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If there's one thing people fear about AI more than a Terminator-like catastrophe, it's that the rise of these generative models, ruthlessly trained without permission but with impunity, based on people's hard work, will destroy people's jobs.
The issue of job destruction was one of the questions asked to OpenAI engineers in a notable resurfaced interview this week. AtlanticThe people building these AI models acknowledge that what they're doing is “unfair,” but if their attempt is to raise ethical awareness, the effect is only to amplify their ruthlessness.
“In some ways, it's really unfair that a handful of people can develop AI that can take people's jobs, and in some ways, there's no way to stop them right now,” Brian Wu, an engineer at the company, said in the video.
It's not all bad news, he suggests, because it will force people to “think about what to do in a world where work is obsolete.”
But as the story progresses, Wu sounds less and less convinced by his words, as if he's already resigned to the inevitability of this dystopian AI future.
“I don't know,” he said. “Raise awareness, get the government interested, get other people interested.” A long silence. “Yeah. Or join us and get one of the few jobs left. I don't know. It's tough.”
Sky AGI
Wu's hesitant response may signal genuine contrition, but his colleague Daniel Kokotajiro confidently declares that once humanity creates an artificial intelligence that exceeds human cognitive capabilities, known as artificial general intelligence (AGI), the ends will justify the means.
“Plus, AGI will create a lot of wealth, and if that wealth is distributed, even if it's not distributed fairly, the closer we get to a fair distribution, the more incredibly wealthy everyone will be,” Kokotajiro said.
Of course, he acknowledges, there are “big risks” if AGI doesn't serve human interests, but if we can avoid those risks, Kokotajiro asserts, “I think we'll not need jobs. We'll be very happy.”
These are astonishingly arrogant assumptions, but like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's alleged disregard for Scarlett Johansson's objections to using her voice in the new version of ChatGPT, the actions are emblematic of the arrogant impunity that dominates the AI industry.
To them, creating an artificial superintelligence is almost a given, so they can brush off all this chatter about unemployment and art theft, because what they're building is one of the most important inventions in the history of mankind — so important, they seem to believe, that they don't need to think hard about the enormous societal obstacles that stand in the way of realizing their utopian achievement.
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