Slides from a presentation held by Robert Pinter (Corvinus University of Budapest, Dep. of Information and Communication) for Grandhouse, Budapest 26.10.2023. This presentation shortly introduces the term artificial intelligence, the recent developments of AI, possible positive and negative aspects, the relation of AI and work and finally the possible futures.

1. POSSIBLE DRASTIC SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC
CONSEQUENCES OF ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE - PART II
Róbert Pintér, Corvinus University,
Dep. of Information and Communication
Grandhouse, Budapest
26.10.2023.

2. PART II.?!
• Unlike Star Wars IV in the beginning, the
name of part II is really justified here.
• First part was in March 2019 and
focused only on AI and work
• This time we are going to have a
broader picture, hence the title is
Possible drastic social and economic
consequences of artificial intelligence
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3. SHORT INTRODUCTION
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4. SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM OR
TECHNOLOGICAL DETERMINISM?
• The title Possible drastic social and economic consequences of
artificial intelligence suggests that AI defines society
• We usually see technology as a driving force in our lives (this is
the the so-called technological determinism)
• But technology is invented within society and used by
members of society. Hence, we may decide what we prefer, how
we regulate, what we support etc. (Science and Technology
Studies concentrates on the relation of technology and society,
there are scholars who state society construct technology.)
• Do not forget that we form technology and technology forms
us, this is a mutual relation – that is why we speak about AI. We
must decide what kind of AI we want, how we want to live &
cooperate with AI.
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5. CIVILISATIONAL
WAVES
BY ALVIN TOFFLER
• Is there a fourth wave
triggered / characterized
by Artificial Intelligence?
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6. WHAT IS AI?
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7. AI
• Umbrella term
• Different types of AI from
machine learning to deep
learning
• Brain research and AI:
neural networks behind
the recent revolution
• History of AI since the mid-
1950s: AI winters and
springs
• Is summer close this time?
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8. CAPABILITY:
FROM ANI, THROUGH AGI TILL ASI?
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Narrow AI (ANI): past (e.g. chess, go,
Jeopardy) and present
General AI (AGI): near future? Superintelligence (ASI): if general AI
possible, there is a huge chance it may
become more intelligent than us

9. GENERAL PURPOSE
TECHNOLOGY (GPT)
• AI is not a single
technology with a certain
purpose, but general
purpose technology
• The whole economy and
society are affected
• (This GPT is not that GPT from
ChatGPT – Generative Pre-
Trained Transformer)
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10. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS OF AI
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11. OPEN AI AND
CHAT GPT
• the unexpected success
of ChatGPT, a beginning
of a new epoch from
November 2022
• Huge success in terms of
diffusion (100M+ users
in a few days)
• ”Magical” features but it
may hallucinate
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12. MICROSOFT: MAKE
GOOGLE DANCE
(SATYA NADELLA)
• ChatGPT may pose an
existential risk to Google,
it may alter searching
habits for good
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Video

13. PAUSE?
• An open letter in March
2023, signed by more
than 30k experts so far
• Advising a 6-month-
pause to AI that is more
developed than GPT-4
• A clear framework,
moral compass, ethical
guidelines and strict
regulations are
requested
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14. PAUSE IS NOT
POSSIBLE DUE TO
THE AI RACE
• Different approaches of
Europe, USA and China
(described with only one
example each):
• Europe: regulation
first (forbidden,
tolerated and
supported AI use)
• China: social credit
system
• USA: innovation and
big tech companies
(GAMFA)
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15. EMERGENT
FEATURES?
• ChatGPT is not the end, it
was only the first LLM
(Large Language Model)
application that reached
people / success and
became widely known
• 60 minutes – April 2023
(Google Bard): emergent
features – system reacted
in a way that is not
trained previously
• Important step to AGI
(system teaches itself)
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Video

