Feeling Doubt

Reading the latest on why AI will save or end the world is fun as always. The latest wave of AI skepticism is the hot new trend, with doubters and experts lining up to remind everyone that maybe, just maybe, throwing billions at artificial intelligence won’t solve all humanity’s problems overnight (that is such a revelation). Even Sam Altman, usually AI’s hype-man-in-chief, is joining the doubters’ party, drawing comparisons between today’s AI mania and the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s, in case anyone missed the memo that bubbles eventually burst. Unclear why any of this is news to those old enough to have been sentient in the dot com times. Apparently, investors are so high on AI's transformative promises that they're teetering on the edge of “overenthusiasm” because nothing says sound judgment like chasing the newest shiny algorithm with more money than sense. But these same investors have made plenty of unwise bets over the years and have not proven to the most astute bunch. They have a known propensity to run towards shiny objects.

Naturally, the skeptics aren’t stopping at market bubbles. No, they’re warning of an apocalyptic fraud crisis, brought to you courtesy of AI-powered identity theft, where even world leaders are getting prank-called by robot voice clones. To tackle these mounting threats, Altman is championing “proof of human” technologies and urging society to panic responsibly while Silicon Valley tries to convince Congress that sensible regulations are just a silly and meritless way to slow down American tech companies. Meanwhile, public trust in AI companies’ ethical standards is taking a swan dive, and nobody actually agrees what “AGI” (artificial general intelligence) means anymore because vague buzzwords are so much easier to sell when you might not deliver anything remotely useful. Each of us has a benchmark test of what AGI is I think, depending of what kind of process and operational pain makes your live particularly miserable.

While all this chaos unfolds, we are meant not to worry, because apparently nobody really knows what the future holds, and predictions about AI’s impact on the economy or jobs are just educated guesses dressed up a visionary statements. The debate: is AI about to revolutionize everything, or will it become another case study in overhyped disappointment, like self-driving cars and internet stocks circa 2001? In the meantime, Altman and his fellow tech titans are rushing to open fancy offices in Washington, D.C., while the rest of us brace for a world filled with increasingly dubious AI-generated phone calls and “groundbreaking” model upgrades that seem to always arrive ever so conveniently just in time to keep the hype cycle spinning