Bill Maher is scared of artificial intelligence.
HBO’s “Real Time” host said as much on his podcast “Club Random” Monday, calling the rise of AI his greatest fear in the modern world.
“I consider this so far and above the most important issue than anything else. Yes, there’s Trump and nukes and that. But it’s actually AI … I’m more scared of it than anything and think it’s more dire than anything.”
Maher spoke on Monday’s podcast with Lisa Kudrow, who is currently on the Emmys trail for the third season of her long-running (but infrequently released) comedy series “The Comeback.” This year, Kudrow and co-creator Michael Patrick King took aim at artificial intelligence in the entertainment industry, placing her leading character Valerie Cherish as the star of a new sitcom penned by a Gen-AI program.
“The thing this year with the AI is the perfect Act III subject for this moment, at this time,” Maher said. “You’re so right on the money with that.”
“Of course, given the rate that AI is moving, it’s probably two weeks ahead of reality,” he added.
You can watch the full video below:
Maher continued to praise “The Comeback” while further explaining his fears of AI. At one point, he noted that he planned to do a full set of his show without jokes two weeks back, opting instead to make a point by earnestly talking about the dangers of artificial intelligence. In the end, he opted not to do it.
“It’s not just AI,” Kudrow added to the conversation. “It’s that human beings have created it and don’t really know what it is and don’t know enough to put the guardrails in. That’s what you’re saying.”
Kudrow went on to talk about keeping AI as a tool, supervised by human beings, in a counter to Maher’s fear. The “Club Random” host, however, shared concerns that extend past the entertainment sphere.
“It will probably in some years, a few years from now, cure me of some terrible disease I otherwise would’ve died from, and then the next year the robots will completely take over and nuke the world because, in their computation, we are the problem,” Maher said. “There’s a reason why (Geoffrey) Hinton, the Godfather of AI, said there was a 10-20% chance of an extinction.”
“Right,” Kudrow responded. “That’s possible.”
“Musk has said, ‘This s–t’ scares me to hell,’ you know?” Maher continued.
“I know,” Kudrow said. “But what are you going to do?”
