The human cost of AI doesn't matter to Microsoft

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

AI could be a beacon of innovation, but companies are only seeking profit.



Artificial intelligence has been a topic of much dissent and debate for many years now, with continued investment in the sector leading to more advanced AI technologies. Today, AI is more mainstream than ever before, with dozens of companies looking to openly implement AI into their products. Recently, Microsoft has made huge commitments to the up-and-coming OpenAI platform, sparking a new round of continued discussion across the industry, alongside new innovations and AI-powered features.

For some, AI is even a beacon of hope for a future where the value of human life isn't directly connected to their level of productivity. It's irrefutable that AI has the potential to drastically improve human society by tackling certain tasks more quickly, freeing up resources, and generally making our lives easier. We were able to create a fancy header for this article using AI very rapidly, for example, but it comes at a cost. There's no way to know what artist had their work stolen to train the AI that generated the above composite, and that's illustrative of the problem here.

Indeed, it's important to remember that shareholder capitalism means companies like Microsoft don't necessarily care about the "best" use for AI — companies see AI as a new area to increase profits and reduce the cost of business.

In the face of continued economic downturn and shifting global climates, companies are seeking to protect their ever-growing profits and business interests by updating their strategies, reducing business costs, and terminating jobs they deem "nonessential." This has resulted in tens of thousands of layoffs across the tech, media, and video games industries in the last few months, suddenly and aggressively displacing countless talented, individual human beings.

Many of these people sacrificed immensely to contribute to their company's success, only to be cast off unceremoniously into the maelstrom that is the current, increasingly uncertain job market. While it's easy to point at the mountains of cash these companies are sitting on and the ever-expanding executive salaries and bonuses as reasons why these companies could have afforded to save these jobs, that unfortunately misses the point of why these layoffs are happening.

The human cost of AI doesn't matter to Microsoft

AI could be a beacon of innovation, but companies are only seeking profit.

www.windowscentral.com

 

[blackice]

I worked on a project at my job that automated a lot of work. We were short staffed, and it helped, but those old jobs never came back. That was before AI was big.

 

[vtqhtr413]

Meta is asking many of its managers and directors to transition to individual contributor jobs or leave the company as part of a process to become a more efficient organization, known internally as a "flattening," Bloomberg News reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: Higher-level managers are sharing the directive with their reports in the coming weeks, separate from the company's regular performance review process, which is also occurring, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing a matter that wasn't public.

Meta To Ask Many Managers To Become Individual Contributors or Leave - Slashdot

Meta is asking many of its managers and directors to transition to individual contributor jobs or leave the company as part of a process to become a more efficient organization, known internally as a "flattening," Bloomberg News reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the...

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