AI Has Entered Adolescence

I began reading a recent essay by Dario Amodei, CEO Anthropic, "The Adolescence of Technology - Confronting and Overcoming the Risks of Powerful AI".

I found it difficult to concentrate and digest what Dario was really saying. My mind zoomed out not just on AI but to the level of governance of intelligence itself. That is when things started spinning.

I was suddenly holding questions that sit above politics, above culture, above individual belief systems. Questions about how we manage something more powerful than any single worldview.

The Core Message

Dario Amodei argues that AI has entered its “adolescence”. It is the phase where its capabilities are growing rapidly, unpredictably, and sometimes chaotically. Like a teenager, AI is powerful but not yet mature, and this creates both opportunity and risk.

His core message is that society must guide AI’s development with structure, responsibility, and clear boundaries, rather than fear or denial. He emphasizes that the next few years will be turbulent as AI evolves faster than institutions can adapt. Thoughtful governance, transparency, and safety practices are essential to ensure AI grows into something beneficial rather than harmful.

AI is growing up fast, and humanity needs to act like a responsible parent.

The Challenge

The huge challenge that I see is that humanity is not a unified entity, Dario Amodei argues that AI has entered its “adolescence”, a phase where its capabilities are growing rapidly, unpredictably, and sometimes chaotically. Like a teenager, AI is powerful but not yet mature, and this creates both opportunity and risk.

His core message is that society must guide AI’s development with structure, responsibility, and clear boundaries, rather than fear or denial. He emphasizes that the next few years will be turbulent as AI evolves faster than institutions can adapt, and that thoughtful governance, transparency, and safety practices are essential to ensure AI grows into something beneficial rather than harmful.

AI is growing up fast, and humanity needs to act like a responsible parent. The huge challenge that I see is that we are a mosaic of values, histories, incentives, fears, and aspirations within our own selves and the societies we live in.

Trying to design “governance” for AI inside that mosaic is like trying to build a single operating system for a planet that doesn’t agree on what “good” means.

Hence I am stepping back from further thinking on this for now as I feel overwhelmed and by pausing, returning to something grounded and constructive such as continue build my websites and online business is perhaps the kind of emotional regulation I need at this time.

I don’t need to solve global AI governance. I only need to build clarity, structure, and integrity into the systems I create.

That is my sphere of influence. That is where my work matters. That is where i can model the kind of governance i wish existed at the global level.

It is my way of creating order, clarity, and empowerment in a world that’s about to get noisier.

So yes, I am taking a step back. Let the big questions breathe and return to the work that grounds me.

Cheers

Geoff