‘The View’s Whoopi Goldberg Shares Scary Theory About AI Panic

The cohosts of The View have been, like many, consistently discussing the ongoing reports about the potentially catastrophic dangers of artificial intelligence. In the wake of an Anthropic employee’s open letter about the risk that self-learning computers could pose an existential threat to humanity within the space of a decade, the cohosts have been discussing the whistleblower’s warning, along with the government response and that of AI company CEOs who’ve spoken out.

Whoopi Goldberg, in particular, has a rather disturbing theory about why the AI panic is taking over the national airwaves lately, and she shared it on Monday’s (September 14) live episode of The View.

After pointing to a pair of books she read that had a similar warning, Goldberg said, “This is my thought process on this… It seems to me that suddenly this has become an issue; that generally means to me that something has happened. Something has happened already, and they are trying to figure out how they’re going to explain because there is.” After Sara Haines audibly agreed with her, saying, “That part,” Goldberg then continued, “We have known China has always been in front of us on this. We’ve always been neck and neck… This competition was happening. It’s a sense of competition we had for the longest time with Russia. We do that, but for this to [turn into] suddenly everybody’s pulling their hair out, saying the the world is [in trouble], something has just mined.”

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Goldberg went on to reiterate her point at the end of the discussion when responding to the CEOs of Open AI and Anthropic promising guardrails, with Goldberg saying, “Something’s saying to me, you’re telling me you’re doing all of this so I don’t look and see what’s happening.”

As for the other cohosts, Haines said she wanted to see a coordinated effort between the U.S. government and tech firms, Alyssa Farah Griffin wanted to make sure certain advancements weren’t held back, particularly in the field of medicine, Sunny Hostin expressed concern that the rise of data centers could impact predominantly Black and brown communities, and Ana Navarro encouraged voters to express their concerns to their representatives, noting that the upcoming election could make them more apt to act on AI.

The View, weekdays, 11a/10c, ABC