Eighteen months ago, I attended a party in San Francisco celebrating generative AI as the next industrial revolution. The mood was gleefully nihilistic. AI is destroying our way of life, said one party guest. We are like farmers tending their fields, unaware of the machines that are about to destroy us all.
It’s safe to say that generative AI hasn’t done much damage yet. Accountants, designers, software developers, filmmakers, interpreters, and all the other professions that were predicted to suffer a bloodbath are still employed. Elections haven’t been prevented. The world is still turning. These early warnings are starting to sound like a strange form of marketing.
Silicon Valley is often associated with optimism. The relentless sense that the world is on the up is one of the most endearing things about the technology sector. When dreamy plans don’t pan out – such as Elon Musk’s claim that manned spacecraft would fly to Mars by 2024 – the world can show mercy. There is an understanding that optimistic ambition is a good thing.
But optimism isn’t the only mindset California is producing. There are also people throughout the tech sector who are driven by fear.
The worst hit are the survivalists – those who fear the collapse of society. For some, that means buying up land in New Zealand or stockpiling water reserves.
For others, it may be a business strategy. Software and consulting company Palantir is known for using its quarterly earnings to inform investors of the possibility of global destruction. Existential considerations are part of its appeal. Palantir is still described as “mysterious,” despite being a publicly traded company and more than two decades old.
Scaremongering about tech products isn’t necessarily futile. Labeling social media as addictive and an invasion of privacy may worry users, but it doesn’t deter advertisers.
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Look at Facebook. The company’s stock price fell in 2018 after it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica was collecting user data and using it for experiments that allegedly manipulated election results. Not only did the stock price recover within a year, but the company now trades at twice its market value.
The fact that it was believed to have enough power to influence world politics made the platform sound even more impressive—even if that wasn’t true. (There is still little evidence that the collection of “psychographic” data influenced voters.)
In artificial intelligence, the worried have found something to base all their fears on. Last year, OpenAI’s co-founder Sam Altman, along with a group of scientists and other leaders, signed a letter saying that the threat of extinction caused by artificial intelligence must become a global priority.
Other technology leaders called for research to be paused for six months because of “profound risks to society and humanity.” Goldman Sachs said the technology could eliminate 300 million full-time jobs.
Much of this distress is undoubtedly real, but it has the side effect of making us impressed and then disappointed by technology.
When OpenAI released Sora, which can generate AI videos, one critic described it as “one step closer to the end of reality itself.” Never mind that one filmmaker who used it found it less than impressive.
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As with any kind of marketing, bombastic claims often fall apart when people try things out for themselves. As we have more and more opportunities to access generative AI—via gadgets, Google Docs, or multimedia platforms—the question of whether it’s all just hype is getting louder.
Some of the first consumer products available, such as Humane’s $699 AI pin, have not been very popular. Tech news website The Verge reports that more Humane pins have been returned than sold in the last three months.
Meta’s Ray-Ban AI sunglasses received better press. The glasses can tell you what you see by taking a photo and identifying the object in it.
While this feature is impressive, it’s not perfect. When I tried a pair, I found the earphone speaker feature more useful. The rest of the San Francisco office seemed to feel the same way – they tried the glasses, dutifully used them to identify what they were looking at, and then handed them back to me.
Perhaps one day the glasses will translate street signs, provide directions and assist the visually impaired. However, commercial applications of the new technology will not be possible overnight.
We are in an early phase where ideas are still being tested. The difficulty is balancing this with the message that the technology is already terrifying. We might all have more patience waiting for AI’s killer app if we hadn’t been repeatedly told that it could kill us all. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024