As a condition of gaining access to classified information, many government employees agree to submit to official pre-publication review of any public statement they wish to make that is related to their government employment.
This procedure has long been a source of conflict and controversy, but over time the pre-publication review process has become increasingly onerous, internally contradictory, and disruptive.
As part of an ongoing dialog on the subject, I offered some thoughts on “Fixing Pre-Publication Review: What Should Be Done?” on the Just Security blog.
“One thing became increasingly clear: AI doesn’t simply introduce a new category of risk. It changes the speed, scale, complexity, and interaction of risks that already exist.”
In an ideal world, we would not have state or federal climate intervention research bans. We would have researchers and institutions that would not shy away from revealing the good, the bad, and the ugly of these technologies and doing so responsibly.
“What excites me is that it’s very tempting to be very discouraged, and say, ‘Oh, we’ve got these archaic institutions that are calcified and you could never change them.’ But I think we’re in the middle of a technological revolution that will upend lots of things, and does provide a window.”
Ask people what worries them most right now, and they’ll say the cost of living and their livelihoods, not climate change. But those concerns are not separate.