Today on The Editors, our panelists have a rousing discussion about the implications of AI development. Views range from deeply worried to surprisingly optimistic, but the optimism comes from an unexpected source.

AI, Michael says, “can be turned against us and that’s all fine, but . . . people are extending the idea that, ‘Oh, all the miserable things about our dumb internet are gonna be extended into the future.’ Well, the miserable things about our dumb internet were the easier things to accomplish, which was like, let’s make addictive TikTok and make you watch advertisements or whatever. But if AI is intelligent, it’s actually gonna be doing the harder things.”

What are those harder things? According to Michael, he “can envision a future where AI is a tremendous tool for human development where . . . it can solve tremendous problems in education and in other fields that can’t be solved by one human intelligence alone.”

Jeff isn’t so positive about AI, saying, “It will not replace the smartest people in the world, and everybody is copacetic about that when they say, ‘Well, you know AI couldn’t write you a good poem.’ . . . But you know what? Unfortunately AI . . . can replace the vast gormless middle mass of society and do their jobs better than they do.”

Listen below to hear the rest of the arguments on this topic, and find out what our panelists have to say about Biden’s 2024 chances.