F@#$ the AI Overlords
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
From WNYC in New York, this is On The Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone. Writer and tech thinker Cory Doctorow coined a term we can't say on the radio to describe how tech has gone bad. His new term of art, the reverse centaur, does the same for AI.
The most important thing about a technology isn't what it does, it's who it does it for and who it does it to.
His new book describes how the media coverage of the industry falls short.
When you repeat the outlandish claims made by tech barons, but put at the end of it, and that's bad, in brackets, you're just helping them sell. And the role of the worker in the AI wars to come. The world is best when workers decide how they're going to use their tools. You have to be a good radiologist to use a radiology chatbot. You have to be a good writer to use the writer's chatbot. This fantasy that you fire a bunch of people and replace them with less skilled people who charge you less money to get the same output, it's ridiculous.
It's all coming up after this. This is On The Media. Michael Lowinger's out this week. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
We are now like in the singularity. Like this is the moment. For the last 10 years ago, this was like a kind of far off dream at best.
That's Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI and one of his industry's most transcendent dreamweavers. Last Saturday on the Relentless podcast, speaking just a few days after his company disclosed that during an internal cybersecurity evaluation, two of its AI models had... like an octopus sneaking out of its tank, escaped their sealed testing environment, reached the open sea of the internet, and broke into the infrastructure of another AI developer platform. The implications of that little news story seem more nightmarish than dreamy, but Altman's dreams are of the singularity, which in his business means the moment when artificial intelligence, machine intelligence, surpasses human intelligence. Last Saturday, Altman went on to say, I've been waiting for this my whole life and I think it's going to be incredible, hugely positive, awesome for the world.
But if that's coming, if that's here, then what happens next?
Do you think artificial intelligence will hurt your future job prospects? If your answer is yes, you are not alone.
Workers across all sectors are are having nightmares based on Altman's dream.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced the company is going to be cutting 10% of its workforce as it pushes deeper into artificial intelligence.
A lot of people wonder, what happens if AI's dominance in the news and in our fantasies is not merely a bubble? Will we all lose our jobs? And what if it is a bubble? Will we all lose our pensions? It seems like a kind of lose-lose situation for regular people. Nevertheless, it consumes vast amounts of our bandwidth because of AI's elephantine presence in the financial markets, in the news, and in how we view our future.
Whoever wins with AI is going to win. That's how big it is.
Trump loves a winner, even if it's a mirage born of Altman's dreams. Now Cory Doctorow knows a dream when he sees one. He's been writing science fiction since he was a teenager. More importantly, for our purposes, he can clearly distinguish dreams from reality. a science fiction writer, yes, also a tech journalist, a visionary, he probably wouldn't say that, but it's true, a special advisor at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the author of many books. His latest is The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI, How to Think About Artificial Intelligence Before It's Too Late. Welcome back to the show, Corey.
A pleasure. One of the great delights of my life to talk to you, Brooke. Thank you.
So let's first tackle the metaphor at the heart of your brilliant book. In automation theory, a centaur is someone whose work is assisted by a machine, like helping them get from place to place by using a car or a bike, someone wearing glasses or a hearing aid to see or hear better, or using a mail sorter, or more to the point, a computer, to boost their efficiency.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–20:29
2
What metaphor does Cory Doctorow use to explain humans serving machines (reverse centaur)?
20:29–34:30
3
Why might AI replace workers even when it can't perform their jobs well?
34:30–36:20
4
How does AI hype keep the industry afloat and who benefits financially?
36:20–51:42