The AI giveth and the AI taketh away

Read enough about AI and two givens emerge: it’s the most constructive thing to ever exist… and also the most destructive.

Here’s the latest on AI’s capricious ways.

Giveth: More money to those who haveth

Economist Yingying Lu sees one consensus forming about money in an AI age: inequality will increase.

Why?

• As AI replaces labor, the working class (and unions) hold less leverage.
• Capital-rich institutions, meanwhile, wield more power.

Further, governments’ power to redistribute wealth could diminish as labor reductions shrink tax bases.

Taketh away: The era of supersized companies

AI-driven automation reducing headcounts shouldn’t surprise you — it’s already happening.

But there’s another way AI could shrink company sizes: leading by example.

• Take OpenAI for instance: The ChatGPT maker shifted society with only ~375 employees. (Quite a different model from Meta’s ~66k-person workforce.)

Giveth: Improved vaccines

Baidu Research scientists developed an AI tool that can build more intricate mRNA structures, a development they expect will produce more potent vaccines with longer shelf lives.

The tool has only been tested for covid and shingles in mice so far, but antibody response has been encouraging.

Taketh away: Any doubt who America’s sweetheart truly is

Snoop Dogg isn’t an AI expert; he confirmed as much during a panel last week.

On investing in AI, the rapper said: “I’m like, are we in a fucking movie right now, or what? The fuck, man?… Shit, what the fuck? I’m lost. I don’t know.”

But give the man credit: He distills the feelings of this dizzying AI moment perfectly.