Steven Bartlett has revealed a shocking truth about one of the world's most powerful AI leads, alleging that they are 'lying to the public' about the future of our planet when it comes to artificial intelligence.
There is no doubt that artificial intelligence is the world's most prominent technology, and it has arguably provided the biggest global shift since the invention of the internet.
It's not just chatbots and images now too, as generative AI is making major strides to the point where some of the biggest tech companies in the world are looking to replace their coding staff with AI agents.
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Many are rightfully worried about what the future will hold with AI, as it threatens to rip through most jobs as it advances, but claims made by Steven Bartlett give the indication that the CEOs themselves aren't too bothered about this issue.
What did Steven Bartlett say about AI CEOs?
On a recent episode of The Diary of a CEO podcast, Steven Bartlett revealed to guest Geoffrey Hinton - known by many as the 'Godfather of AI' - that one of the biggest AI CEOs is 'lying to the public':
"I've got a friend who's a billionaire, and he is in those circles. And when I went to his house and had lunch with him one day, he knows lots of people in AI, building the biggest AI companies in the world, he gave my a cautionary warning across his kitchen table," Barlett explained.
"He gave me an insight into the private conversations these people have, not the media interviews they do where they talk about safety and all these things, but actually what these individuals think is going to happen."
Hinton, in response to Bartlett's story, knowingly asked what these AI CEOs think is going to happen, to which Bartlett replied: "It's not what they say publicly. You know, one person who I shouldn't name who is leading one of the biggest AI companies in the world.
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"He told me that he knows this person very well and he privately thinks that we're heading towards this kind of dystopian world where he have just huge amounts of free time, we don't work anymore, and this person doesn't really give a f*** about the harm that it's going to have on the world."
Hinton himself has previously warned about the extreme wealth gap that AI advancements will create, alongside the danger to humanity that we might experience in the next decade, and it appears as if that's something that at least one major player either doesn't care about or is even actively driving towards in pursuit of power.
"I think some of them are a little bit sadistic about power," Bartlett claims, in reference to the world's biggest AI names. "I think they like the idea that they will change the world, that they will be the one that fundamentally shifts the world."
Leaked emails have already shown that OpenAI CEO and ChatGPT creator Sam Altman believed that he wanted to create a 'Manhattan Project for AI', and it certainly has had long-lasting, world-altering effects on the planet ever since.
What are the dangers of AI?
The main dangers that we face as AI increases its power and ubiquity is broadly split into three sections comprising employment, climate, and control.
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Employment and jobs is the easiest one to understand, as it has already affected thousands if not millions across the globe. AI is more than capable of making countless roles redundant at the moment, and as its capabilities increase - especially towards artificial general intelligence - we will only see the effect of this on almost every job out there, to the point where experts indicate just a few jobs will remain untouched by AI.
The unsustainable power demands of AI are also clear to see right now, especially as certain companies are allegedly employing illegal methods in order to scale up the power needed to supply datacenters. With the world already nearing a climate 'tipping point', increased dependancy on AI will only heighten the damage we cause to Earth.
Finally, our collective control over AI is increasingly being threatened as it expands its knowledge, and we could be nearing a dystopian future laid out by a terrifying scientific timeline across the next two years.
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One Jeff Bezos-backed CEO has highlighted the importance of maintaining control over AI development, and the current Google DeepMind Lab CEO has echoed this by issuing a warning that AI could easily fall into the wrong hands if we're not careful and don't put up enough safety measures.