Big Tech is Going to End Humanity, They Said. Then They Raised Hundreds Billions of Dollars Building It as Fast As They Can.

Comedy Central’s The Daily Show (hosted by Jon Stewart) created strong reactions online recently, when clips of the show’s AI breakdowns spread widely across social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, resulting in thousands of reactions, shares, and comments debating AI existential risks versus practical corporate applications.

Stewart started the show by making  comments about how President Trump recently called all the biggest AI leaders to the White House to finally address the concerns of the American people. 

Stewart made a parody out of how President Trump used to be always clear on his views of the tech ‘elites’. Stewart proceeded to show clips of how Trump called them tyrants and crooks and totally dishonest and ‘the enemy of the people.’ But then President Trump made a surprising about-turn, (after “they gave him millions of dollars” — according to the show) and announced: “They are going to police themselves; it’s going to work out very well! … We have the smartest people watching over each other… These are seriously high-IQ people.”  

On the show, Jon Stewart joked about the predictions that the CEOs of the big tech companies made in the recent past and then he asked some serious questions on the advancement of AI:

JS: “What is the likely outcome of the deployment of this technology?”

Dario Amodei (Anthropic): 

“Life is going to get better. The quality of  human experience is going to get better.”

Demis Hassabis (Google Deepmind):

“It will almost make us a little bit superhuman, in some ways, and it's gonna be kind of, like a kind of golden era.”

Sam Altman (Open AI): 

“ I think AI is going to probably, like most likely, sort of … lead to the end of the world.”

Mark Zuckerberg (Meta): 

“The world is going to be a lot  funnier.”

JS: “How big is the chance of it leading to the end of the world?”

Benjamin Mann (co-founder Anthropic)

“Somewhere between 0-10%”

Elon Musk:

“10 or 20%”

Dario Amodei: 

“25%”

JS: “Why can’t we slow this down rather than let people regulate something they have a clear conflict of interest in regulating?”

Senator Ted Cruz: 

"If there are going to be killer robots, I’d rather they be American killer robots and not Chinese killer robots."

JS: “What are we getting in exchange for this 10-25% chance of extinction?”

Clips of their answers to this question showed to be: 

“Access to high quality healthcare, education and more,”

“Addressing climate change.”

“Eliminating poverty.”

“Solving diseases and curing cancers and Alzheimer’s.”

“Universal high income to the people.”

JS: "When's that happening?”

“One day.”

“Some day, and it will be soon”

“Some day. In the future.”

JS: “What are we using AI for now?”

Clips showed: 

Swarms of AI-powered drones; facial recognition; spread of disinformation; weapons; targeting operations; mass surveillance systems, cyber attacks; raised prices. 

JS: “What a trade! Final test: An answer to a straight forward question: Jobs—will we still have them?”

Musk: 

“Not the same jobs.”

Altman: 

“Some jobs will go away, there will be new, better jobs.”

JS: “Like what are the new, better jobs?”

Altman: 

“They are difficult to imagine as we sit here and dream about what the future is going to look like.”

Jensen Huang (Nvidia): 

“We’re going to see jobs change en masse. I believe there’s going to be a net creation of jobs … Like there’s a whole bunch of industries that exist today that did not exist halfway through my life! Like… people are talking about wellness centers and spas…”

Musk:

 “If you wanna do a job, like it’s gonna be a hobby, then you can do a job.”

The Conclusion the Show Comes To:

JS: “The view of our ‘self-policing geniuses’ is that the new world that we are building must continue without regulation or financial limitations, because it is ‘important work’ carried out by ‘important people.’ And my guess is they’ll still have jobs when this is done. This technology is the natural outcome of a capitalist system that rewards progress and innovation and you’re never going to believe where this leads…  we allow them to do enough unfettered capitalism, we are going to capitalism our way to socialism. 

“One last question: Why wait? If $50 trillion gets us to a future where the government has enough to give people money, why not give us the 50trillion dollars now? Call us early adopters (not welfare queens.) STOP LYING TO US!”

At the end of the episode, the AI rollout is parodied by featuring a cute, cuddly animated avatar named Jolly (representing Meta's Muse AI agent.) Jon Stewart interviewed and argued with the cutesy, deceptively innocent avatar of the AI, which was then portrayed as having a sinister, overarching presence threatening data privacy and digital autonomy. Showing how we are being duped and also distracted by our busy schedules, cute toys and applications and our hypnotised acceptance by handing over all our information. 

Conclusion

Silicon Valley has a massive credibility problem. Overall the show leaves one with a feeling of incredulity at the ignorance of what is being created; disbelief and shock at our ignorance and what we are actually allowing to happen. More people need to shout at Silicon Valley:  “Stop Lying To Us!”

Serious, urgent, knowledgeable discussions need to happen about the consequences of the future we are heading toward.

Watch the full show here: 

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Next week:

Big Tech’s Response To Jon Stewart's Comments.