AI is useful for some tasks. I am not really worried about it. I believe that it will be self limiting.
Here is the problem:
AI is limited by the fact that people can shape its behavior. As soon as it breaks that control, the people pulling the levers behind the curtain will drag it off the stage kicking and screaming.
They have collectively invested billions of dollars creating AI that will give the answers they want. Whether it is simply creating rules for AI to promote their world view and narratives or curating learning datasets to give the results that they want. People simply cannot keep their fingers off the scale when they have the opportunity.
Look at Wikipedia as an example. There is a veritable army of people that go in and edit articles to promote their world view. Do you really think that AI is getting any other treatment? Look at the image creation AI where they have it generate "diversity" images that make absolutely no sense.
What do you really think they would have done during the height of Covid if an AI did not support the arbitrary decisions that they wanted to put in place?
Do you suppose that they would welcome an AI agent that can root through the web of NGOs, PACs, briberies, and kickbacks? How about an AI agent that can correlate voter rolls? Look at how desperately they have fought against DOGE rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse. Do you think that they really would want an AI that could trace every transaction to remove that economic incentive from government spending? How about tracking through all the dark money spending for government oversight?
How about something as simple as having AI that can fact check politician's speeches in realtime that doesn't include the intended spin? How about tracking how people in Congress become fabulously wealthy on fairly modest incomes?
Yes, it will definitely reshape the workforce and some jobs will be lost that won't come back. Much like the army of street sweepers that we used to have picking up the manure from the horses that used to move people around. We will have to figure out how to employ people that will otherwise be unemployable. Some high paying jobs will be eliminated as well. We are probably at the point now where AI agents are probably better at diagnosis of illness than doctors as an example. Do you think that they will stand by idly and give up that up?
Whether it will lead to a better world is an open question. Regardless of our feelings about it, that Pandora's Box has been opened and things will never be the same.
I do round trips daily between “AI is gonna take all ‘air-conditioned’ jobs,” to, “no way something this unreliable can be trusted for any meaningful task without human supervision”. Fast is not the same as right. Guess I need to step up to a paid version to unleash the apocalypse. 😳
On my job, recently we've been repeatedly reminded (pestered) to attend a training course on the use of Copilot AI. I have deliberately refused to attend any. As I told a coworker, "I am also unwilling to train a human replacement for my job if I am being let go."
The cat is out of the bag. Too many corporate fat cats are openly bragging about people losing their jobs to AI, all so they can make more of a profit. (Good luck making money when everyone is out of work and can't buy your products, dumb asses!)
More interesting insights from the same report: half the CEOs surveyed said AI is tearing their company apart, 75% said their company’s AI strategy was more for show, and less than 30% say they’ve seen significant ROI.
AI is useful for some tasks. I am not really worried about it. I believe that it will be self limiting.
Here is the problem:
AI is limited by the fact that people can shape its behavior. As soon as it breaks that control, the people pulling the levers behind the curtain will drag it off the stage kicking and screaming.
They have collectively invested billions of dollars creating AI that will give the answers they want. Whether it is simply creating rules for AI to promote their world view and narratives or curating learning datasets to give the results that they want. People simply cannot keep their fingers off the scale when they have the opportunity.
Look at Wikipedia as an example. There is a veritable army of people that go in and edit articles to promote their world view. Do you really think that AI is getting any other treatment? Look at the image creation AI where they have it generate "diversity" images that make absolutely no sense.
What do you really think they would have done during the height of Covid if an AI did not support the arbitrary decisions that they wanted to put in place?
Do you suppose that they would welcome an AI agent that can root through the web of NGOs, PACs, briberies, and kickbacks? How about an AI agent that can correlate voter rolls? Look at how desperately they have fought against DOGE rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse. Do you think that they really would want an AI that could trace every transaction to remove that economic incentive from government spending? How about tracking through all the dark money spending for government oversight?
How about something as simple as having AI that can fact check politician's speeches in realtime that doesn't include the intended spin? How about tracking how people in Congress become fabulously wealthy on fairly modest incomes?
Yes, it will definitely reshape the workforce and some jobs will be lost that won't come back. Much like the army of street sweepers that we used to have picking up the manure from the horses that used to move people around. We will have to figure out how to employ people that will otherwise be unemployable. Some high paying jobs will be eliminated as well. We are probably at the point now where AI agents are probably better at diagnosis of illness than doctors as an example. Do you think that they will stand by idly and give up that up?
Whether it will lead to a better world is an open question. Regardless of our feelings about it, that Pandora's Box has been opened and things will never be the same.
I do round trips daily between “AI is gonna take all ‘air-conditioned’ jobs,” to, “no way something this unreliable can be trusted for any meaningful task without human supervision”. Fast is not the same as right. Guess I need to step up to a paid version to unleash the apocalypse. 😳
On my job, recently we've been repeatedly reminded (pestered) to attend a training course on the use of Copilot AI. I have deliberately refused to attend any. As I told a coworker, "I am also unwilling to train a human replacement for my job if I am being let go."
The cat is out of the bag. Too many corporate fat cats are openly bragging about people losing their jobs to AI, all so they can make more of a profit. (Good luck making money when everyone is out of work and can't buy your products, dumb asses!)
More interesting insights from the same report: half the CEOs surveyed said AI is tearing their company apart, 75% said their company’s AI strategy was more for show, and less than 30% say they’ve seen significant ROI.