Using fear to sell AI is a bad idea
Constant warnings about the technology’s power prime early users for disappointment.
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Fearmongering directed at tech products is not necessarily unhelpful, says the writer.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Elaine Moore
Eighteen months ago, I went to a party in San Francisco that was thrown to celebrate generative artificial intelligence (AI) as the next industrial revolution. The mood was cheerfully nihilistic. AI was about to demolish our way of life, said one partygoer. We were like farmers tending to our crops, unaware of the machinery that was on its way to chew us all up.
Safe to say, generative AI hasn’t chewed up much of anything yet. Accountants, designers, software engineers, film-makers, interpreters and all the other professions told to expect carnage are still in employment. Elections have not been stymied. The world is still turning. Those early warnings are starting to sound like a weird form of marketing.