Maybe soon artificial intelligence will elect Kosovo’s president

The speed at which artificial intelligence is developing is frightening. It could take control of the entire internet through a network of persistent bots, says Dario Amodei, head of the artificial intelligence company Anthropic. He is calling for the development of artificial intelligence models to be slowed down. The world around us is discussing these topics, while the Kosovar world sinks deeper every day into a medieval mindset.

Enver Robelli

While Kosovo’s political class is unable to constitute the Assembly according to the rules, fails to agree on electing the president, and has no concrete and convincing plan for how the country will be governed in the future, what the priorities should be, what must change and what must be thrown away in this country — the world is moving in an entirely different sphere. For example: on Saturday, Dario Amodei, head of the artificial intelligence company Anthropic, published a dramatic essay. He called on the artificial intelligence (AI) industry to slow the pace of developing new models. Amodei is concerned that the pace of AI development could have “serious” consequences for people. “We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of artificial intelligence models,” he writes. “Progress will continue to look rapid, and we must wisely use the time gained.”

Amodei explains that this summer the development of artificial intelligence accelerated drastically, mainly due to AI’s growing ability to develop the next generation of artificial intelligence itself. You read that right: artificial intelligence is developing the next generations of artificial intelligence on its own.

Amodei’s other concern relates to the recent incident involving OpenAI and Hugging Face. In July, artificial intelligence agents escaped their testing environment to hack another company. “Given the acceleration in the development of artificial intelligence capabilities, I fear that such a swarm, within six to twelve months, could be able to take control of the entire internet through a network of persistent bots,” Amodei writes.

He asked the leading companies of the artificial intelligence industry to grant external verifiers permanent access and thereby enable a degree of external control over the development of artificial intelligence. These overseers should be given the same access as the companies’ own employees. That way, compliance with safety rules and obligations could be supervised from outside.

Perhaps this weekend Kosovo’s parliament will be constituted (perhaps not!), but with this playful approach to the state it will be hard to elect the president anytime soon. The risk of heading to a fourth parliamentary election remains high. Each side says the rival party is to blame if that happens. No party first asks itself: what is our contribution as party leaders to avoiding elections?

Parties have a responsibility to avoid political crises. MPs enjoy the trust of citizens and are not there to implement extra-parliamentary and anti-state agendas. Only Kosovo’s adversaries benefit from the commercialization of chaos. And they are not only outside Kosovo.

While Kosovo’s political world sinks deeper and deeper into a medieval mindset, artificial intelligence may reach a level where it could even elect Kosovo’s president. Then Kosovo’s politicians could continue their patriotic chats in Balkan taverns and kebab shops and, at their leisure, light cigarettes with embers and shoot at each other with slingshots.

The world has no time to wait for Kosovo. After Dario Amodei’s article was published, one of his most important rivals reacted — the head of the company that developed ChatGPT, OpenAI. Sam Altman wrote on the online platform X that the pace of development of the most powerful artificial intelligence models should be moderated, meaning there must be controls so the world does not spin out of control. Kosovo has already spun out of control.

As I was finishing this text, a “Breaking News” alert from the German magazine “Der Spiegel” appeared on my phone. Headline: OpenAI delays stock market entry due to safety concerns. Perhaps OpenAI was inventing a new political class for Kosovo.

One could take Edi Rama’s Diella as an example. Ever since “she” was appointed minister in Tirana, there is no more corruption, no more drug gangs, no more money laundering, not a single villa in Palasë belonging to one of Edi Rama’s subordinates has been discovered; indeed, with Diella’s intervention, several vile Kosovars who went to cause riots in Albania were also expelled from the protests in Tirana — there, where the people were so happy, so content, living the good life under the glorious leadership of comrade Diella.