Well, there is value and importance to ongoing discussions about AI and how society will respond/be impacted. There are things that loom negative in the future with regard to AI. There are also positive things as well. This is true with pretty much every innovation. There used to be a thriving industry in large cites and smaller towns. Individuals and companies had contracts cleaning up all the horse droppings in the streets as horses are, shall we say, unreliable with their bowel activity. The invention of cars killed that industry, took those jobs away. We don't even remember them.
And I'm not ready to elevate Mr. Hinton to prophet of god status. And I wouldn't say he "abandoned" his career when he left Google. First, I suspect he walked out the door with quite a few millions of dollars in his pocket (good for him) and, second, I'm certain as well that he will have not problem finding very high paying work in the industry when he wants. So don't weep for Mr. Hinton's great sacrifice and let's not put him up on a cross.
AI will bring value to art. I don't know exactly what value, but I'm certain it will. Maybe it will make the creation of art more accessible to people. Maybe it will help people find the art that most resonates with them. For instance, there's a great website called Music Map. It's AI driven. If you put in the name of and artist or group you like it shows other artists or groups that are close in style. A couple of years ago while playing with it I discovered Goose. I listened to them and liked them enough that I saw them last fall playing with TAB and Billy Strings. Fantastic show.
Point is, AI isn't the end of humanism. We don't have to be so afraid. And of course companies focus on profit. They have to. We live in a capitalist system. It's not perfect, but far more "humanist" than the systems in Russia or China. If a company doesn't focus on profit it will go out of business. I like the products of the modern world, my audio system and, as I said earlier, being able to learn and grow from forums like this one, which is made possible by the technology of the Internet. (as long as we don't talk about cables)
Interestingly, AI might well be successfully used to spot AI generated art/music. Isn't that a curious thought. And with respect to copyrights, I believe the Copyright Office has declared that AI generated literature is not copyrightable. What that would functionally mean is that even though a copyright might inappropriately granted, enforcement would be stymied should someone try to sue based on the copyright. So it's a piece of paper (virtual) without value. Anyway, I think maybe this is roaming a bit afield from the intention of the forum and I do loath wasting people's time on the internet, even though I am fabulously talented at wasting my own.
And if anyone from ROON is reading this, please update your predictive algorithms. I'm really NOT interested in hearing more opera