Gary Marcus
Emeritus Professor of Psychology & Neural Science, New York University · Co-founder and former CEO, Robust AI Inc. · NYU Professor Emeritus
Titles as the sources gave them. In 7 entries, with 16 checked quotations.
Who they are
Roles and parties from Wikidata and from the sources in the Base, as precise as each gives them. When we compare what groups say, each statement counts in the group the person belonged to that day.
What they said
Newest first. Each quotation was found word for word in the source.
“at this point it’s not hard to make the argument that it has on the whole been a net detriment to society.”
“Current models are already causing serious problems across society, in domains ranging from education to politics (via deepfakes and wholesale disinformation) to banking.”
“Even if we were to stop the development of future frontier models, we would still face serious problems from the misuse of existing models.”
“Llms don't really follow instructions. All the so-called rogue AI things are examples of that where they're not really following instructions, they're following loosely.”
“So the chance of catastrophe, I think is pretty high. And dystopia, I think we're already basically here.”
“what I'm saying is the government will stop letting it rip when something bad happens. And that could be an economic thing that is bad.”
“There's this idea of scale is all you need that all you would need to do is add more data and they would get better and better. They get exponentially better. That's already basically known in the industry to not be true.”
“I have long felt that OpenAI is handling this inadequately. Seeing the same kind of incidents at Anthropic makes it absolutely clear that the current generation of synthetic agents simply cannot be trusted. Until they can be fixed, they should be removed from the market, just like a car with defective brakes.”
“The Trump administration’s anemic request for more disclosure is not enough, akin to blandly asking criminals to file monthly reports regarding which crimes they have committed.”
“Each day the administration fails to take stronger action is a mistake, inviting worse problems. It’s well past the point at which they should be imposing a temporary recall on an obviously dangerous technology.”
“When something truly bad happens, the White House, and not just the tech companies, will own it.”
“Contemporary AI is like a bull in a china shop, powerful and impressive, but difficult to control.”
“Not every fear that people talk about strikes me as realistic – I rather doubt that human extinction is imminent, despite all the headlines – but it is clear that AI comes with serious risks.”
“What we need, above all else, is an FDA-like regulatory regime for AI, in which AI developers bring their software to independent review, much as drug manufacturers bring their new drugs to the FDA for a review.”
“New York City is in a position to do what the US Senate failed to do: demand independent regulatory review for AI used in its borders.”
“Without strong protections from whistleblowing, like New York City is considering, we are all in trouble.”
In the Base
Every entry they appear in.
Will Generative AI do more harm than good?
In a short Substack post, Gary Marcus lists harms of generative AI, including deepfakes, phishing, disinformation and the wave of hacks called "Black October". Marcus cites Apollo economist Torsten Slok on missing benefits and argues AI has so far been a net harm.
Scoop: Unvetted AI agents are accessing U.S. bank accounts
Axios reports, citing people familiar with the issue, that major US banks are detecting unauthorized third-party AI agents inside customer accounts. Gary Marcus's post, the only text we could read, relays the report and argues that regulation should not focus only on frontier models.
NYU’s Gary Marcus on Building AI We Can Trust
In a 26-minute interview at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in New Delhi, Gary Marcus tells Bloomberg's David Merritt that language models do not reliably follow instructions, that catastrophe is likelier than extinction, that regulation will follow a crisis, and that AI company valuations look overstretched.
AIs can clearly read books
According to the excerpt, the author casens revisits Gary Marcus's 2022 bet that AI would not manage at least three of five tasks by 2029, including understanding novels, while saying the AI race should stop and AI should be regulated.
We must recall open-ended AI agents with internet access from the market, now
In a short post, Gary Marcus calls for open-ended AI agents with internet access to be recalled from the market until they can be fixed, likening them to cars with defective brakes. Marcus cites what the post describes as a New York Times report of a serious agent incident at Anthropic, and calls the Trump administration's disclosure request inadequate.
NYU's Gary Marcus on AI development concerns
According to Bloomberg Tech's description, Gary Marcus, co-founder and former CEO of Robust AI Inc., argues that AI developers, OpenAI among them, lack sufficient safeguards for systems they cannot reliably control. Marcus spoke with Romaine Bostick on Bloomberg's The Close.
Coming soon: New York City’s hearing on AI risks
Gary Marcus previews planned testimony for a New York City Council hearing on AI policy. Marcus argues AI is powerful but hard to control and that the administration in Washington will not act, and urges the council to back a bill requiring third-party validation of AI used in the city, plus whistleblower protections, citing signs OpenAI may have fired whistleblowers.