AI Economy Is a ‘Ponzi Scheme,’ Says AI Doc Director

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Vanity Fair: Focus Features is releasing The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist in theaters on March 27. If you’re even slightly interested in what’s going on with AI, it’s required viewing: The film touches on all aspects of the technology, from how it’s currently being used to how it will be used in the near future, when we potentially reach the age of artificial general intelligence, or AGI. AGI is a theoretical form of AI that supposedly would be able to perform complex tasks without each step being prompted by a human user — the point at which machines become autonomous, like Skynet in the Terminator franchise. […]

[Director Daniel Roher] interviews nearly all the major players in the AI space: Sam Altman of OpenAI; the Amodei siblings of Anthropic; Demis Hassabis of DeepMind (Google’s AI arm); theorists and reporters covering the subject. Notably absent are Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. “Have you seen that guy speak? He’s like a lizard man,” Roher says regarding Zuckerberg. “Musk said yes initially, but it was right when he was doing all the stuff with Trump, and we just got ghosted after a while,” adds [codirector Charlie Tyrell]. Altman, arguably AI’s greatest mascot, is prominently featured in the documentary. But Roher wasn’t buying it. “That guy doesn’t know what genuine means,” he says. “Every single thing he says and does is calculated. He is a machine. He’s like AI, and it’s in the service of growth, growth, growth. You can be disingenuous and media savvy.” […]

How, exactly, is Roher an apocaloptimist? “We are preaching a worldview,” he says, “in a world that’s asking you to either see this as the apocalypse or embrace it with this unbridled optimism.” He and his film are taking a stance that rests between those two poles. “It’s both at the same time. We have to try and embrace a middle ground so this technology doesn’t consume us, so we can stay in the driver’s seat,” says Roher — meaning, it’s up to all of us to chart the course. “You have to speak up,” says Tyrell. “Things like AI should disclose themselves. If your doctor’s office is using an AI bot, you have to say, I don’t like that.” The driving message behind the film is that resistance starts with the people. That position is shared by The AI Doc producer Daniel Kwan, who won an Oscar for directing Everything Everywhere All at Once and has been at the forefront of discussions about AI in the entertainment industry. […]

Roher and Tyrell both use AI in their everyday lives and openly admit to it being a helpful tool. They also agree that this technology can make daily tasks easier for the average consumer. But at the end of our conversation, we get into the economics of AI and how Wall Street is propping up the industry through huge evaluations of these companies — and Roher gets going yet again. “This is all smoke and mirrors. The entire economy of AI is being propped up by a Ponzi scheme. The hype of this technology is unlike any hype we’ve seen,” he says. “I feel like I could announce in a press release that Academy Award winner Daniel Roher is starting an AI film company, and I could sell it the next day for $20 million. It’s fucking crazy.” […] “These people are prospectors, and they are going up to the Yukon because it’s the gold rush.”