Michael Dell: Don't worry about AGI, after all we solved that ozone layer thing Any dangers associated with artificial general intelligence (AGI) can easily be countered through action, similarly to how humans resolved the depletion of the ozone layer, according to namesake and founder of Dell Technologies Inc, Michael Dell. “For as long as there’s been technology, humans have worried about bad things …
Basically, he tells us to "Trust us, we're gonna make it all good and nice, again.". And then runs off with the shitload of money he made in the process of making it bad, while the costs of cleaning up the mess will be covered by society as a whole.
Why does that sound so familiar?...
Dell are selling the tools in the AI gold rush - the proven way to get rich from a fad.
However, to take his analogy to the ozone hole - What we did was stop using CFCs. Is he saying we'll stop using "AI" once there's overwhelming evidence it's bad for the human race (Hallucinations, power usage, etc.) ?
It's a good analogy as the west stopped using CFC's back in 96 and switched to more benign alternatives which lead the ozone layer recovering for a decade then in the 00's factories in the East ignored the ban and so we are back to square one, the same will happen with AI controls.
In the ozone layer context, yes, we stopped using CFCs.
In an AI context, it could be the addition of either kill switches or hardware/software constraints keeping an AI under watch.
Of course, if we sift through modern fiction involving AI, we've got System Shock's SHODAN, which goes rogue due to a hacker removing its ethical constraints. Uh-oh.
We don't just need to have countermeasures in place, we need to make sure the countermeasures can't be removed in the first place.
>although businesses clamor to adopt AI, they don’t really know how or what to do with it
It's Bob's Miracle Cure-All Tonic, only instead of getting rid of your boils it's Guaranteed To Make Your Company Exponentially More Profitable And Productive. Turns out FOMO works as well on suit-wearing boardroom execs as it does on Fortnite players.
>throw their budget to the wind in favor of taking a chance on productivity gains<
Ignoring spending limits for a chance on any gains doesn't sound like a good business case.
"If we heavily invest in AI now there are big opportunities to automatize things and cut costs and thus get an advantage over the competition"
"What budget would that project need?"
"Too early to tell but we have to be part of that."
"How much do you think we could save?"
"Too early to tell but there is enormous potential. Everybody is doing it - we can't be left behind."
Can you spot the snake oil salesman?
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