The Download: AIDS denialism, and AI safety mechanisms
Several million people were listening in February when Joe Rogan falsely declared that “party drugs” were an “important factor in AIDS.” His guest on The Joe Rogan Experience, the former evolutionary biology professor turned contrarian podcaster Bret Weinstein, agreed with him.
Speaking to the biggest podcast audience in the world, the two men were promoting dangerous and false ideas—ideas that were in fact debunked and thoroughly disproved decades ago.
These comments and others like them add up to a small but unmistakable resurgence in AIDS denialism—a false collection of theories arguing either that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS or that there’s no such thing as HIV at all.
These claims had largely fallen out of favor until the coronavirus arrived. But, following the pandemic, a renewed suspicion of public health figures and agencies is giving new life to ideas that had long ago been pushed to the margins. Read the full story.
—Anna Merlan
AI “godfather” Yoshua Bengio has joined a UK project to prevent AI catastrophes
What’s new: Yoshua Bengio, a Turing Award winner who is considered one of the “godfathers” of modern AI, is throwing his weight behind a project funded by the UK government to embed safety mechanisms into AI systems.
What is it? The project, called Safeguarded AI, aims to build an AI system that can check whether other AI systems deployed in critical areas are safe, and provide risk scores. Bengio is joining the program as scientific director and will provide critical input and scientific advice.
Why it matters: Safeguarded AI hopes its efforts will help to change the status quo of the AI industry, nudging people building systems to think more about their safety, and their impact on the world. Read the full story.
—Melissa Heikkilä
