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!