Elon Musk said, ‘Artificial intelligence and robots

“Elon Musk said, ‘Artificial intelligence and robots will replace all jobs,’ and Bill Gates said, ‘Most jobs won’t need humans.’

Let me ask you a simple question.

Without jobs and income, how can people support their families, get medical care, pay rent?”

This is the story of Bernie Sanders’ interview with the media a few days ago. It became a hot topic of conversation as it was shared by countless people. Bernie Sanders started to raise his voice on AI in earnest around mid-November. Since then, he has continued to pour out words of criticism like a waterfall. I wondered why he didn’t say anything about AI, but he began to make enthusiastic remarks as if he had been waiting.

“I will push for a pause on data center construction that encourages competition for unregulated AI development and deployment. These disruptions provide opportunities for democracy to keep up with technological advances, and also ensure that technological benefits go to all of us, not just the top 1 percent.”

Bernie Sanders, who has been a persistent critic of oligarchs, would be a natural step toward targeting big tech capital that monopolizes AI’s technological achievements. The problem is, except for this old-age politician, there are still few politicians in the U.S. who voice criticism. Let’s hear his voice for a moment.

“Since Trump’s election, Mark Zuckerberg has become $25 billion, Jeff Bezos has $36 billion, Larry Ellison has $78 billion, and Elon Musk has become $187 billion richer. Meanwhile, 60% of Americans are living tight, food and housing costs are skyrocketing, and AI is even getting rid of jobs.”

“In the next two years, AI data centers are expected to emit greenhouse gases equivalent to traveling more than 400 billion kilometers by car, in addition to causing a spike in electricity bills. This is equivalent to 1,600 round trips from Earth to the sun. Therefore, we need to temporarily stop building new AI data centers.”

“It’s not a question of whether AI is good or bad, it’s a question of who controls AI and who benefits from it.”

“Trump wants to loosen AI regulations and let the wealthiest people on the planet do what they want. It’s unacceptable. This will make a small number of chaebol richer, while costing millions of people their jobs and income. AI should improve our lives, not just make a small number of billionaires more powerful.”

“The biggest challenge facing humanity right now is whether artificial intelligence and robotics are designed to improve human life, or whether they will undermine democracy and privacy and make the wealthiest people on Earth richer and more powerful.”

“The oligarchs of tech giants will shell out hundreds of millions of dollars to unelect candidates who express concerns about artificial intelligence and robotics. That’s why we need to overturn the Citizens United ruling and publicly fund elections. We can’t let billionaires buy elections.”

“Pope Leo is right (that it is human nature to engage in creative work, not passively consuming AI content). “How can we ensure that AI development truly serves the public interest and is not only used for the accumulation of wealth and power for a small number of people?” We must demand that the benefits of this technology go for everyone, not just for the wealthy.”

Bernie Sanders’ words are worth listening to. I’m not blindly rejecting AI. I’m asking if the technology is beneficial to democracy and beneficial to everyone, not to a few rich people, and I’m arguing that it’s necessary to democratically control it.

The same is true in the United States, but I hope there will be more of this critical reflection and intelligence in Korea. I hope we will also look at how problematic the uncritical inertia of labor unions writing statements on behalf of AI, and environmental groups writing statements on AI, saying they are concerned about the environment.