The world is hurtling towards an inevitable AI dystopia in the very near future, according to Mo Gawdat, the former chief business officer of Alphabet’s moonshot factory, formerly known as Google X.
“We will have to prepare for a world that is very unfamiliar,” Gawdat said in an interview on the “Diary of a CEO” podcast, adding that humanity’s key values like freedom, human connection, accountability, reality, and power are all facing a major disruption by AI.
And this dystopia isn’t far off, we have already started seeing signs of it as of last year and will continue to see an escalation of signs next year, Gawdat said. The beginning of the descent into Gawdat’s dystopia, he predicts, will begin in 2027 and last for the next 12 to 15 years.
The former Google executive wasn’t always of this opinion: the speed with which artificial intelligence technologies have been developing caused him to change his mind and convinced him that this short-term dystopia is inevitable.
“It is completely within our hands to change that, but I have to say, I don’t think humanity has the awareness at this time to focus on this,” Gawdat said.
But Gawdat says AI is not necessarily the main driver of this dystopia, and especially not in the way most people imagine (that is, existential risks from scenarios that have AI assuming full control). Rather, Gawdat says that AI acts as a magnifier of existing societal issues and “our stupidities as humans.”
“There is absolutely nothing wrong with AI,” Gawdat said. “There is a lot wrong with the value set of humanity at the age of the rise of the machines.”
Aiming for a Utopia, but Getting a Dystopia
Artificial intelligence was not developed to usher in a dystopia, in fact it had a rather utopic mission. By further automating mundane tasks, AI has the potential to ease the workload of millions of workers worldwide in every job and field, potentially giving them back their precious time of the day without sacrificing overall productivity.
However, that is not exactly how things are panning out for workers. In a world governed by one value above all others –capitalism– that utopian dream is being warped by the relentless pursuit of profit. AI’s disruption of the labor market has already begun, according to some experts, as the technology starts to completely reshape the way we view work. Instead of helping out people’s workload, companies that are maximizing productivity with artificial intelligence are laying people off or slowing down hiring to further maximize profit, or asking even more of existing workers.
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