The Frankenstein moment: if we don't control AI, it will control us
AI will change history – as the atomic bomb once did. An EU law and a G7 working group cannot tame the technology. The world must think in different dimensions.
Why this essay matters
The 6th of August 1945, Hiroshima. The dropping of Little Boy marks the moment humanity unleashes a technology whose effects it can no longer control. It took years before the victors’ triumph gave way to the realisation that some weapons must never be used again. Today the world stands at a similar threshold. Artificial intelligence is developing so fast that even its creators are warning against it. The question is: can the world be wiser this time, and sooner?
The prophet in the harbour hall
When Sam Altman steps onto the stage in San Francisco, 4,000 technology experts greet him like a prophet. The OpenAI CEO triggered the AI frenzy with ChatGPT – and simultaneously warns against what he is building. “AI holds enormous opportunities, but also great risks.” Altman calls for regulation modelled on the International Atomic Energy Agency. It is a double role that Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, once played too: build first, then warn.
Why regulation alone is not enough
The EU is working on the AI Act, the G7 have set up an AI working group, China has its own rules, the United States is debating voluntary commitments. All these approaches share one problem: they are national, but the technology is not. A law in Brussels cannot slow AI development in San Francisco or Hangzhou. What is needed is a global institution with access to data centres, training runs and model weights – something like the IAEA for nuclear energy.
What we must do
The world must think in different dimensions. Not just in laws, but in global institutions. Not just in pilot projects, but in infrastructure. Not just in ethics declarations, but in enforceable standards. That is uncomfortable, slow and difficult. But the alternative is to give free rein to a technology that will improve under its own steam beyond its creators’ ability to control it. That is the Frankenstein moment. And this time we should not wait until afterwards to grow wise.
I wrote the full essay together with Moritz Koch for Handelsblatt.