16. AI AS A
”BLACK BOX”
• We cannot completely
explain how the most
developed AI works
(remember: Deep
Learning / neural
networks: AI finds its own
way in data)
• Critics: do not
overmystify AI
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17. POSSIBLE NEGATIVE ASPECTS OF AI
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18. BIAS IN AI?
• AI may be trained on
biased data which lead to
injustice and misuse of AI
applications
• We know this
phenomenon for years
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19. FAIR USE OF
CREATIVE HUMAN
WORK
• In September 2023:
”Seventeen top authors
led by the Authors Guild
have filed a lawsuit
against OpenAI, alleging
copyright infringement
through its ChatGPT
model” (Source)
• Hollywood actors and
were on strike in 2023,
because of the threat AI
may pose to their work
coming years
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20. HALLUCINATION
OF AI
• We cannot easily
differentiate between
true and false
information coming
from an LLM (e.g. Chat
GPT)
• Convincing “bullshitting”
• This is a new
phenomenon
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21. DEEPFAKE AND
MANIPULATION
• We can fake real faces,
videos, voices etc. even in
real time
• We are just at the beginning
of an era where we cannot
believe anymore for our eyes
and ears
• Trust? Credibility?
• Solution: watermark?
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22. AUTONOMOUS
AI WEAPONS
• Save humans from war
and war losses OR the
first step to the
Terminator moment of
AI?
• UN ban to stop killer
robots?
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23. POSSIBLE POSITIVE ASPECTS OF AI
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24. DATA-DRIVEN
DECISION-MAKING
(DDDM)
• DDDM is “using facts,
metrics, and data to guide
strategic business
decisions that align with
your goals, objectives, and
initiatives.” (Tableau)
• More effective
organizations, systems
and capitalism
• Happier employees,
customers and citizens
• Cons: surveillance
capitalism (Zuboff)
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25. AI IN
HEALTHCARE
• There are at least 8 life-
saving use cases in
healthcare
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26. REDUCING
REPETITIVE TASKS
• AI may help to eliminate
repetitive, boring, non-
human tasks to give way
to more creative, effective
and engaging work
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27. WIDE IMPACT OF AI ON ECONOMY,
ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIETY IN
ACCORDANCE WITH THE UN SDGS
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28. AI AND WORK: REVISITED
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29. THIS TIME IS DIFFERENT
VS THIS TIME IS THE
SAME DEBATE
• Same as the industrial
revolution or completely
different?
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30. THIS TIME IS THE SAME
• There are scholars who do not expect drastic changes in a
dystopian or utopian way from the diffusion of artificial
intelligence in the field of work
• Like in the industrial revolution, people will adapt to the new
kind of machines (artificial intelligence).
• AI will create new jobs meanwhile it is integrated into the
existing economic system and the maintenance and constant
development of it.
• At the same time completely new industries will also
appear thanks to AI
• While a substitution effect is expected in the short term,
in the long-term AI will create more jobs than it eliminates,
similar to the automation in industrial revolution
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31. WILL ROBOTS TAKE OUR JOBS?
FROM PROFESSIONS TO
ACTIVITIES
• We thought a decade ago that certain jobs would
disappear
• Now we think that the activities will change within
professions
• So, it is not complete professions that will
disappear, but certain tasks, while people learn to
cooperate with intelligent machines
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32. THIS TIME IS DIFFERENT
• Other scholars see the same process much more
darkly and argue that “this time it’s different
due to advances in particular technologies –
namely robotics, big data, and artificial
intelligence.” (Kelly, 2022: 3)
• These endanger not only routine, but also
non-routine professions as well.
• They assume that unlike in the industrial
revolution this time mass job losses are
inevitable.
• This approach has two directions:
• Techno-pessimists expect a dystopian future
• Techno-optimists expect a utopian future
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33. DYSTOPIA: END OF WORK
• Techno-pessimists declare the ‘rise of the robots’, a
‘second machine age’
• They warn of a high-level permanent
unemployment and poverty for societies.
• Beside mass technological unemployment, there will
be tough competition over the jobs that remain for
humans, decreasing salaries, economic turbulences,
increasing inequality, weakening social cohesion
and further issues as a result from these trends
• End of work, starvation, incarceration, poverty,
inequality (like in the movie Elysium)
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34. UTOPIA: DIGITAL
COMMUNISM?
• Techno-optimists expect a utopian
future and hope that full
automation will free workers
from the compulsion of work and
a post-work or post-capitalist
society may emerge.
• They assume that widespread
automation with universal basic
income (UBI) can emancipate
workers from the drudgery of work
• This may lead to a ‘Fully
Automated Luxury Communism’
which became in the recent years a
long-term vision of the political left
in the UK 34
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35. AN OBSOLATE DEBATE
• The ‘this time is the same / different’ debate became increasingly
obsolete in the academic literature by the end of the 2010s, as it sees the
relationship between AI and the labour market in a rather black or white
way, i.e. it focuses only on whether machines will take our jobs or will certain
professions completely disappear.
• ”Will robots take our jobs” approach is still present in public discourses
as large international organizations continue to publish such materials (see
for example OECD Employment Outlooks ) and the media are still open to
publish similar calculations, even if these kinds of numbers simplify and
quantify a very complex phenomenon and their popularity based on
laymen’s fears of automation.
• Researchers must avoid any zero-sum game in replacement of humans by
machine, make a distinction between short and long-term effects, and
consider the complexity of human and machine relationship in
workplaces
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36. HOW THE NATURE OF WORK CHANGES
WITH THE DIFFUSION OF AI
• According to recent empirical research, the main question is not
whether robots will take our jobs, but how the nature of work changes
with the diffusion of AI:
• what the employee’s bargaining position is like with the employer,
• how the gig economy and self-exploitation spreads,
• how employees are repressed
• and what are the consequences of automation in workplaces.
• One of the key results is the realization that automation does not
exist without the involvement of human labour.
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37. FROM MACRO-LEVEL FOCUS TO MICRO
LEVEL HUMAN-COMPUTER-INTERACTION
• The relative devaluation of the ‘this time is the same / different’ debate can
be traced back to the fact that the scientific interpretation of the concept of
work is shifted from a broader approach to a narrower one.
• Participants in the debate perceive work as a key social institution and
concentrate on the macro-level political, social, and cultural
implications of automation.
• The more recent empirical research “looks more closely at the ways AI
technologies are being integrated into workplaces and the implications
this has for the organisation and experience of work from the perspective
of a deepening human–machine interaction.” (Boyd, 2021: 80).
• Scientific interest is increasingly turning towards human-machine-
interaction and instead of large social phenomena and expectations, it
seeks to empirically capture specific professions and workplace
changes.
• This gives us the opportunity to change our focus and to see the human in
automation. 37

