this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2023
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Futurology
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AI will be what we will make it to be. It doesn't have to take all our jobs. We have to steer it into the right direction instead of accepting bad consequences that will come otherwise.
I want AI to take my job, provided I am left with a way to live comfortably. I will find more interesting and enjoyable things to occupy my time.
That's a very big if, and I'd happily support, but this is a utopia. What means will we have to demand comfortable life without economic and political power? What is more realistic that inequality will keep growing, rich people will start getting brain implants, genetically modify their kids, and we won't even be the same species anymore. Though that's highly unlikely in our lifetime. The point is that we must steer the direction of AI development today if we want to have power tomorrow.
So it isn't an automation issue, it's a social policy issue, just like it wasn't an industrialization issue when the Luddites made their mark on history. And likewise, the problem isn't about what or how the AI is developed (except maybe we shouldn't give it the capability to kill us), but what we do socially with the results. We're already far more productive than we were 50 years ago, with little real improvement in our daily lives (yes, there have been some serious improvements with communication and technology). That's a failing of worldwide political policies, as well.