You’re worrying about the wrong kind of AI uprising, Mr Sunak

It isn’t currently possible to have an open and honest discussion about the potential of AI technology. Sure, its proponents seem mostly to be trend-chasers and crypto bros, who present every uncanny piece of AI art with the proud demeanour of a tabby cat bringing its owner a dead mouse. But its opponents can be just as bad.

Rather than being frank about the potential of AI, or realistic about how fast the technology has developed, a lot of criticisms tend to be nitpicky, and avoid wider questions about its likely applications. Oh, the machine that can produce 10 completely original oil paintings in under a second has a little trouble drawing hands? Its note-perfect voice synthesizer that can replicate the voice of any celebrity or musician sounds a little tinny sometimes? Congratulations, panic over – throw the whole thing in the trash, the humans have won!

No, if we’re being honest with ourselves, this technology is going to be around for a long time – and it’s only going to get better. Which is why it was nice to hear that Rishi Sunak has been a bit more proactive about the likely robot uprising, in a speech ahead of a global AI summit in Bletchley Park next week.

In his speech, the prime minister was frank about the risks of the technology, outlining their potential to be used by terrorists and cyber criminals, and even for the technology to become so advanced, it supersedes human control by 2030. He also raised the issue of AI putting people out of work across a variety of sectors, and the potential for this to result in a “public backlash”.

It’s that last point that Sunak, and the rest of us, should really should be worried about. At present, it seems that the most immediate threat posed by AI is to those of us in sectors that rely on human creativity and problem solving (yes, I do mean “us”: as soon as they invent a robot that can be sarcastic on the internet, I’m going to be down the job centre with the rest of you).

Industries that once seemed safe from the threat of automation due to their seeming reliance on human intervention have faced an almost existential threat in the past few months, as it’s slowly begun to dawn on us just how uncertain the futures of our respective careers are.

There have been decades of talk about mitigating joblessness due to the rise of automation, but industries like manufacturing have had a long time to put things in place for when the day actually comes (or, at the very least, for people to get used to the idea of redundancy). Sure, most of those preparations have proved to be inadequate, but the discussions are at the very least taking place. The worry with this new potential wave of automation is that it seems to be happening almost overnight.

Companies are rushing to replace their workers with barely tested technologies that seem to have sprung up with virtually no warning, and that the majority of us have very little understanding of. Writers in Hollywood had the right idea, being quick to negotiate and ensure their job security before the technologies threatening that security had a chance to really take off. But what about the rest of us?

What about those in the education sector, who have dedicated their entire lives to perfecting their knowledge base and relationships with students, who may now find that their role in the classroom has suddenly diminished, or even disappeared, with little warning? What about artists and graphic designers, who develop their style through years of constant practice, only to be usurped by a glorified Photoshop? What about journalists and editors, who spend their entire lives ensuring that they provide accurate and careful coverage, only to discover that is new world seems to value neither of those things?

When Rishi Sunak describes Terminator-style sci-fi scenarios about an AI “super-intelligence” turning us all into a nutrient-rich slurry to power its batteries (he didn’t actually go into that much detail, but I’ve seen The Matrix), he’s tapping into a wider cultural fear that’s been around for decades. What he really needs to focus on is the newer, and much more immediate problem of how people react when you put them out of work with no warning, and no back-up plan.

Should we ban this technology? Should we restrict certain industries’ future reliance on it? Neither of those things seems likely to happen – you can only hold back the tide for so long – but one way or another, we’re going to have to have a very open and honest discussion about exactly how to deal with a type of mass unemployment we never expected to see in our lifetimes.

And we’re going to have to deal with it now, not in a decade.