Two visions of AI’s future

It’s not looking good

A pair of slides I often used to end my talks with:

versus

And a pair of slides from last 24 hours, perhaps a sign of how things are actually going:

and

I don’t condone the violence, but I certainly understand why people are angry. And it’s not just United; one of the biggest applications of AI seems to be ripping off customers. According to Stat, as summarized elsewhere, “multiple major health insurers had used secret internal rules and flawed (AI) algorithms to deny care.”

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There is a possible world in which the tech oligarchs press forward today’s unreliable AI in the service of battlefield weapons and screwing people out of health insurance claims, leading to class warfare like we have never seen in the US, with the rich flying around in helicopters to avoiding interacting with the masses.

And there is a possible world in which we take a breath and ask how we can build a better, more reliable AI that can actually serve society, taking steps to make sure that it is used safely, equitably, and without causing harm.

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AI doesn’t have to lead to dystopia.

But, left unregulated, it probably will.

Gary Marcus is author of Taming Silicon Valley, just named one of The New Yorker’s Recommended Books, 2024.