AI threats to workers
June Zaccone
MIT Economist Daron Acemoğlu Takes on Big Tech: "Our Future Will Be Very Dystopian" The rich and powerful have hijacked progress throughout history, says Daron Acemoğlu. They did so back in the Middle Ages and also now in the age of artificial intelligence. In an interview, the MIT economist dives into the question of whether Silicon Valley is plunging humanity into destitution. https://www.spiegel.de/international/business/mit-economist-daron-acemoglu-takes-on-big-tech-our-future-will-be-very-dystopian-a-6b9feec3-2d8a-4916-8f3f-dd4401bff083?s Interview By Benjamin Bidder 28.08.2023
Acemoğlu: In the United States, for 40 years, we have had declines in the real earnings of workers without a college degree. The decline amounts to around a half a percentage point per year. This is an enormous amount. If nothing changes, AI is going to double down on that. AI might still become very useful for well-off citizens, knowledge workers and highly skilled employees. But it is not going to be good for most people on its current path.
"What concerns me, more than the disappearance of jobs, is the quality of the new ones in terms of working conditions, wages, autonomy, alienation, etc. What I fear is a world with millions of underpaid, ignorant, politically naive, isolated workers, stuck at home in front of their computers in both work and leisure time, producing goods and services they cannot afford to buy."
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