38. EXAMPLE: JOURNALISTS
AND MARKETING
COPYWRITERS
• Ongoing research (just
in the article writing
phase – Lilla Vicsek –
Robert Pinter and Zsofia
Bauer)
• Interviews with
Hungarian print-media
journalists and marketing
copywriters (15-15
interviews)
• Preliminary results are
available
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39. RESULTS: LIBERATOR VS
DEVALUATOR
• GenAI for them is a liberator, for others a devaluator
• See the dangers, but do not think it applies to them
• GenAI is not analytical and not creative  both
journalists and copywriters see these as added value
• Can be a threat to early career staff – juniors could be in
danger (however it may cause problems in the long run)
• Can add value in speed, brainstorming, linguistic
polishing
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40. RESULTS: PLAN IS TO LEARN
AND ADAPT
• Cognitive dissonance reduction
• Cannot envision long-term future
• Others are affected, they are not
• They have their value in expertise and seniority
• GenAI is not reliable and not perfect  do not take into
consideration that technology is not static, it is evolving
• Personal experience with the problems of GenAI is
generalized
• They are those who can adapt and learn quickly
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41. POSSIBLE FUTURES
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42. BEING
PHYGITAL?
• Robots and AI are yet
separated
• AI in the physical
(phygital) world - not
yet present (except in
restricted areas e.g. in
special factories)
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43. GENERAL AI:
SO FAR, SO
CLOSE
• The plan of Open AI is to
reach AGI shortly
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44. SUPERINTELLIGENCE
WITH OWN GOALS?
• Nick Bolstrom warns us to
do not build AGI as it
may turn to be
superintelligence with
its own goals, and we
cannot control it
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45. ACCELERATION
AND SINGULARITY
• We are blind:
acceleration and
singularity in the
development of AI (Ray
Kurzweil)
• It is not possible the see
what will come if AI will
be more intelligent than
us
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46. WE SIMPLY
DON’T KNOW...
• We simply don’t know the
Possible drastic social and
economic consequences
of artificial intelligence
• But we need to strive to
have responsible AI, that
is ethical, accountable
and explainable… in order
to have reliable and safe
AI
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47. THANK YOU FOR YOUR
ATTENTION!
• Róbert Pintér
• Corvinus University
• Dep. of Information and Communication
• robert.pinter@uni-corvinus.hu
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/probesz/
• https://probesz.medium.com/
• twitter: @probesz
• +36309996595
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