Generative AI is on everyone’s lips, but do we have the necessary perspective to judge the opportunities and potential abuses?
More than three years after its general public launch, generative AI (GenAI) has proven to be an excellent tool to help with thinking, writing and decision-making in business, there is no doubt about it. While it is premature to talk about a massive replacement of humans by AI at this stage, it is nevertheless legitimate to be concerned about the threats and abuses that AI represents, particularly in the job market, data security and digital sovereignty.
Between pros and cons, is moderate use possible?
AI is definitely a disruptive innovation. This is why it excites as much as it sends shivers down your spine. The debate is now open between the pros and the cons, the technophiles and the technophobes. Experts like Yann Le Cun or Laurent Alexandre persist and sign. The latter has even just released a book entitled “Don’t study anymore (Learn differently in the age of AI)”. An injunction which raises a fundamental question: are we still necessary to carry out studies in the era of generative AI?
This is a radical questioning of the academic system which hides other disruptions to come. Other, more moderate, experts suggest putting AI on pause, because it goes too fast for humans, which can represent an anthropological threat, or even danger. Based on the principle that, in relation to exponential evolution, we can only act sooner or too late, thinkers like Maxime Fournes advocate caution with regard to this technology which can be described, beyond being disruptive, as invasive*. With the invasion of bots and fake content, our digital ecosystem is becoming increasingly prey to manipulation and the post-truth era is becoming a tangible reality. Still according to Fournes, the major risk identified is the loss of control, linked to the unresolved problem of alignment: how to ensure that a super-powerful AI remains aligned with human values and objectives?
Another risk which is not the least: the critical gap between the speed of development of AI capabilities (possibly a few years) and the time necessary to guarantee its security (estimated at several decades), which pushes many experts to consider AI as an existential threat comparable to nuclear war. Global security is also threatened by the military and criminal use of AI. We are already witnessing the emergence of autonomous weapons, such as drones in Ukraine which select their targets without human intervention, and the development of automated cyberattacks that are more efficient than human hackers. Moderate, reasoned and secure use of generative AI, its agents and its potential agency then proves impossible given the risks mentioned above.
All influenced by AI?
According to the Huffington Post, 90% of content will be generated by AI in 2026*. This means that the content we consume and which influences the way we think and see the world is now the work of non-humans, as has been the case with journalists, screenwriters and, more recently, social media influencers, but of algorithmic machines such as ChatGPT, Claude or Deepseek. These increasingly powerful language models now support the generation of stunningly realistic and insightful text, images, and videos.
This exponential development leaves no chance for the laggards to catch up and the race is in full swing between the two major world powers of the moment, the United States and China. The rest of the world then becomes a consumer of AI, with all that this implies in terms of cyber risks and digital sovereignty. Education AI specialist Jake Renzella (University of New South Wales) explains that during an election campaign, a candidate can create thousands of fake accounts (bots) on social networks, which can broadcast millions of unique messages, making detection almost impossible.
A Theory has therefore been triggered on the web since 2021 and which has reached its peak today is that relating to the death of the Internet (Dead Internet Theory). This announced death of a web that we visited so much, on which we loved surfing and which is now an integral part of our way of life to the point of becoming indispensable, is due to the interference of an invasive AI and “non-human” content which can ultimately make this space inaccessible due to its “surreal”, artificial and fake side.
What impact on the labor market?
AI risks having a marked economic and social impact. Indeed, the explicit goal of AI labs is to create systems capable of replacing the entirety of human labor, both cognitive and manual. According to Maxime Fournes, again, unlike the industrial revolution which spanned more than a century, this upheaval could occur very suddenly, threatening to cause mass unemployment and an extreme concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few technological players. In such a scenario, even measures such as universal basic income may not be enough to preserve citizens’ political power. Bernard Stiegler announced in his time that in the face of digital technology (he would not have experienced the emergence of generative AI), employment is dead, long live work! ***
This credo is based on the fact that, faced with exponential technological disruption and the widespread automation of both cognitive and manual tasks, individuals who no longer find employment will instead be able to find work by putting their talents at the service of companies or by creating their own projects, hence the development of concepts such as entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship. This is indeed the famous creative destruction, dear to the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter, who announced at the end of the 19th century that all technological innovation destroys jobs by creating new ones. This implies a great effort on the part of workers who, instead of settling into their usual comfort zone, would have to develop new skills continuously to hope to keep up with the breakneck pace of AI. However, with a technology as disruptive and rapid as AI, worker response time remains long. As soon as we realize the foundations and understand what it is, it is already too late!
Ultimately, we are entitled to question this unprecedented technological hegemony. Is human and social progress necessarily linked to a technology that becomes an existential threat? Beyond the “technician” imperative, the growing injunction for efficiency is making our society more anxious. By gradually isolating us in information bubbles, AI is distancing us from the community principles and living together that has long been our collective unity and our civilization.
(1) AI IS ESCAPING US: cybersecurity, finance, work, the army, everything will be impacted! – Maxime Fournes https://youtu.be/Y3MTcvOyj0s?si=pjhybC0x1FXasqpH
(2) “90% of content generated by AI in 2026”: how the Internet is dying at very high speed https://www.huffingtonpost.fr/tech-futurs/video/90-du-contenu-genere-par-ia-en-2026-comment-internet-est-en-train-de-mourir-a-tres-haute-vitesse_249993.html
(3) Employment is dead, long live work! Bernard Stiegler, interview with Ariel Kyrou https://www.isic-mastercom.fr/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Lemploi-est-mort.pdf
(4) Creative destruction and its limits
https://philosciences.com/destruction-creatrice-limites
