Conversation

A lot of businesses right now are getting greedy about AI’s potential benefits, but not enough of them are discussing the very real things they should be fearing. Let’s discuss those fears.

Fear one: AI will kill the white-collar job market. A significant chunk of wealth will dissipate very quickly, and corporations may no longer be able to fund AI as a result. Now, a bunch of AI proponents will say, “Well, I don’t care because this is a B2B play,” but these things tend to have a knock-on effect. For example, during the Great Recession, people lost their homes due to the mortgage collapse, which led to the bankruptcy of GM and Chrysler. My point here is that if the white-collar job market collapses, what else collapses along with it?

Fear two: The Internet itself. A lot of people have talked about the “dead Internet theory.” Some laugh it off, but I’m saying it’s plausible. Are we going to let an entire infrastructure—something we’ve built since the 1960s—collapse because the Internet becomes nothing more than bots talking to bots?

Fear three: People might leave the Internet in favor of another space, one that is socially gated, where AI cannot participate. Would that space require FaceTime or some other form of direct human interaction? I don’t know. But if trust in AI leads to its banishment, this becomes a real possibility.

Fear four: Someone maliciously exploits AI to the detriment of those who build it. In a world where cyber espionage and cyber warfare are everyday realities, this isn’t just a mere fear—it’s a potential reality. If your entire infrastructure depends on AI doing your bidding, it’s not impossible for AI to start doing someone else’s bidding.

Fear five: As AI-generated content increases, LLMs (large language models) will start learning from other LLMs. As they continue to learn from each other, the human voice will disappear, and all that AI content will get progressively “dumber” as it averages out to a median. This is plausible because, no matter what, humans thrive on creativity. While AI can recognize patterns, it cannot judge or drive creativity. You always need a human at the wheel.

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