Don’t believe the doomers: Europe’s tech industry slams AI panic – POLITICO

BRUSSELS — Amid fears that AI models could destroy humanity, top European tech leaders and cybersecurity experts have an increasingly loud response: Ignore the hype, and get on with the hard work of keeping the digital world safe.

That prosaic call is at the heart of an increasingly bitter backlash in Europe’s tech industry against the U.S.-generated hype about AI extinction. All the “Chicken Little” warnings, say both executives and cyber professionals, are getting in the way of the hard work of reinforcing defenses against the new AI reality.

The U.S. companies building the most advanced AI models have largely been responsible for raising the specter that artificial intelligence could lead to the demise of the human race. Fears have been peaking since incidents like OpenAI’s autonomous agents breaking into AI platform Hugging Face this summer, and a warning earlier this month by former Anthropic employee Jacob Coxon that AI could soon “hack anything” and “kill us all.”