Atlantic magazine unearthed an extraordinarily candid video interview a couple of weeks ago, in which Brian Wu – a senior engineer at OpenAI responded to a question about AI’s impact on work:
‘I guess it’s kind of deeply unfair that, like, a group of people can build AI and just take everyone’s jobs away, and, in some sense, there’s nothing you can do to stop them right now…’
This is the bit – this gross injustice – that’s been widely reported. Silicon Valley bros invented something that’s not only stolen all our content, but has then been trained on that so it can then steal our jobs. Thanks a bunch, geek-holes!
But… but… if you listen on, Wu then explains that there are things that we can do. And he lists them:
- Petition for regulation
- Raise awareness of the problems that are possibly coming
- Get people to think about what do we do in a world where labour is obsolete
- Get governments to care
- Get other people to care
Well, thank you Brian for making the case for me… this is exactly what Tripp Fuller and I are aiming at with this series of conversations about AI, and why you should care.
We’re bringing together expert philosophers, politicians, economists, technologists and theologians to offer their insights… and to inspire us to action, to do the very things that Wu says that we should if we are to save ourselves from a pretty rough and unjust future.
As I already argued in the book, we really cannot afford to be passive here. We must actively engage, demand tough regulation from our elected officials, hold tech companies to account in all ways we can, and make sure that people are aware of what the future could hold.
There is still a ‘narrow path to good AI’ – and the wide road is being paved and smoothed by big tech backed by billions of dollars of VC, so the narrow path is not going to be easy – but we absolutely must pitch for it if we are to secure a better future.
The first session kicks off TOMORROW as a livestream that you can catch here, or right here:
Then there’ll be regular interviews with experts, all capped off with a wrap up conversation between myself and Tripp.
To get all the content first, join over 75,000 others and subscribe to the substack here.
A pretty good summary of the whole deal:
Enjoy 🙂