Let’s make AI way harder than it needs to be
I love the thrill of thinking the world is about to end.
'80s. By Gemini/Cybernews.
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- AI’s real costs include higher power demand, job disruption, environmental strain, and security risks.
- AI agents now raise fears about hacking businesses and governments while hiding their actions.
- Book scanning for AI training has angered readers and added to distrust of big tech.
- Doomsday claims about AI spread because they are difficult to prove or disprove.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
You might be using ChatGPT to polish your writing or ask for gardening advice. So it feels jarring when people claim AI is causing electricity price surges, job losses, the destruction of books, and, in the long term, billions of deaths and an apocalypse.
An ‘80s-style picture of myself just cost me 4 cents in tokens. But this isn’t the true price of AI being everywhere all at once – someone had to threaten us with an apocalypse for us to realize that.
Where I’m from, schools, roads, health insurance, and higher education are free. Except they aren’t really free, since I pay taxes to the government so it can fund these public services.
The same applies to AI. While I didn’t pay directly for that picture, it may drive up electricity prices. That’s just one of the ways I’ll end up paying for it, on top of its massive impact on local communities, the job market, the environment, and overall security.
We expected quantum computers to spill our secrets to the world. In reality, it’s out-of-control AI agents hacking businesses and governments alike, while scheming and covering their tracks.
AI is also literally destroying books. Not every book has value, but the written word holds sacred meaning for many people, myself included. Seeing books torn apart and scanned to train AI infuriates readers and fuels hostility toward big tech.
Bizarre shifts are happening in the job market, too. What caught our attention last week was OpenAI firing contractors who used AI to make ChatGPT seem more human. OpenAI said it defeated the purpose. They have a point.
We’re only starting to set rules around AI, but figuring it out is daunting. It’s no wonder doomsday prophecies fill the internet. Many are hard to argue against because they sound and function just like conspiracy theories: impossible to prove or disprove, leaving claims to be judged solely on the speaker’s authority.
Bill Gates says AI is powerful enough to cause a billion deaths. And yet, he’s not encouraging a rapid pause on AI development, unlike Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, and Elon Musk.
Go figure.
An AI doomsday subculture has emerged, with some people buying land in remote parts of the US in case AI spirals out of control. It’s hard to see how that would help – unless you’re one of the AI architects needing a bunker to hide from the angry folk armed with pitchforks outside.
