AI: The Good, Bad, and Ugly - What's the RIGHT WAY to USE AI?

An interview with Richard D. Wolff, economist and author:

"Suppose that people like you, your listeners and me were in charge of this company and we heard about AI. Here’s what we would do. We would go and we would say, 'Yes, we want the AI. Please install it right over there and this is wonderful and how are we going to handle it?'

"Here’s how we’re going to do it. All of you workers, we get the 100 workers we’ve had there for a long time together and we say we have fantastic news for you. We have this new system, this AI, we’ve just installed it. And so now from each and every one of you, we will only need four hours a day of your time and energy instead of eight. Why? Well, with AI in four hours we’ll get just the same output as before. We’ll sell it as we did. We’ll earn the same money because we’ll charge the same price and I’ll make whatever profit I’ve been making all along again. But the benefit of the AI will be in the transformed lives of 100 families whose breadwinners just got half time off with no change in pay. Is that possible? Yes. Does that happen? You bet.

"Is that an option for us? Absolutely. And what would it mean? It would mean that a new invention like AI is actually helping the majority of people who are employees instead of the owner of the business who is an employer. According to the United States Census, 3 percent of Americans are employers. The other 97 percent are not. So how do we use technology in our capitalist system to make more profits for the people already earning profits? Those are 3 percent. What’s my alternative? Using the new technology, taking advantage of it, but to bring leisure. Imagine if you had four hours a day of your life offered to you. You can now use them for your passions, for your family, to learn new skills, to go back to school, whatever it is that attracts you. Your families would be stronger. Your community would have much more of your mental and physical contributions because you were only working for ... That would be a way and think also that it would change the history of every country.

"Instead of making working people worried sick about these new technologies, the way Americans are getting themselves worried sick about how secure their job is or isn’t with AI. Instead of all that skepticism and that hostility and that opposition, workers would be at the forefront of wanting these breakthroughs because it would help their lives."

https://betweenthelinesradionews.substack.com/publish/post/202352558

#AI #RightWaytoDoAI #rightAI

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1) William D. Hartung, Senior Research Fellow, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft -- and author, with Ben Freeman of "The Trillion Dollar War Machine: How Runaway Military Spending Drives America Into Foreign Wars and Bankrupts Us At Home," discusses his recent Nation magazine article, "The Pentagon Is Going “AI First,” and issues related to growing concern about the unregulated military applications of AI.

2) Jennifer Loewenstein, former associate director of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, assesses the announcement that the US and Iran reached an initial agreement to open the Strait of Hormuz and further extend a shaky ceasefire in the Iran war, how Israel's ongoing attacks and invasion of Lebanon could derail this peace deal, and the lasting impact of Donald Trump's war will impact America's standing in the world.

3) David Schultz, Distinguished University Professor, Winston Folkers Endowed Distinguished Faculty Chair at Hamline University, talks about his recent commentary, "What is Wrong With the American Left: the Abandonment of Class," issues related to extending democracy into the economy and how this debate should relate to U.S. electoral politics.

4) Dulce Guzmán, Executive Director of Alianza Americas, discusses her group's opposition to the recent congressional authorization of $70 billion for the Dept. of Homeland Security to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, without any reforms or restrictions. She'll focus on Alianza America's call on "elected officials to reject the expansion of a system that spreads fear, destabilizes families, and undermines trust in public institutions," and what can be done now to mitigate the harm ICE agents will inflict across the U.S. with their new funding.

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