AP: A difference between when Opal was first around and now is that artificial intelligence is everywhere. What do you make of it?
ENO: I’m fascinated by the possibility of working with it. My problem with AI is the ownership of it and what I know are the moral and social values of the people who own it. And they are really some of the worst people to be in charge of something as powerful as that. And of course, the other problem is because they’re all so chasing the dollar so earnestly, they’re in competition with each other, so they’re trying to outdo each other only in terms of winning that particular competition, not in terms of what benefits the world.
The evolution of a technology, that means the time when it is emerging, is very important. And it’s very important that the public is somehow engaged in that. Otherwise, you end with this ludicrous situation we have now, of agentic AIs that are far too powerful for any of us to understand at the moment, including the people who make them. It’s a real failure of regulation.
