According to Mo Gawdat, former chief business officer of the Alphabet Moonshot factory, the world is rushing towards an inevitable AI dystopia, according to Mo Gawdat, formerly known as Google X.
“We must prepare for a very unfamiliar world,” Gawdat said in an interview with the CEO's Diary podcast, adding that all important human values, such as freedom, human connection, accountability, reality, and power, are all faced with great disruption by AI.
And since this dystopia isn't too far away, it has already begun to see the signs as of last year and continues to see the signs escalation next year, Gawdat said. He predicts that Gawdat's descent to Dystopia will begin in 2027 and will continue for the next 12-15 years.
The former Google executive has not always been in this opinion. The speed at which artificial intelligence technology has evolved has changed his mind and convinced him that this short-term dystopia is inevitable.
“It's completely in our hands to change it, but I have to say, I don't think humanity has any awareness to focus on this at this point,” Gaudatt said.
However, Gawdat says that AI is not necessarily the main factor in this dystopia, and is not the way most people imagine it in particular (i.e. existential risk from a scenario in which AI assumes full control). Rather, Gawdat says that AI acts as an expansor of existing social issues and “human stupidity.”
“There's absolutely no problem with AI,” Gawdat said. “There are many mistakes in the human value set in the age of machinery.”
I'm aiming for utopia, but I'm getting a dystopia
Artificial intelligence was not developed to mark the arrival of dystopia. In fact, it had a rather utopic mission. By further automating mundane tasks, AI could mitigate workloads for millions of workers worldwide across all jobs and fields, potentially returning valuable time for the day without sacrificing overall productivity.
However, that's not how things are pan out for workers. In a world dominated by all other values (capitalism) that utopian dreams are distorted by the merciless pursuit of profit. According to some experts, the AI labor market turmoil has already begun. This technology is beginning to completely reconstruct the way we see our work. Instead of using artificial intelligence to maximize productivity, companies using people's workloads, are laying off people, slowing down jobs to maximize profits, and seeking more existing workers.
According to Gawdat, that's not a coincidence. Gawdat has shown that all the technologies ever created have expanded existing human capabilities and values, and the largest set of values at present is now capitalism.
This disconnect between the intended outcome and the reality of negative shortcomings is also reflected in other technological advances.
“How often did social media connect us, how often did we make us lonely? How often did our mobile phones make us work? That was a promise. Gaudat said.
“Evil that people can do”
According to Gawdat, another thing that AI escalates beyond control is “evils that people can do.”
This is no surprise to anyone following along with the news of the past year or so. With AI-generated deep-fark porn and AI increasing the gateway to war to maximize lethality caused by military autonomous weapons and generated AI, this technology served as the worst aides humanity had to offer.
This was on display this week when Elon Musk's chatbot Grok unveiled new image and video generation features.
AI-powered scams, particularly those with AI-powered Crypto, which Openai CEO Sam Altman himself warned, have surged. A report from blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs found that Crypto Scams has increased by 456% from last year, thanks to AI Deepfake Technology. And nuclear war experts are worried that AI will be able to use nuclear weapons soon.
AI is also adjusting public surveillance methods at scale. As Gawdat puts it, in a world where there is “large concentration of power,” that is a major concern. Public surveillance systems equipped with AI are currently being actively implemented in many countries. A major example is China's mass surveillance infrastructure. It's not just a foreign concern, but the US government is currently using AI to monitor social media accounts of immigrants and travelers.
It's not all evil, but there's work to do
Despite all this, AI continues to make incredible changes. Artificial intelligence has already had measurable impacts on scientific discoveries and advancements, particularly medicine and pharmaceutical research.
Gawdat believes that utopian use of AI will be possible in the future thanks to these advances.
But first, humanity must contest this pitfall.
“The big picture is to pressure the government to understand that there are restrictions on people to stay silent,” Gaudat said, adding that the government should regulate the use of AI rather than the AI itself.
“Because you can't adjust the design of the hammer, you can drive the claws, but you can't kill anyone, but you can criminalize the killing of humans by the hammer,” says Gawdat.
The AI hammer is in our hands now, and it stays here. The only remaining question is whether they are willing to write laws against murder.
