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One of the most important figures in the world of artificial intelligence has just issued a critical warning for people, urging them to 'not listen to CEOs' regarding claims surrounding an impending 'AI apocalypse'.
Despite the prevalence and dominance of artificial intelligence in the world right now, many of its 'founding' figures have stood firmly against how it is being used and developed by the leading companies.
These figures are often referred to as the 'godfathers' of AI, as they played key roles in the formation of the technology as we know it today — yet they have repeatedly issued warnings regarding the direction that it is heading.
Geoffrey Hinton, a leading figure in artificial neural network research and previous Google DeepMind employee has spoke out against the 'immense wealth gap' that AI will create, alongside the threat the technology poses to humanity's future.
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Fellow expert Yann LeCun has taken a similar position against the industry, yet his warnings are directed more towards the language and messaging that many CEOs are employing, branding it especially dangerous for young people.
As reported by Fortune, LeCun – who previously worked at Meta and created foundational research regarding neural networks – recently spoke with Axios about the harmful messaging coming from some of the AI world's biggest companies.
"Don't listen to CEOs," LeCun boldly warned, arguing that many of their claims are either exaggerated or outright false.
"They have a vested interest in propping up the power of the products they sell," he continued, adding that "a small proportion of high school students are actually kind of depressed because they've read that AI is not only going to take a job, but basically cause human extinction. They take that seriously and it has a profound effect on their psychology."
Job losses has been one of the biggest topics of discussion surrounding the emergence of AI, especially with how proud certain leading individuals appear to be in wiping out the job market without any alternative solutions.
There have been discussions surrounding a utopian future where nobody has to work anymore – and Elon Musk has proposed plans for a 'universal high income' scheme where everyone would be given lots of money by the government – but you couldn't be blamed for thinking that's perhaps a little too good to be true.
In LeCun's eyes, however, it's not actually something we'll have to worry about – at least to the extend that it's being predicted – as he suggests listening to economists who have expressed doubt about AI's ability to wipe out the white collar workforce.
It would be remiss to ignore the jobs that have already been made redundant due to advancements in AI, of course, but LeCun believes that these losses will reach a point of diminishing returns as the capacity of AI reaches a plateau.
