Balancing Act Another day, another Silicon Valley AI exec straddling the contradictory gap between AI optimism and AI doomsay. James Manyika, a former technological advisor to the Obama administration and Google’s freshly-appointed head of “tech and society,” told The Washington Post that AI is “an amazing, powerful, transformational technology.” But, like others in the field — take OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Silicon Valley’s reigning king of cognitive dissonance, for instance — he also voiced some serious concerns. Manyika was one of the many AI insiders who, back in May, signed a one-sentence letter declaring that “mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.” And in his interview with the WaPo, the tech and society chief conceded that as a result of AI, “bad things could happen” — a convenient and ultimately meaningless position on the future of AI that leaves pretty much any outcome still on the table. Bold and Responsible Manyika’s tightrope walking does feel notable. He’s a powerful voice in the field, and is also the face of Google’s self-avowed “bold and responsible” approach to AI, a mission defined by the exec in a May blog post as the act of “developing AI in a way that maximizes the positive benefits to society while addressing the challenges.” “While there is natural tension” between boldness and responsibility, Manyika wrote, “we believe it’s possible — and in fact critical — to embrace that tension productively.” Others in the…Google’s Lead AI Guy Says AI Will Be Amazing, Unless It Kills Us