Photo: iStock/Andrey Suslov
It is staggering to think that, back in 1961, Brave New World novelist Aldous Huxley was worrying about the malign influence technology could have on human beings.
Huxley said that “technology was made for man and not man for technology”.
That was long before the information explosion which has brought us computers, the internet and mobile communication devices.
And before the advent of perhaps the most ominous piece of technology of all, artificial intelligence (AI).
Once the preserve of science fiction, AI has wormed its way into our daily lives in myriad ways, the most noticeable of which is ChatGPT, the generative AI platform capable of handling complex tasks on command.
It marked a tech landmark as AI started to transform the workplace.
Legal assistants, programmers, accountants and financial advisors – as well as writers and journalists – are among those professions that could be threatened by generative AI that can quickly create human-like prose, computer code, articles or expert insight.
Goldman Sachs analysts see generative AI impacting, if not eliminating, some 300 million jobs.
In our capitalist, profit-driven society, businesses will gravitate towards anything which can save them money … and the human cost will be low on the ladder of their priorities.
The threat of AI is as real as that of mechanisation was in the Industrial Revolution – but it will certainly have a far wider impact in a modern society driven by computing power, rather than muscle power.
Many people around the world are worrying about their future – and mental health professionals are seeing more cases of depression and other psychological maladies directly and indirectly linked to this fear.
Supporters of AI will argue that the history of humanity has been one of adapting to changing technology… but never before has a technology threatened to make people irrelevant.
It is time to worry.
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