this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2025
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193
The World Will Enter a 15-Year AI Dystopia in 2027, Former Google Exec Says (gizmodo.com)
submitted 3 days ago by artifex@piefed.social to c/technology@lemmy.world
43 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Somehow, AI is going to be responsible for both dystopia and utopia. But the good news is we have 18 months to get ready!

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[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 54 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Artificial intelligence was not developed to usher in a dystopia, in fact it had a rather utopic mission. By further automating mundane tasks, AI has the potential to ease the workload of millions of workers worldwide in every job and field, potentially giving them back their precious time of the day without sacrificing overall productivity.

Yeah, good luck with that.

In reality, everyone gets fired, the rich get richertge poor get poorer and 99.9% of humans will live in a dystopia, if AI doesn't kill us all.

Yet the AI bros go like "that won't happen to ME though!"

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 17 points 3 days ago

Every business that fires their employees and tries to replace them with AI ends up hilariously screwed over by it. It's not going to get to take over the world levels in 2 years.

Anyway I'm safe, the company I work for still use a software written in 1995 so I reckon I have until at least 2045 before they introduce any AI.

[–] HakunaHafada@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 3 days ago (1 children)

If we had a proper social safety net for all the displaced people, I'd be more open to it. But as things are now with rampant greed and a government for the corporations, fuck AI.

[–] badgermurphy@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I can't shake the feeling that all this talk of UBI and other social safety nets that are meant to support the majority of the populace after some notional post-work future society ignore a really big elephant in the room:

If most people are solely reliant on the good grace of a single entity, the government, for their whole means of survival, their entire existence is at the pleasure of that government. The populace becomes completely beholden to them, not the other way around.

The whole idea feels suspiciously like a trap set by bad actors with a long-term plan to steal the government from the governed.

[–] HakunaHafada@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I could see your argument if UBI was a recent concept (made by bad actors aimed at fixing today's problem in order to steal the government from the governed tomorrow), but the concept has been around for a while: wiki article.

[–] badgermurphy@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Its not so much of an argument as a concern. It puts an extreme amount of the country's economic activity directly in the hands of the government. We see globally that governments can quickly change their motivations.

The same rope that can be used to help people out of a hole can be used to tie them up.

[–] HakunaHafada@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 23 hours ago

Definitely a fair and valid concern, then; I suppose that will always be an inherent risk.

[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 45 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Yeah, well Google Execs also assured me that email would be replaced by Google Wave which has very good integration with the future of social media: Google Plus.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 9 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I found Google wave to be very cool; and given the workflow now, with chats and email messages mixing and docs flying around, I see where they predicted we were going: all day at work.

They didn't give it time.

[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

Yeah, I thought it was a neat collaboration tool. I don't think it would replace e-mail (way too complicated for grandma), but it was fun to use while it lasted

[–] BD89@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 days ago

And as soon as it did they would have just killed it and split every single feature into different apps and then kill those too.

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 30 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Oh he means a dystopia that is even worse than the one we are in now. 😬

[–] turtlesareneat@discuss.online 10 points 3 days ago

I hope they tell us when it starts because I won't notice otherwise

[–] MyOpinion@lemmy.today 27 points 3 days ago (1 children)

We are already living in the worst timeline I am sure it will continue to turn to shit.

[–] ripcord@lemmy.world 14 points 3 days ago (2 children)

This "timeline" stuff is weird. It seems like a cop-out that there is some alternative one we could shift to that is out of reach but we're just unlucky or something.

This isn't the worst or best timeline. It is just what is happening.

[–] EnsignWashout@startrek.website 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

We can take action. We can grab the die that Joel McHale has tossed into the air.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I'd love to know what random event in history could have been changed in order to prevent this sequence of events because as far as I can tell this timeline is the result of fairly logical consequences.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

People will try to tell you it's related to Harambe (dicks out).

My guess: that time a bird dropped a baguette on the Large Hadron Collider...

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/nov/06/cern-big-bang-goes-phu

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 3 days ago

First, I'm pretty sure quantum theory literally allows for what you just described (aside from the "shifting" part, though I'm not sure I agree that's part of the expression).

Second, it's just a way for people to try to cope with the horrors of our reality with a little levity. That's it.

[–] griff@lemmings.world 27 points 3 days ago (2 children)

so the current dystopia doesn’t count?

[–] balder1991@lemmy.world 22 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

If you think about it, the majority of the world population never knew anything different than dystopia.

In a sense, the article is tailored to a certain public that has a reasonably good life now and is naturally afraid to lose it.

But the truth is the world is (and always has been) very shitty for the majority of people on the planet when you consider the distribution of wealth.

I think it’s important to think about who are the winners and losers in this whole thing. Are these execs so altruist that they’re worried about the average person or is this doom prediction something that serves their agenda?

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 10 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

With Sam Altman the "OMG I'm so scared that we're building something terrifyingly powerful" pose is basically marketing and hype. Probably the same with all these other AI execs.

[–] artifex@piefed.social 6 points 3 days ago

it's just practice.

[–] etchinghillside@reddthat.com 19 points 3 days ago (3 children)

So…. What’s the plan for the next 18 months?

[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 12 points 3 days ago

Prediction: Dude will have a book out about how to survive it in the next 12. Or he's aiming to receive a bonus from someone he knows who's already writing one.

[–] snoons@lemmy.ca 10 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Attempt to start a commune in the forest?

[–] tourist@lemmy.world 16 points 3 days ago (1 children)

sorry you're illegally trespassing on corporate property

[–] Peter_Arbeitslos@feddit.org 6 points 3 days ago (2 children)

sorry now it's community property

[–] zarathustra0@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

Make sure you enclose it so they know that they're not part of the community.

[–] phonics@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

i feel like this is more of an inevitability. at one point we are going to be looking at law. and how absurd it is and how ita being broken by actual governments and big tech and be like you know what...fuck it. we ball. and suddenly we are the wild west again where no one gives a shit what the big man says because he is full of shit. and we just do whatever the fuck we want. sadly, i suspect guns are gonna play a big part on both sides.

[–] artifex@piefed.social 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I'm down. We should invite some of the solarpunk instance guys.

[–] mysticmartz@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

And the steampunk guys to keep them on their toes haha

[–] meeeeetch@lemmy.world 9 points 3 days ago

Their plan? Bring it about so that Rocko's Modern Basilisk can torture the unbelievers (as if hearing their inchoate speculation about what the-computer-that-can't-even-do-math-consistently will one day be able to do isn't already torment enough).

These dumbasses have reinvented premillennial dispensationalism.

For the rest of us, I guess Butlerian Jihad is always an option.

[–] DeathToUS@lemmy.world 18 points 3 days ago (1 children)

So the US will enter not the rest of the world Jesus the arrogance when us media talks like every country = US.

[–] Texas_Hangover@lemmy.radio 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Lol, you think the rest of the world won't be fucked as well?

[–] DeathToUS@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

It won't unless their laws are made in the imperialist nation which isn't.

[–] HertzDentalBar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Rich, coming from someone responsible for it.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 3 days ago

How do you think he knows so much about it

[–] squaresinger@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

It's an "Einstein and the nuclear bomb" situation.

[–] dinckelman@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The most honest Google exec

[–] artifex@piefed.social 4 points 3 days ago

ex- google exec

[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

It will be a cakewalk compared to the thousands of years of climate dystopia.

[–] Keyboard@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

I really don’t believe