Lauren Weinstein on Nostr: This is the script of my national radio report yesterday on the major risks ...
This is the script of my national radio report yesterday on the major risks associated with the "AI Agents" that Big Tech is now pushing on consumers. As always, there may have been a few minor wording changes from this script as I presented this report live on air.
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Yeah, so obviously we've spoken quite a few times about various aspects of AI -- so called but not really artificial intelligence. Both the positive applications, for example to name just one, in some aspects of medical diagnostics where large amounts of data need to be analyzed, and also in the many and growing negative aspects.
And we know these negative aspects mostly relate right now to what is called generative #AI, and include services like Google's frequently completely wrong or misleading or partly wrong Search AI Overviews, where the #Google disclaimer says that the answers can be wrong and essentially that you're on your own. And then there are the AI Chatbots that have been embroiled in all kinds of problems and used in scams and involved in other controversies even in the relatively short time they've been around.
This is all as the Big Tech firms keep pushing out various mediocre at best types of AI technologies. They're in a desperate search for a way to somehow make a profit from the incredibly massive financial investments they've made in these AI systems and the related data centers that are sucking up enormous amount of energy to keep these largely intrusive AI systems going.
And you might have thought to yourself, well, at least it can't really get any worse. And I'm here to say, oh my, it can get a LOT worse -- you ain't seen nuthin' yet in terms of worse. One example currently is the push by Google and various other Big Tech firms to convince you to use what are called "AI Agents". And what is an AI Agent you might ask?
Well, the idea is that these go a giant step further into invading your life beyond what the other AI systems have been doing to this point, by actually taking control of your web browser and acting on your behalf to find and do Internet stuff for you. In other words, the AI Agent takes over, and pretends to be you doing various searches and clicks on websites and gathering information, and then all you have to do is enter payment information to pay for whatever goodies, maybe products, plane flights, whatever the AI Agent has found for you. Ultimately we can suspect that the concept will be that the AI Agents would routinely actually make the purchases themselves, with your money of course.
And yeah, it doesn't take a lot of imagination to see how this could go horribly wrong in terms error prone AIs interacting with sites when you're the one who will be held responsible for those actions. Because there's no evidence so far that I've seen that the AI firms are willing to take responsibility for their AI agents' actions. And then we need to consider what would happen if these AI agents are hacked, or your computer is hacked in a way that permits hackers to manipulate the AI agents and do who knows what from your computer, where again, you're the one who will likely be held responsible for everything that happens.
Consumer use of AI agents isn't likely to be mandatory -- at least for now -- but you can be sure that the AI firms are going to be hyping this tech to the ends of the Earth, and doing everything possible to rope you into using the agents.
It's important to understand what's really going on. Remember, these firms have in significant respects placed almost or in some cases perhaps virtually ALL of their bets on AI. They are pouring money, untold billions of dollars, into this technology that of course nobody really asked for. And they are in key respects in an existential panic now because their business models depend on making as many individuals and businesses as possible dependent on these AI systems for as much as possible in their daily lives.
And whether you want to call that an offer or a trap, it's not something that I personally have any interest in participating with, and perhaps, though the choice is of course yours, maybe neither should you.
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L
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Yeah, so obviously we've spoken quite a few times about various aspects of AI -- so called but not really artificial intelligence. Both the positive applications, for example to name just one, in some aspects of medical diagnostics where large amounts of data need to be analyzed, and also in the many and growing negative aspects.
And we know these negative aspects mostly relate right now to what is called generative #AI, and include services like Google's frequently completely wrong or misleading or partly wrong Search AI Overviews, where the #Google disclaimer says that the answers can be wrong and essentially that you're on your own. And then there are the AI Chatbots that have been embroiled in all kinds of problems and used in scams and involved in other controversies even in the relatively short time they've been around.
This is all as the Big Tech firms keep pushing out various mediocre at best types of AI technologies. They're in a desperate search for a way to somehow make a profit from the incredibly massive financial investments they've made in these AI systems and the related data centers that are sucking up enormous amount of energy to keep these largely intrusive AI systems going.
And you might have thought to yourself, well, at least it can't really get any worse. And I'm here to say, oh my, it can get a LOT worse -- you ain't seen nuthin' yet in terms of worse. One example currently is the push by Google and various other Big Tech firms to convince you to use what are called "AI Agents". And what is an AI Agent you might ask?
Well, the idea is that these go a giant step further into invading your life beyond what the other AI systems have been doing to this point, by actually taking control of your web browser and acting on your behalf to find and do Internet stuff for you. In other words, the AI Agent takes over, and pretends to be you doing various searches and clicks on websites and gathering information, and then all you have to do is enter payment information to pay for whatever goodies, maybe products, plane flights, whatever the AI Agent has found for you. Ultimately we can suspect that the concept will be that the AI Agents would routinely actually make the purchases themselves, with your money of course.
And yeah, it doesn't take a lot of imagination to see how this could go horribly wrong in terms error prone AIs interacting with sites when you're the one who will be held responsible for those actions. Because there's no evidence so far that I've seen that the AI firms are willing to take responsibility for their AI agents' actions. And then we need to consider what would happen if these AI agents are hacked, or your computer is hacked in a way that permits hackers to manipulate the AI agents and do who knows what from your computer, where again, you're the one who will likely be held responsible for everything that happens.
Consumer use of AI agents isn't likely to be mandatory -- at least for now -- but you can be sure that the AI firms are going to be hyping this tech to the ends of the Earth, and doing everything possible to rope you into using the agents.
It's important to understand what's really going on. Remember, these firms have in significant respects placed almost or in some cases perhaps virtually ALL of their bets on AI. They are pouring money, untold billions of dollars, into this technology that of course nobody really asked for. And they are in key respects in an existential panic now because their business models depend on making as many individuals and businesses as possible dependent on these AI systems for as much as possible in their daily lives.
And whether you want to call that an offer or a trap, it's not something that I personally have any interest in participating with, and perhaps, though the choice is of course yours, maybe neither should you.
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L