Sunday, October 29, 2023

"AI is the 'biggest challenge of our times' and humanity could be replaced by machines in 5 years, Henry Kissinger says"

This is the sort of media conglomerate domination that Disney was going for before the mouse went all ookey.* Ditto for TimeWarner.

From Business Insider, October 24:

  • Henry Kissinger described artificial intelligence as the "biggest challenge of our times."
  • Machines, Kissinger said, could replace humans in the next five years.
  • AI threatens to replace humans in some jobs, particularly white-collar ones, Insider reported. 

Henry Kissinger described artificial intelligence as the "biggest challenge of our times," predicting that humanity could be replaced by machines in the next five years.

The former top diplomat made the comments to Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer. A video of the conversation was published by Welt TV, part of Germany's Die Welt newspaper.

Axel Springer is the parent company of both Insider and Die Welt.

Since the release of OpenAI's ChatGPT in November 2022, the potential of AI has loomed large, threatening to replace humans in some jobs, particularly white-collar ones, Insider previously reported.

Jobs in technology, media, law, market research analysis, education, trade, graphic design, accounting, and customer service are among those most at risk of being replaced by AI, experts previously told Insider.

Kissinger, who is 100, said he was concerned AI could become so powerful in the long run that it leads to the sci-fi-esque outcome of humans serving machines — not the other way around.

"I think it can be avoided, but only by understanding the essence of this intelligence, which will also be able to generate its own point of view," he said.

Kissinger co-wrote a book on artificial intelligence, "The Age of AI and Our Human Future," in which he, along with former Google CEO Eric Schmitt and computer scientist Daniel Huttenlocher, explored how AI may change our relationships with knowledge, politics, and society....

*Ookey = technical term used by only the most seasoned media observers.

Possibly related, June 23: Media: "German tabloid Bild cuts 200 jobs and says some roles will be replaced by AI"

We've been watching this for years. Here's the intro to 2016's "The automation of creativity: scary but inevitable"

First they came for the journalists and I did not speak out-
Because I was not a journalist.

Then they came for the ad agency creatives and I did not speak out-
Because I was not an ad agency creative. (see below)

Then they came for the financial analysts and I
said 'hang on one effin minute'.

And as noted in the outro from May 11's "On European Central Banking There's A New Go-To: Izabella Kaminska And Politico.eu Are Rolling Out A Dedicated Team

...This is a gigantic canvas to paint on but fortunately for Ms. Kaminska, Axel Springer, Politico's parent, have been working on AI use cases for a while now, which is going to be key to the roll-out of Augmented Robo-Izzy. I picture something like depictions of Lakshmi, the Hindu Goddess of prosperity—also wealth, power etc., with her multiple arms for old-school multi-tasking.