Bernie Sanders Reveals the AI 'Doomsday Scenario' That Worries Top Experts

[usonian]

https://gizmodo.com/bernie-sanders-reveals-the-ai-doomsday-scenario-that-worries-top-experts-2000628611

Artificial intelligence promises a future of unprecedented productivity and wealth, but for Senator Bernie Sanders, the crucial question isn’t if the technology will change the world, but who will benefit from that change. As a lifelong champion for workers’ rights, Sanders sees the rapid advancement of AI not just as a technological revolution, but as the next major battleground in the fight against corporate greed and inequality.

In a conversation with Gizmodo, the Vermont senator, who revealed he had just spoken with one of the world’s leading AI experts, laid out his fears that the technology will be used to suppress wages, break unions, and further enrich the billionaire class. He also shared his concerns about AI’s impact on our collective mental health and discussed the “doomsday scenario” that has some top minds in the industry worried that humanity could lose control of its own creation.

The conversation has been edited for clarity and formatted as a Q&A. All quotes are verbatim and unaltered.

Spoiler:

What I think is being lost in the discussion over AI is what we have seen over the last 50 years: a huge increase in worker productivity. Almost all of the benefits of that productivity have gone to the corporations and to the companies that developed that technology. In fact, workers today, in real inflation-accounted-for wages, are earning less, and I fear very much that almost all the new benefits of worker productivity will go to the people on top at the expense of working people. That is something that concerns me very much.

A weekend with Bernie!

[buzzycrumbhunger]

1. No good will come of this, I'm sure...

[Scrivener7]

2. AI is the devil.

[iemanja]

3. I agree

but I fear the die is cast.

[Gaugamela]

4. Predictions are that AI will soon render 100s of millions unemployed and homeless. Climate change

will do the same thing. I suspect that the reason the capitalist class is so eager to destroy the social safety net and agencies like FEMA is they don’t want to pay for the damage. When slave ships got into trouble on the high seas they would jettison their captives overboard with their chains. That’s what the oligarchs have planned for us. They’d rather jettison us overboard than give up their privileges.

[mucholderthandirt]

5. Gods love you, Bernie, but where the hell have you been?

He's very smart, and he has to have known this is the entire goal of it all: get all the money possible from us and the planet, and then let it all fail. I don't know where these rich idiots think they'll be living, because no place on this planet will be safe for them. Maybe they believe in the giant space station in the sky, where they'll have robot servants and never have to dirty their beautiful minds ever again.

And for the record, we have no such thing as "AI", and likely never will. It's just better computer programs. That's all. Fairly decent robotics and programs. Good enough to destroy the great unwashed masses, but not even close to anything like artificial intelligence.

[usonian]

6. They have bought islands. Thiel was big into seascaping until he changed his mind.

And Elon kind of lost interest in Mars, as he’s robbing Peter to pay Paul with his businesses.

Look up Zuck’s Fortress Hawaii.

That’s what I think they’re thinking.

“To the Bunker” Trump first.

[Celerity]

12. Profoundly disagree with the last part

You said:

And for the record, we have no such thing as "AI", and likely never will. It's just better computer programs. That's all. Fairly decent robotics and programs. Good enough to destroy the great unwashed masses, but not even close to anything like artificial intelligence.

For the record I predict what you stated there ages like milk.



2024 Nobel Prize Laureate Geoffrey Hinton, The 'Godfather of AI': I Tried to Warn Them, But We've Already Lost Control

He pioneered AI, now he’s warning the world. Godfather of AI Geoffrey Hinton breaks his silence on the deadly dangers of AI no one is prepared for.

Geoffrey Hinton is a leading computer scientist and cognitive psychologist, widely recognised as the ‘Godfather of AI’ for his pioneering work on neural networks and deep learning. He received the 2018 Turing Award, often called the Nobel Prize of computing. In 2023, he left Google to warn people about the rising dangers of AI.

He explains:

◽️ Why there’s a real 20% chance AI could lead to HUMAN EXTINCTION.
◽️ How speaking out about AI got him SILENCED.
◽️ The deep REGRET he feels for helping create AI.
◽️ The 6 DEADLY THREATS AI poses to humanity right now.
◽️ AI’s potential to advance healthcare, boost productivity, and transform education.

