AI Will Make Rich Richer And Poor Poorer, Says Former Microsoft And Google Executive

Artificial Intelligence is the real deal in today’s tech world. Whether AI will be a boon or a bane remains debatable for a long time now.

In the recent Artificial Intelligence 2018 Conference held in San Fransisco, Kai-Fu Lee, a former executive at Microsoft and Google, has said that the AI will widen the gap between the rich and poor. According to him, the rapid pace with which we are making advancements in AI will pose a threat to the jobs of those who are working at lower levels.

Kai-Fu Lee is actively working as an investor and has presided the business operations of Google and Microsoft. He has also worked at Apple for quite a long time. Lee is an artificial intelligence expert and has published a book named “AI Superpowers, China, Silicon Valley and The New World Order” discussing the positives and negatives of AI.

“I think AI will exacerbate wealth and inequality…at the very bottom rank are the people, many of whose jobs will be replaced because they’re routine and AI will do their jobs for them, so it’s actually having a doubling effect on giving more wealth to the wealthiest, creating new AI tycoons at the same time taking away from the poorest of society.”

He predicted the future by the fact that developments in the field of AI require money, data, and research which only a few companies can afford at the moment. His comments are in line with the words said by Meredith Whittaker who is a well known AI ethicist. Meredith said that there are only 7 companies in the world who can develop AI at a massive scale.

Lee emphasized that it is the monopoly of big players in the tech industry to make unscalable developments in the field of AI that would lead to loss of jobs for poor and the companies would save massively by not spending on human labor, as reported by The Business Insider.

The conference was held to celebrate AI and to put forward the changes it can bring in the lives of people. Of course, Lee’s comments hinted at the cons of the intelligence demonstrated by machines and were not taken well by the audience. Tim O’ Reilly, who is the owner of O’Reilly Media, the company that organized the conference, opposed Lee and said that he believes that the technology would empower the poor.

After Lee’s comments, the audience attending the conference asked him the possible solutions to evade the issue.

In the response, he said “Many of us hate to see that, but Bill Gates talked about the robot tax. I think more seriously what he means is a very high tax for very highly profitable companies. Some people talk about universal basic income. I actually think that it’s a very flawed idea but it’s a very good start.”

What do you think AI has in store for the poor? Express your views in the comment section and keep reading at fossbytes.com.