Whatâs your favorite AI nightmare? [Bloomberg](
This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a Luddite uprising against Bloomberg Opinionâs opinions. On Sundays, we look at the major themes of the week past and how they will define the week ahead. Sign up for the daily newsletter [here](. [Paranoid Android]( So, whatâs your favorite AI nightmare? Not in real life â we arenât there yet â but on the big screen? Most peoplesâ [knee-jerk answer]( of course is Daveâs incompetent doorman: Equally obvious if more forgettable is A.I. Artificial Intelligence, a [hot mess]( begun by Stanley Kubrick (creator of HAL 9000, pictured above) and completed out of misguided loyalty by Steven Spielberg. Others may cite Tron, both the awesomely cheesy [Gen X one]( and Gen Zâs [lame reboot](, to the extent that there is a [sketchy]( blockchain platform that stole the name. The Westworld [reboot]( is better, even if it doesnât quite measure up to Michael Crichtonâs 1973 [original]( (Disclosure: My wife has a thing for Yul Brynner.) And as my loyal readers [know](, I would gladly spend the rest of my short life [trapped in a glass box]( for just one [brief chat]( with her: We could go on forever, from the hopelessly kitschy (Loganâs Run, The Stepford Wives, Silent Running) to the cleverly dystopian (Alphaville, Blade Runner, Alien) to the tiresome action-hero franchises (The Terminator, The Matrix, Resident Evil).[1](#footnote-1) But for my money, the best film AI portrayal is the oldest one: What makes [Fritz Langâs Metropolis]( (1927) astonishing isnât just that itâs a century ahead of its time or that it somehow manages to make the Uniting of the Workers of the World entertaining, but that it involves a clever AI double game. The plot revolves around Maria, a sort of Joan of Arc of the proletariat, and her evil doppelganger, a robotic Maria created by greedy industrialists to control the means of production. But, natch, this Maschinenmensch isnât going to obey its masters any better than Hal 9000, and sets out to destroy the masses, the bosses and the Metropolis itself. My own double game here is to make this tour of cinematic sentience relevant to my Bloombergian audience. So letâs start where we usually do, with economics. Will AI be a Saintly Maria bringing efficiency and prosperity to all? Or a Robot Maria bent on burning the economy down â not through frenzied Luddism, but through an even more insidious instrument: the Fed. âAs improvements in artificial intelligence continue apace, so do questions about how AI will influence economies, asset prices and â [the question]( of [the moment]( â interest rates: Is AI more likely to make them go up or down?â [asks]( Tyler Cowen. âI have a bold prediction: Real inflation-adjusted rates will go up, and for a considerable period of time.â How considerable? âAt least for several decades, until AI-driven progress creates more wealth to replenish stocks of savings, lowering real rates once again.â This differs greatly from his [outlook in January]( that Saintly Maria would prevail, with AI becoming the biggest and best thing since Gutenberg: Over the past year and a half, I have argued that AI will improve [education](, boost [productivity](, enrich [the internet](, make [markets more stable]( and [land more valuable](, accelerate the pace of [scientific progress]( and increase [social trust]( â¦Â Iâm a big fan of the printing press. Nonetheless, I recognize that our ancestors could have managed its consequences far, far better than they did. The rise of AI gives us another chance to get it right. How we respond to any new technology is just as important as what any new technology does. If that makes me sound like an optimist, well â guilty as charged. It seems like most Americans would find him guilty of over-optimism, anyway. Put more graphically: And while all humanity benefited immeasurably from the printing press, Tyler wrote last week, perhaps the best we can expect from AI short-term is âa boom in the moving-van sector.â One doubts Saintly Maria led her childrenâs crusade on behalf of Two Men and a Truck.[2](#footnote-2) AI may bring change to another transportation sector as well. Consider this [question from]( Jonathan Levin: âHow would you feel about artificial intelligence setting your insurance premiums thereby determining the price you pay based on, potentially, millions of inputs collected from social media, your spending history and technology embedded in your home and car?