HAD a tough day at work?
Don’t worry, very soon you won’t have to bother going in, or “working from home” if you’re one of those lazy bs.
According to Elon Musk, we’re not far off a world where work being done by humans becomes a thing of the past.
The reigning world’s richest man told an audience at the Cannes Lions Festival on Wednesday that artificial intelligence will step in and do most jobs for us.
Speaking at the annual gathering of well-fed advertising types, he declared of AI: “I think the most likely outcome is one of abundance, where goods and services are available to anyone.
“There’s no shortage for any one of us. It would be a universal hike. Work would be optional.”
Now if that isn’t music to the ears then I don’t know what is. No more waking up at stupid o’clock to bust your balls for eight hours in order to make just enough money for your kids to waste on Fortnite V-Bucks or loom bands.
An abundance of goods — have what you want when you want it. Yes please, I opt for: Do bugger all.
But wait. This lazy utopia is not guaranteed, Musk confessed.
Oh no. There is the small matter that before we get there, AI may get a little carried away with itself and . . . annihilate humanity. The likelihood of this happening is somewhere between ten and 20 per cent, the Tesla chief posited.
He confessed: “I tend to agree with Geoff Hinton — one of the godfathers of AI — and he thinks there’s a ten to 20 per cent probability of something terrible happening.” Something terrible? Good grief.
Can we not just press the “Don’t annihilate humanity” button on whatever malignant humanoid is planning this?
Apparently not. That’s the thing about AI. It mimics — and tries to predict — how its human creators behave. And let’s face it, we behave pretty badly.
To take just one example. Don’t like your neighbour? Slaughter the population and then annex every town or city you’ve reduced to rubble.
Musk, ever the madman, says he quite fancies being around to watch the planet burn if this scenario proves to be the endgame.
He chuckled at Cannes: “Would I want to be around to see it? Probably, yes.”
Personally, I’d rather sit that one out.
No, I’m going to hold on for the 80 per cent chance that AI will make life better for me and allow me to slob about in my garden, scrolling my phone and ordering pizzas . . . with my mind (probably).
But hang on, that carries its own problems too, Musk reckons.
Despite saying we should “look on the bright side”, he admitted: “If AI can do everything you can do but better, what’s the point of doing things? I think there will be an existential crisis.”
That certainly seems to be the direction of travel if you look at some depictions of the future.
Rictus grins
They often involve expressionless humans with rictus grins gliding around an automated world, devoid of function as the robots have taken care of everything. A permanent paradise where illogical actions are a thing of the past.
But “doing things” is not the essence of humanity. (And by the way, we’ve been contemplating the meaning of life for millennia, so nothing new there.)
Hyperactive Musk, worth $215billion, thinks in these terms because he spends every waking hour “doing things”, like sending rockets to Mars and demanding a $45billion paycheck from his shareholders.
Feeling things is what makes us human — and no AI technology can replicate that.
It will never know the joy of a delicious meal or pint of Best Bitter, never appreciate a good song, a great goal, a terrible dad joke, or sex!
When it comes to feelings, AI can only approximate them. It can never take them away from us.
And us humans will never get bored of pleasure, of excitement, of love, all those emotions we enjoy in what we currently call our “free time”.
So fine, AI can do the hard work for us and let us concentrate on living.
And let’s just hope that if it ever does get the ability to feel things, it doesn’t feel like it’s got the wrong end of the deal.
DO KY’S BROOD CARE?
THE drama over which of Kyle Walker’s 357 kids will be attending England games rumbles on.
Last night Kairo, four, was there with mum Lauryn Goodman as England drew with Denmark.
It’s hard to keep up with this tawdry tale but I am intrigued to know how the kids found the game.
Did they enjoy watching dad running around or were they, like most kids, distracted by something – maybe a paper plane descending or what the bloke in front had on his hot dog?
I went to The Jude Bellingham Show at the weekend, aka England v Serbia, and saw first hand how some of our youngest fans engage with our national team.
As I left the stadium one poor dad was forced to fireman’s lift his fast-asleep little lad down to the train station and its three-hour queues while his little sister asked: “Who were we playing again, Mummy?”
Lauryn Goodman and Annie Kilner, hopelessly locked into some embarrassing loyalty contest, may well feel they need to take Kyle’s kids to Germany.
But I bet you 50 Deutschmarks and a currywurst they secretly wish they had just stayed at home and watched it on TV.
CUTE love-in between the world’s two biggest maniacs, Putin and Kim Jong Un.
The tyrannical twosome had a lot to catch up on as they compared how big their ballistic missiles are. But the real question is: Who has the tiniest penis?
To find that out we may need help. Anyone got a ruler . . . and a magnifying glass?
MEN appear more attractive if they are seen looking after a child, says new research.
This seems like a wasted bit of work to any of us alive in the 1980s.
The Athena “Man And Baby” poster from 1986 remains Britain’s biggest-selling, shifting five million copies.
And for the poster’s adult model, Adam Perry, it opened the bedroom door to no less than THREE THOUSAND conquests.
His ripped torso and handsome looks had nothing to do with it.
JOEY, PLEASE SHUT IT
“I’M done with social media now.”
And with those six words the internet looked set to become a significantly less s**t-filled cesspit.
Joey Barton suggested he was hanging up his filterless foghorn after paying £110,000 to settle libel claims from TV and radio presenter Jeremy Vine.
Former footballer Barton had called Vine a “bike nonce” on Twitter/X then doubled down when the inevitable firestorm came.
He settled with a £75,000 payment and then a further £35,000 – plus costs – and gave a cringeworthy apology, which was greeted with the applause and belly laughs it deserved.
When people talk about social media being toxic, it is people like Barton, who has beenconvicted of ABH and affray in the past, they are talking about.
His recent campaign seemingly to degrade female footballers and pundits was a masterclass in misogyny.
Alas, Barton’s need for validation was too strong, and by Wednesday night he was back ranting away on Twitter, where his page features a neon sign saying “enjoy the silence”.
If only we could.
TARTY POOPER
BRITAIN’S dedicated army of humourless snowflakes have found a new microaggression to pretend to be anxious about – Waitrose shopping bags.
Specifically, a new tote that features the word TART over one of the most popular ingredients for a, er, tart.
Apparently this gentle humour is “sexually aggressive” and, according to one women’s charity, simply “common or garden misogyny”.
Well it could be a lot worse. Potty-mouthed card company Scribbler has one, that says: “Only slags use plastic bags.”
LOTS of debate about Katy Perry’s “new look” – ie why is the famously curvaceous lass now a skinny minny?
Could it be fat jab Ozempic?
Has she ditched her fave chicken nuggets and taken up muscleman boyfriend Orlando Bloom’s diet.
Perhaps she’s knocked alcohol on the head?
Whatever measures she has taken, the general view is that she looks AMAZING now she’s a size zero and not some dreadful, er, size ten porker.
But I beg to differ.
I could say the Just Eat takeaway advertiser looks a bit gaunt and underfed, but that would probably be classed as some type of body shaming.
So I won’t.
Instead, I’ll just point out that, quite frankly, she always looked fantastic, healthy and happy with herself so had absolutely no need to change her body shape.