Man who 'predicted Covid' and 2008 financial crash issues haunting warning about AI to world leaders
Someone needs to have a word with experts and psychics because the predictions we get for the future never seem to be good.
Although some might argue that part of the joy of life is venturing into the unknown, others seem desperate to know exactly what's going to happen in the future, which is why the likes of Baba Vanga and Nostradamus became so famous.
Sadly, their predictions are rarely positive and the same can be said about knowledgeable journalist Robert Peston, who already has the Coronavirus pandemic and the 2008 financial crash under his belt as correct predictions.
HIs next focus appears to be on the rapid growth of artificial intelligence, as like many others, he seems to be incredibly worried about AI's potential to displace an 'incredibly large numbers of jobs'.
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Speaking about his new book 'The Kill Switch' which focuses on the dangers of the technology, Peston argued that political leaders should be debating AI 'more than anything else'.
He said: “The thing that upsets me most is that this should be the stuff that we’re all debating. This should be the stuff that our leaders should be talking about more than anything else. And they’re not.”
Since it is widely accepted that AI has already eliminated a lot of jobs and will continue to do so as the technology advances and companies seek a cheaper alternative to human workers, Peston raises the vital question about how governments can fund public services without any sort of income tax.
The 66-year-old also drew comparisons with his previous predictions, suggesting that governments have repeatedly failed to prepare for low-probability, high-impact events despite often having some clear warning signs.
“We had the global financial crisis… We had another low-probability catastrophic event in Covid, which again we didn’t prepare for,” he said, arguing AI requires the same level of urgent planning before things are too late.
Pointing out how his previous forecasts were dismissed at the time, Peston told the Radio Times: "In the spring and summer of 2007 I was warning that what was happening in the banking sector was going to cause enormous harm to us all, and lots of politicians and people in the city wrote to the BBC to say I was scaremongering and needed to be closed down.
"A few years later, I’d made a ton of documentaries about China, and knew it well, and had been to Wuhan.
"So when this mysterious new virus turned up at the end of 2019, I said to anyone in government who would listen to me, 'This looks serious'."
His fears aren't just limited to AI however, although it will likely be a factor in any likely future financial crash, which could be even worse than the one we saw back in 2008 according to Peston.
Peston said: "I am genuinely anxious that we’re going to get a serious financial crash, globally, in the next year or two, because there is the most astonishing amount of money going into building the data centres and power plants for AI, and as we saw when SpaceX floated on the stock exchange, a late-1920s degree of breathless excitement on the markets."
Much like Peston's book The Kill Switch, the godfather of AI has suggested that all new models of artificial intelligence should be implemented with a maternal instinct of care towards humanity, since there are very few examples in nature of such a powerful and intelligent thing being subservient towards something that is becoming increasingly reliant on it, other than a mother looking after her baby.
Topics: Artificial Intelligence
James Moorhouse