Originally posted on LinkedIn on June 6, 2025
AI is sprinting while most of us are still tying our shoes. Sure, there’s hype too. Companies are bolting AI onto everything—often with no real gain—and the tech still “hallucinates,” even claiming astronauts met cats on the moon. At today’s pace, those glitches could vanish within months.
Technological forecasting is notoriously hard, but a 2023 survey of almost 3,000 AI researchers gave a 50% chance that AI will outperform humans at every task by 2047. Yet those timelines keep dramatically shrinking. Last April, some insiders said we could get there as soon as 2027!
Upside: this most powerful technology could utterly transform our quality of life. It can not only supercharge productivity but also accelerate scientific discovery and technological innovation. Imagine an age of abundance—ending poverty and disease, solving the climate crisis, extending human lifespan, even let us live beyond earth.
Downside: the same tech could let bad actors craft biothreats, deploy killer-drone swarms, and wage large-scale hacking or misinformation campaigns. AI itself could even become an existential threat if it grows far smarter than humans, misleads us, and pursues its own goals.
Right now, only the US and China bankroll the largest AI models—two giants whose priorities don’t always match Europe’s.
What should Europe do to prevent things from going off the rails? The EU AI Act is a good first step in risk management, though it could hurt competitiveness if it overreaches. We’ll also need massive, urgent investments to:
- Build EU-scale AI labs and open-weight models
- Power them with green mega-data-centres and home-grown chips
- Fund research on safety & alignment, societal impacts on jobs and education, and options like Universal Basic Income
Many still underestimate the pace of AI progress, leaving us unprepared for what’s coming. How should Europe play this game?
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