â Um, not good? My auto insurer [offers a discount]( if Iâm willing to put some sort of Big Brother app in my phone to monitor my driving habits. Since data along the lines of âheâs headed back to Dunkinâ for another sausage, egg and cheese [breakfast empanada](â isnât likely to bring those rates down, but could get my life insurance canceled, Iâve taken a pass. Jonathan has different, less self-absorbed thoughts than mine. âFirst, thereâs the issue of [data-driven bias](, a long-standing problem in insurance that predates the recent flurry of AI excitement,â he writes. âSeveral [studies have shown]( that the use of credit scores in underwriting car insurance has tended to push premiums higher for people of color, even after holding driving history constant ... Now, AIâs proliferation could bring a plethora of additional variables into the process, including social media posts, purchasing habits and higher-frequency location data. In a worst-case scenario, AI could mean data-driven bias on steroids.â While Jonathan is worried about bias against Black and Hispanic Americans, Paul J. Davies sees the plight of a less-oppressed group : bankers. âWhat if AI in the hands of bank customers automates the dull work of shopping for the best rates on simple financial products at irresistible speeds?â he [asks](. âIt probably wonât be long before generative AI bots can look after our money with utmost efficiency. Great for customers, but not so much for banks.â Sounds great â high-interest savings accounts all around! Or maybe not. âBanks will hate this and fight it every step of the way. And if banksâ funding and assets can appear and disappear minute-to-minute, depending on small changes in rates, that will likely be highly destabilizing for individual lenders and the entire system,â Paul writes. âThe collapse of four US regional banks and Credit Suisse last year showed just how fast a run can happen in a world of social media and effortless online withdrawals â¦Â AI bots constantly moving money for the best rate could kill a bank entirely by accident without anyone having queried its safety.â Chalk another one up for Robot Maria. Bonus [Robot Man]( Reading and Listening: - Giving Intel $20 Billion [Exposes]( American Weakness â Karl W. Smith
- Accountants [Can Use the Help]( Provided By AIâ Romesh Ratnesar
- Reddit to the Moon [Wonât Launch]( an IPO Boom â Paul J. Davies [Whatâs the World Got in Store](? April 3: ADP employment change - Gavin Newsom's Minimum-Wage Law [Is Half-Baked](â The Editors April 4: US trade balance -  The US and Mexico [Need Couples Therapy]( â Juan Pablo Spinetto April 5: US unemployment -  Polls [Donât Tell You]( Michigan's Rebound Began With Biden â Matthew A. Winkler [One More Robot]( Imaginative treatment of AIâs potential isnât limited to movies of course, and as usual, Niall Ferguson leans toward the literary. âThe novelist Neal Stephensonâs prophetic power never ceases to astonish. The Diamond Age (1995), is set in a technologically highly advanced world, with ubiquitous nanotechnology in addition to something strangely familiar called âP.I.â,â Niall [writes](. âThere is an important warning here for everyone giddy with the recent advances of generative AI. Breathtaking developments in the realm of technology do not render history obsolete. It lives on alongside the latest gadgetry, because the present is not where history ends and the future begins; it is where the past and the future fuse.â That future looks grim. More Niall: - With the advent of artificial general intelligence, even more radical outcomes are imaginable, in which it could cease to make sense to employ humans in most roles, including even enterprise leadership.
- Technological change has a long history of causing political controversy and social disruption, but organized resistance has rarely succeeded in preventing adoption.Â
- A key concern is that AI still âhallucinatesâ (i.e., makes stuff up) much more than humans do. The real determinant of market adoption is what AI can do with human-or-better reliability. And to come full circle, âAGI is the stuff of science fiction (think of HAL 9000 in Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey),â Niall writes. âThat does not mean it cannot become fact, like the nanotechnology and talking books of The Diamond Age.â Which makes one wonder, is it the beginning of the end, or the Dawn of Man? Notes: Please send breakfast empanadas and feedback to Tobin Harshaw at tharshaw@bloomberg.net. [1] Another worth watching that doesn't fit into any of these pigeon holes is the animated [Big Hero 6](, which was responsible for the only time I've cried on airplane. [2] Apologies here to my [elder brother](, who owns a bunch of Two Men franchises in the foothills of the Rockies. Follow Us Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. Before itâs here, itâs on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals canât find anywhere else. [Learn more](. Want to sponsor this newsletter? [Get in touch here](. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Opinion Today newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, [sign up here]( to get it in your inbox.
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