The Situation - A Reflection on AI

We are past the point of saying “artificial intelligence has the chance to completely change the world.” It is already doing that. We are, right now, deciding the future of civilisation in our actions with artificial intelligence. This is not an unprecedented situation. This is not new. So we must look to the past and learn.

Looking back upon the industrial revolution, looking back on the internet, we see two paths, starkly different. Both were times of great upheaval, and both have had eternal consequences on the world. Both brought great things to humanity, but one brought with it inequality, corruption, and exploitation. Terrible consequences that we still are recovering from in this day.

The greatest things came when the benefits were not only shared by everyone, but owned by everyone.

The vast majority of the market for artificial intelligence is owned by a few, elitist labs. Elitist labs that are, each and every one of them, a private, for-profit company. Each and every one of them owned by billionaires, and answerable to billionaires.

The benefits are not shared by everyone, and certainly they are not owned by everyone.

And that’s without looking at the other problems. The other costs that are footed, every day, by the median person. Think of the environment, and the water use, and the power use, and the blatant consumerism. It is not the 1% that are benefiting, it is the 0.1%.

This has to change.

- Patrick H 🤍