DeepMind Co-Founder: AI Is Fundamentally a "Labor Replacing Tool"
Gizmodo
World Economic Forum, Davos, CNBC Squawk Box (Suleyman was then CEO of Inflection AI)
“I think in the long-term — over many decades — we have to think very hard about how we integrate these tools, because left completely to the market... these are fundamentally labor-replacing tools”
Mustafa Suleyman17 January 2024- What you'll lose4/5
'Fundamentally labor-replacing tools'.
- Condescension0/5
Said with nuance.
- Tone-deafness2/5
Augmentation first, replacement later.
- Doom2/5
Over many decades, he stressed.
- Hypocrisy0/5
None.
Full time8 pitchforksof a possible 25
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The occasion
World Economic Forum, Davos, CNBC Squawk Box (Suleyman was then CEO of Inflection AI), 17 January 2024.
Context
Asked by CNBC whether AI would replace humans in the workplace in massive numbers, Suleyman, then CEO and co-founder of Inflection AI (Microsoft hired him in March 2024), said that in the long term the tools are labor replacing if left to the market, while for the next couple of decades they would "augment us and make us smarter and more productive". The wording is Business Insider's, reproduced on Yahoo; Fortune prints a version with an ellipsis.
Crowd reaction
Critical commentary
Gizmodo wrote that Suleyman "recently said the quiet part out loud when he admitted that AI is designed to steal jobs from humans" and that AI "is a technology that was made by and for the managers of the world"; PJ Media (right-leaning) headlined it "techno hell". Critical commentary; no mass outrage found.
- Business Insider (via Yahoo News): DeepMind's cofounder Mustafa Suleyman warns that AI is a 'fundamentally labor-replacing' tool
- Fortune: DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman warns AI is a ‘fundamentally labor replacing’ tool over the long term
- Gizmodo: DeepMind Co-Founder: AI Is Fundamentally a "Labor Replacing Tool"
- PJ Media: Techno-Hell: AI Is a ‘Labor Replacing Tool,’ Claims Tech Mogul
- Where the exact words are printed