<
https://wadler.blogspot.com/2023/08/ted-chiang-ever-thoughtful-suggests-new.html>
"Ted Chiang, ever thoughtful, suggests a new metaphor for A.I. Published in
The New Yorker.
So, I would like to propose another metaphor for the risks of artificial
intelligence. I suggest that we think about A.I. as a management-consulting
firm, along the lines of McKinsey & Company. Firms like McKinsey are hired
for a wide variety of reasons, and A.I. systems are used for many reasons,
too. But the similarities between McKinsey—a consulting firm that works with
ninety per cent of the Fortune 100—and A.I. are also clear. Social-media
companies use machine learning to keep users glued to their feeds. In a
similar way, Purdue Pharma used McKinsey to figure out how to “turbocharge”
sales of OxyContin during the opioid epidemic. Just as A.I. promises to
offer managers a cheap replacement for human workers, so McKinsey and
similar firms helped normalize the practice of mass layoffs as a way of
increasing stock prices and executive compensation, contributing to the
destruction of the middle class in America."
Via Rixty Dixet.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
