Anthropic’s Dario Amodei gets the SNL treatment

Saturday Night Live took on the AI industry’s recent warnings of doom last night, as cast member Jane Wickline offered her impression of Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei.

Weekend Update host Michael Che — who sounded a little uncertain about how to pronounce Amodei’s last name — kicked the segment off by describing the CEO as having “stumbled through a press tour” where he seemingly agreed with a former employee’s claim that artificial intelligence might destroy humanity.

Wickline’s version of Amodei sported an impressive wig and delivered halting answers that occasionally devolved into full-on Gollum-style exchanges with their dark side, at one point confessing, “AI is the devil and I its maker.”

Wickline-as-Amodei assured the audiences that AI executives “are all on the same page here: We do not condone what we are doing.”

“AI is not a weapon, it’s a tool: A tool for building weapons,” she declared. “And I urge you to urge me to stop.”

As for the technology’s supposed benefits, like potentially curing cancer, the fictional Amodei said, “Put it this way: In 10 years, there’s about a 10% chance that cancer won’t be a problem for anyone.”

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