Yuval Noah Harari

Superintelligence would likely break the very operating system of human civilization - and is completely unnecessary. If we instead focus on building controllable AI tools to help real people today, we can far more reliably and safely realize AI’s incredible benefits. (2025) source Verified

People certainly have a will and they make decisions all the time. But most of these decisions are not made freely. source Unverified

[…] there is enormous positive potential otherwise we wouldn’t develop it. AI can invent new medicines. Uh, you can have AI doctors providing billions of people around the world with much, much better healthcare than what people receive today. I’m not saying, oh, we should stop all development of AI. No, the key question is how do we enable the positive potential of AI to flower while avoiding the really existential risks that this technology poses. (2024) source Unverified

Paying people not to work will only increase inequality and rancor. [...] If universal basic income is aimed to improve the objective conditions of the average person in 2050, it has a fair chance of succeeding. But if it is aimed to make people subjectively more satisfied with their lot in order to prevent social discontent, it is likely to fail. source Unverified

AI, however, is fundamentally different: It is an agent; it can write its own books and decide which ideas to disseminate. It can even create entirely new ideas on its own, something that has never been done before in history. We humans have never faced a superintelligent agent before. The key point is that we humans are stakeholders in society. [...] we must always remember that AI is not human or even organic to begin with. That is why we should proceed more carefully and more slowly. We must allow ourselves time to adapt, time to discover, and correct our mistakes. (2025) source Unverified