In early September, a former employee of Anthropic and OpenAI wrote on social media: "The people who are building theAI believes sincerely"It can kill them all by the end of the decade." However, sociologist Cian Barbosa argues that we need to distinguish between artificial intelligence as a technique and what it is in the public imagination.
To: (Note: The provided text is incomplete. Assuming the intended content is about a journalistic article, here's a general translation based on the given information:) "At (date/time/event), regarding..."BdF InterviewBarbosa states that the idea that algorithmic systems will develop autonomy or consciousness belongs to the realm of science fiction, misrepresenting the true nature of digital mechanisms. "The notion that an AI will gain consciousness and become sentient, an AGI, a general artificial intelligence, or a superintelligence, is much closer to the idea of fantasies and science fiction," he assesses.
For him, by focusing on fantastical scenarios of autonomous machines, public discourse ends up obscuring human responsibility and the material dangers of the sector. Cian Barbosa points out that there are concrete and urgent threats, such as the automation of cyberattacks, vulnerabilities in global infrastructures, technological unemployment, and the profound socio-environmental impacts of data centers.
However, the sociologist emphasizes that the moral and political agency does not belong to the algorithm, but rather to the corporations and individuals who design and operate it. "When a bridge collapses, we do not question the bridge, we question the engineer," he compares. "Artificial intelligence is a mechanism, it is a technology, but the agency is with the developer, it is with the user, it is with the owner."
Barbosa argues that the apocalyptic discourse serves strategic economic interests in the political economy of the tech sector and contends that many magnates ofBig tech companies use alarmism.To manage market expectations and public debate, especially after trillion-dollar investments with no guarantee of financial return. This rhetoric serves to contain social reactions, justify pressures for tailored regulation, and obscure geopolitical dynamics. "It's a group that has fundamentally bet a lot of money and is trying to manage in public discourse the expectations they themselves raised regarding the development of artificial intelligence," he defines.
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The text: "O (The) [rest of the text is missing from the prompt]"BdF InterviewAirs Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. onBrazil's Truth Radio98.9 FM in Greater São Paulo.