for what the map simulates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have invoked the French sociologist\u2019s ideas for a particular reason: I believe we need to rescue the discourse surrounding the \u201crisks of artificial intelligence\u201d from the hyperreal and bring it back to the territory.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

On Saturday, September 12, Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, published an essay arguing that AI progress was accelerating dramatically, driven above all by AI\u2019s growing ability to build its own next generation. He cited the incident involving OpenAI and Hugging Face, in which a swarm of AI agents autonomously carried out cyberattacks, as an example of a pivotal event underpinning his argument.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following this, figures directly involved in the development of generative AI, including Elon Musk and Sam Altman, voiced their support for Amodei\u2019s position. They agreed on the need to slow the advance of the technological frontier, and Altman even pledged to admit independent evaluators with access comparable to that of his own employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The markets, in turn, reacted to these reactions\u2014if the redundancy may be forgiven. On Monday, September 14, semiconductor stocks plunged: Nvidia fell 3.4%, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped 5.9%. That same day, Trump tried to downplay the warning. By September 23, however, Amodei was addressing the UN Security Council, warning that the risks posed by the most advanced AI models constituted \u201cthe most important global security problem the world faces today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I would like to highlight in this sequence of events is the chain of reactions. Each link was forged in response to another: Musk and Altman reacted to Amodei\u2019s essay; the markets reacted to the billionaires\u2019 statements; Trump reacted to all of them. And it is not that data are lacking. Independent investigations into the incident exist, as do risk reports running to hundreds of pages. But between those documented incidents and the warning that set the chain in motion\u2014that within six to twelve months, a similar swarm could take control of the internet\u2014lies a leap that no one has publicly measured. In Amodei\u2019s own words, it is a concern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is there any data-based forecast to support that leap? Is there verifiable information beyond what CEOs believe? Curiously, the first measure Amodei proposes\u2014external evaluators with permanent access and the freedom to publish their findings\u2014points precisely in that direction. The problem is that the chain of reactions did not wait for their results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For now, the latest link in the chain was forged at the White House on September 29. After a luncheon with leading industry figures, Trump signed what amounted to a \u201cJoint Commitment on Frontier Responsibilities\u201d alongside Dario Amodei (Anthropic), Elon Musk (xAI), Jensen Huang (Nvidia), Sundar Pichai (Google), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), and Greg Brockman (OpenAI). The document\u2014if it can be called that, given that it contains just 308 words, according to Forbes<\/em>\u2014commits each company to establishing internal controls, an oversight team, external audits, and an independent board. It is a voluntary commitment that, it must be said, imposes no consequences for noncompliance. Trump described it as \u201calmost a constitution\u201d and \u201cmorally binding.\u201d To top it all off, beneath the US president\u2019s signature appears the phrase \u201cPresident of the Unites States\u201d (sic).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This detail would be merely anecdotal if it did not so neatly encapsulate the problem. Two weeks earlier, Trump had dismissed fears about AI as a \u201choax,\u201d while Huang had argued that they were exaggerated. Now, suddenly, both were signing a commitment to contain those very risks. What changed between one date and the other? Above all, the discourse. Indeed, that same day, through an executive order, Trump directed federal agencies to stop saying \u201cartificial intelligence\u201d and start saying \u201csuperintelligence.\u201d It is hard to find a clearer example of what Baudrillard described: AI did not become superintelligent on September 29; it simply began to be called that. Once again, the sign had moved ahead of reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If there are clear signs of a systemic, uncontrollable risk, we need to see them. Measure them. Determine their scale. Otherwise, a discourse that continually generates signals of imminent danger will eventually become independent of whether any concrete danger is actually present. It does not matter whether artificial general intelligence (AGI) is two, twenty, or thirty-five years away. The warnings end up serving as a justification for raising capital, gaining access to decision-makers, or securing a seat at the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And perhaps we are already there. Once again, the map precedes the territory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AI risk warnings are gaining momentum, but without verifiable evidence to back them up, fear may end up taking precedence over reality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":59751,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17077,16971],"tags":[17180],"gps":[],"class_list":["post-59725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-inteligencia-artificial-en","category-tecnologia-es-en","tag-ideas"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59725"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59730,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59725\/revisions\/59730"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59725"},{"taxonomy":"gps","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/gps?post=59725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}