AI will very likely benefit a select few and negatively affect millions, if not billions, of others. AI is, in many ways, a technology of the rich, for the rich
Commentary
During
a recent, wide-ranging interview, Vinod Khosla, an investor in OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, sang the praises of artificial intelligence (AI). Within the next decade, according to the upbeat businessman, all Americans should expect to have access to AI-powered medical professionals, educational tutors, and legal services. The best part? You won’t have to pay a dime, he said. If it sounds too good to be true, as you know, it probably is.
In recent times, it has become incredibly fashionable for billionaire, Silicon Valley types to wax lyrical about AI and how this new form of intelligence will benefit humanity (some have even written
entire manifestos on how it'll supposedly save the human race). In truth, though, AI will very likely benefit a select few and negatively affect millions, if not billions, of others. Artificial intelligence is, in many ways, a technology of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich. To think otherwise requires a complete suspension of disbelief.
AI dystopian narratives tend to center around farfetched scenarios involving sentient robots running amok, quite literally destroying humanity. In truth, instead of “wiping us out” in one violent swoop, the AI revolution is likely to be a more drawn-out—and considerably less bloody—affair. Nevertheless, the effects will be profound, and the vast majority of humans will be affected.
In 2021, long before the advent of the aforementioned ChatGPT, the National Bureau of Economic Research published a sobering
report. Although the decline in fortunes experienced by the middle and working classes can be attributed to various factors such as the outsourcing of jobs to foreign countries, the decline of the manufacturing sector, the shift toward a service-based economy, and the weakening of labor unions, the authors warned that automation technology is the No. 1 driver of income inequality in the United States. This, they noted, has been the case for more than four decades. The report suggested that anywhere between 50 percent and 70 percent of changes in wages since 1980 were attributable to the replacement or degradation of blue-collar workers by automation.
In the two years since the report, the AI revolution has picked up a considerable amount of pace. Today, about 30 percent of the U.S. workforce is “exposed to advanced technologies used for automation purposes,” according to the
Census Bureau. By the end of the decade, in the United States and beyond, AI is expected to affect
300 million jobs. Although the World Economic Forum
asks us to not be alarmed by the AI revolution, it’s important to note that this is the same organization that has said that by 2030, we, the people,
will own nothing and be happy.
A
recent paper, published by academics in Hong Kong and China, explicitly warns that AI will widen the gap between the haves and the have-nots. Since the start of the 21st century, there has been a rapid advancement in high technology, the paper notes. Although this technological progress has brought some benefits, it has radically altered the way humans live their lives. While individuals have been able to enjoy the efficiency, comfort, and convenience that high technologies bring, the authors demonstrate a growing disparity between the wealthy and the less well-off. This study clearly demonstrates that the development of AI will further widen the divide between the rich and the poor.
Analysts at Goldman Sachs appear to agree. They suggest that AI, which already possesses the capability to imitate human intelligence, holds the potential to completely transform industries on
an unprecedented level. From self-driving cars and smart cities to customizable health care and sophisticated automation in manufacturing, AI is already redefining the human experience.
It’s very possible that AI could result in job displacement throughout the world, without the creation of new career paths. AI is, after all, the first technology in human existence that’s designed to remove many, if not all, of us from the human equation.
Don’t expect decision-makers to save you.
In the aftermath of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s recent firing and even more recent rehiring,
Axios sounded the alarm on the lack of “serious regulation of generative AI, which one day soon could spawn artificial general intelligence (AGI)—the one that could outthink our species.”
In short, according to Axios’s sources, corporations are refraining from regulating AI because they’ve invested (and continue to invest) vast amounts of money in arguably the most significant technological creation in history. As for the government, Congress is simply too divided to address the intricacies of AI regulation during an election year, according to Axios.
AI already plays a sizable role in millions—maybe even billions—of people’s daily lives. From unlocking our phones through face recognition to collecting data in our cars to shaping our social media feeds, AI is, in many ways, the operating system on which we all operate. As AI becomes more sophisticated, expect our lives to undergo even more radical changes, with those at the very top of the chain profiting, while the rest of us are left swimming against the tech-driven tide.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