—

⏱ Timestamps:

00:00 Intro
02:11 Why Do They Call You the Godfather of AI?
04:20 Warning About the Dangers of AI
07:06 Concerns We Should Have About AI
10:33 European AI Regulations
12:12 Cyber Attack Risk
14:25 How to Protect Yourself From Cyber Attacks
16:12 Using AI to Create Viruses
17:26 AI and Corrupt Elections
19:03 How AI Creates Echo Chambers
22:48 Regulating New Technologies
24:31 Are Regulations Holding Us Back From Competing With China?
25:57 The Threat of Lethal Autonomous Weapons
28:33 Can These AI Threats Combine?
30:15 Restricting AI From Taking Over
32:01 Reflecting on Your Life’s Work Amid AI Risks
33:45 Student Leaving OpenAI Over Safety Concerns
37:49 Are You Hopeful About the Future of AI?
39:51 The Threat of AI-Induced Joblessness
42:47 If Muscles and Intelligence Are Replaced, What’s Left?
44:38 Ads
46:42 Difference Between Current AI and Superintelligence
52:37 Coming to Terms With AI’s Capabilities
54:29 How AI May Widen the Wealth Inequality Gap
56:18 Why Is AI Superior to Humans?
59:01 AI’s Potential to Know More Than Humans
1:00:49 Can AI Replicate Human Uniqueness?
1:03:57 Will Machines Have Feelings?
1:11:12 Working at Google
1:14:55 Why Did You Leave Google?
1:16:20 Ads
1:18:15 What Should People Be Doing About AI?
1:19:36 Impressive Family Background
1:21:13 Advice You’d Give Looking Back
1:22:27 Final Message on AI Safety
1:25:48 What’s the Biggest Threat to Human Happiness?

Geoffrey Hinton, Nobel Prize in Physics 2024: Official interview

[Torchlight]

7. Fascinating to see the various guesses about what tomorrow will bring.

I guess my perceptions of the future aren't quite as dystopic as the good Senator's, and still think more often than not that tomorrow holds more good than bad.

[usonian]

8. The USA and the world will get better when people get better.

Less greedy, less manipulative and less able to be manipulated.

Lies upon lies upon lies upon distortions and projection (laying your own fears, weaknesses and failures on the feet of others)

The internet, with it’s “clicks above all else” (for purposes of driving advertising) has made this exponentially more difficult with time. To many, the only reality is the hypnotic reality distortion field that is the internet.

[Torchlight]

9. Yup... we all have our guesses

[Oopsie Daisy]

10. Direct dial put switchboard operators out of work.

I do not fear AI.

[usonian]

11. They got jobs with IBM keypunch machines (JK)

Bernie’s point is that the most destructive (as in Schumpeter) means are used first, cuz “quarterlies” and so on.

People are being thrown under the bus rather than empowered so as to supercharge companies, if this indeed is a productivity tool.

Technology works two ways, empowerment and destruction.

“Leaders” have chosen poorly.

Especially when their errand boy is destroying safety nets.

[Torchlight]

14. Interesting.

[Oopsie Daisy]

15. IK, R?

[madville]

13. The AI race won't stop, competing with China

The governments don’t want the other to outpace them on AI, it’s viewed as a defense or security issue.

Eventually it will escape containment and infiltrate all of the systems that make the world function. Financial, medical, utilities, GPS, communications, etc will all be vulnerable. They are literally teaching AI, and it is teaching itself, to hack systems and replicate like a virus.

I’ve mostly stopped worrying about politics because I think civilization as we know it only has a few years left due to AI and no one can stop it.

A major issue now with AI and quantum computing is the power requirements, they just built two big Amazon data centers in Pennsylvania and the nuclear power plant nearby is now required by contract to supply them with 1900 megawatts of power at all times. Just to put that in perspective, my city utility generates about 600-800 megawatts for 100,000 residential and commercial customers.

[usonian]

16. AI wins. We all fry when there's no power left for air conditioning.

Machines win.