The development of artificial intelligence could be saving the information technology oligarchy, but if it continues on its current path, it may expedite our progress toward what virtual reality expert Rony Abovitz refers to as a “computational autocracy.” Large IT companies will benefit from a force multiplier in the form of the new opportunities presented by AI.

It would appear that Musk, Apple, Google, and Microsoft are already in a position to control the market.

However, the politics that are only beginning to emerge around AI are going to be murky. Even its creators, such as Sam Altman, CEO and chairman of OpenAI, the firm that created ChatGPT, have recently issued a warning about an ‘existential threat’ to the human race.

When AI develops into what is known as “artificial generalized intelligence,” machines that are ever more autonomous and “smarter than humans” will be able to handle more jobs without the input of humans. This could make the problem much more problematic.

Naturally, the majority of tech oligarchs themselves, such as Reid Hoffman, John Doerr, and a significant portion of the venture “community,” believe that AI has the potential to “save humanity.”

This is the position that has been adopted by the Financial Times, which suggests that a new boom is on the horizon that will be to humanity’s benefit, despite the fact that it will result in the loss of almost 300 million jobs.

Artificial intelligence has the potential to be extremely helpful in a wide variety of important sectors, including transportation, energy, space exploration, and corporate analytics, to name a few. However, its effect on the economy may not be very different from that of the revolution brought about by social media.

As an economist Robert Gordon,  at Northwestern University, points out, it has not significantly increased productivity, in contrast to the strides that have been made by items such as the invention of steam engines, jet propulsion, electricity, and nuclear power.

The most recent measures of even deeper drops in productivity do not lend credence to the idea that algorithms are helping firms become more efficient.

The fact that the technology oligarchy makes its huge money by generating ephemera is a significant contributor to the problem. Nvidia, the world’s foremost producer of artificial intelligence chips and the first semiconductor company to reach a market cap of one trillion dollars, has built much of its success on ventures that include video game development and cryptocurrency.

Titillation, Surveillance, and public ‘engagement’ are what the digital giants live on, not finding solutions to the problems that people actually face in the real world. AI has the potential to move them, and by extension, us, further along that path.

AI has the potential to become the heroin of the digital era, providing the masses with the highs of convenience and speed but without providing the majority of us with anything beneficial. In the meantime, the dealers, which include large tech companies and authoritarian governments, will continue to amass wealth and influence.

The present state of artificial intelligence seems to indicate that rather than being a blessing, it is likely to operate as an amplifier of force for things that are undesirable.

Because of its effectiveness in increasing social control, it is a favorite priority of the Chinese super-snooper regime, and technology companies are happy to sell their innovations to increase the surveillance state that is rapidly spreading in that country.

It’s possible that AI may make it easier for internet companies in the West to collect and use personal information in even more ubiquitous ways.

There have already been lawsuits filed in an effort to prevent artificial intelligence (AI) businesses from engaging in widespread personal data “scraping,” which is suspected of also including the data of youngsters, for the sake of their algorithms.

This is cause for concern given that we are already aware that the influence of social media on young adults has not been a favorable one.

Jonathan Haidt, an assistant professor of psychology at New York University, and Jean Twenge, at San Diego State University an associate professor of psychology, have revealed the remarkable psychological issues connected with the use of social media, especially among the young.

The use of AI is also likely to present a new political dilemma, particularly for progressives and the closest allies they have on their side.

As artificial intelligence continues to advance, the threat of humans being replaced by machines appears to be getting closer to being a reality. This includes the highly educated white-collar workers who now make up a significant portion of the Democratic base.

We could see disagreements comparable to the one that is currently taking place in Hollywood around the lowered earnings from streaming platforms, which is a primary cause of the current strike that is taking place in the entertainment business.

performers, writers, independent producers, and craft workers are among those who are concerned about the emergence of computer graphics driven by artificial intelligence (AI) that may artificially imitate the voices, mannerisms, and looks of performers.

And as some academics fear, artificial intelligence is going to wean itself off its need for items generated by humans and begin producing its own content based on machine-made data.