The Center for Humane Technology has a podcast called Your Undivided Attention. It’s a fantastic resource for technology information. Podcast host Tristan Harris, an avid techno-skeptic, hosted a podcast on the subject of “The Messy Middle” with guest Molly Kinder. The discussion looks at the disruption that AI has the potential to create between today and when AI “takes over”.
I love this conversation because we dive a little deeper into a high-level overview of some of the missing detail from the comments of top tech executives saying things like “people will no longer have to work.” It’s a better look at how going from the world we know today to something like “no one has to work.”
AI implementation has been envisioned on two far ends of the spectrum. That is a utopia on the positive side and the end of humanity on the negative side. From the perspective of a utopia, all of a sudden you don’t go into a job anymore. Money means nothing, and we live in an age of abundance where you ask for and receive all of the things we have and/or want today. From the perspective of the “end of humanity”, AI wipes out humans, not intentionally, but due to poor communication in completing an objective.