AI week in quotes: leaders in Davos discuss AI stealing jobs
Artificial intelligence (AI) was the dominant topic at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos this week, as experts made bleak predictions about the future of jobs.
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Artificial intelligence (AI) was the dominant topic at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos this week, as experts made bleak predictions about the future of jobs.
Even US President Donald Trump’s threats to invade Greenland didn’t overshadow AI at the annual forum, which attracts world leaders, CEOs, and public intellectuals.
“AI will cause the immigration crisis”
Yuval Noah Harari, an Israeli writer and author of the bestseller “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind,” predicted that AI will plunge every nation into two crises. One is related to identity, because AI will potentially outperform humans in thinking.
Another is the immigration crisis, as Harari compared the technology to immigrants who bring benefits alongside disruption into countries.
Those who are concerned about human immigrants usually argue that immigrants might take jobs, might change the local culture, might be politically disloyal. I'm not sure that’s true of all human immigrants, but it will definitely be true of the AI immigrants.Yuval Noah Harari
Alex Karp, the CEO of the highly controversial data broker Palantir, said that AI will make mass migration obsolete and will force workers out of offices into blue-collar jobs.
If you’re a vocational technician, or like, we’re building batteries for a battery company, now you’re very valuable, if not irreplaceable. I mean, y’know, not to divert to my usual political screeds, but there will be more than enough jobs for the citizens of your nation, especially those with vocational training.Alex Karp
Confirmation of the AI bubble?
Bret Taylor, co-founder of the AI startup Sierra and a chairman of the OpenAI board, had said in a CNBC interview that AI is “probably” a bubble and AI companies are funded by both “smart money” and “dumb money.”
I think over the next few years, you’ll see a correction, you also see consolidation, but I don’t think you can get innovation without that kind of messy competition.Bret Taylor
However, optimism over AI prevailed at Davos. Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, told Bloomberg TV that he sincerely believes there is no AI bubble, ruling out any uncertainty about the technology.
Hundreds of billions of dollars are needed to build this out. The capex is going to drive more global growth. That being said, like in everything else in capitalism, there are going to be some big failures. There are going to be some huge winners and some losers.Larry Fink
ChatGPT ads: OpenAI hit the revenue reality
Experts and industry watchers continued discussing OpenAI’s plans to introduce adverts in its chatbot, ChatGPT, announced last Friday. The move raised speculation about the company's perilous financial position.
Alberto Romero, the author of the Algorithmic Bridge substack, wrote that by introducing advertising, OpenAI went to “full-blown media company selling access to attention” territory.
Building AGI (general AI) to ‘benefit everybody’ was always a cool, genuine goal, but ultimately a distraction; you can promise the heavens for free but only until you need to hit revenue targets to appease investors. OpenAI is not hitting them.Alberto Romero
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