One insider who has worked with many of the tech world's biggest names has just issued a frightening warning, as he claims that the future of AI will cause billions of people to suffer, and what's worse is that we're 'sleepwalking' into the disaster.
If you've only been paying attention to the tech industry you might be fooled into thinking that everything is going great with the expansion of AI, and that its continued acceleration will lead to a utopian world where nobody has to work.
Names like Elon Musk have floated ideas of universal high income that are possible thanks to the immense profits of automation, but the reality will likely be far more frightening.
Many experts believe that most people will end up jobless in the future thanks to AI, but instead of living in luxury we’ll be left in a world that cares not for its people, alongside a wealth gap that’s wider than any sustainable measure.
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On top of this, the growing power demands of artificial intelligence are putting an immense amount of pressure on the climate, so there’s a strong chance that the world as we know it won’t exist by the time that the technology has fully taken over.
These sentiments have been echoed by Dex Hunter-Torricke in a recent post on his substack, and few people are more qualified than him to tackle the current crisis facing the world.
Hunter-Torricke has worked for names like Elon Musk, Eric Schmidt, and Mark Zuckerberg, and notes that the past few years have seen him ‘at the heart of the AI revolution’.
He left the tech world last October though, and has now expressed his fears regarding the future, predicting a harsh path for everyone but a select wealthy few.
“After nearly two decades watching it up close, I have reached a conclusion I can no longer keep to myself: we are not prepared for the world that is coming, and the path we are currently on leads to disaster,” he warned in the blog post.
Hunter-Torricke doesn’t shy away from the power AI provides to the human race, calling it “the most powerful general-purpose technology in human history,” but the current conditions of the planet make its introduction a frightening prospect.
He notes that the tech “is arriving not into a stable, well-governed world but into one already ablaze with interlocking crises. Soaring economic inequality. Democratic institutions corroding. A geopolitical order fracturing. A climate emergency accelerating toward irreversible thresholds.”
Those factors alone are dangerous enough – especially combined as one – yet the introduction of AI into the equation amplifies things considerably.
“I believe the current future that we are heading for will not deliver a good life for the vast majority of people or countries,” he outlines.
It requires the right steps to be made, as with “different choices, frameworks and political will,” our planet could avoid the ‘downward slope of decline’ that faces our future.
“The odds are certainly stacked against us, and the window to change courses closing faster than almost anyone in power is willing to admit,” Hunter-Torricke predicts, and he believes there’s little more than 10 years left before we can correct course and rethink how we govern the world.