Hiding Behind the AI Apocalypse

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Yesterday, the OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testified before a Senate judiciary subcommittee about the "significant harm" that ChatGPT and similar generative-AI tools could pose to the world. When I asked Damon Beres, The Atlantic's technology editor, for his read on the hearing, he noted that Altman's emphasis on the broader existential risks of AI might conveniently elide some of the more quotidian problems of this new technology. I called Damon today to talk about that, and to see what else has been on his mind as he follows this story. Isabel Fattal: Can you talk a bit more about Altman's emphasis on the existential possibilities of AI, and what that focus might leave out?