These companies are not developing AI that can replace humans. What AI is being designed for is to fulfil discrete tasks. This is a far cry from acting as an independent economic actor. The latter is something no company wants to develop, because it is dangerous and not suited for something that is meant to be used as a tool (it is actually unethical to bind an independent actor to labor for us).
More broadly, what distinguishes humans from AI is what makes humans dangerous. Our society tolerates the danger humans pose, as it's considered a prerequisite for a free society. But our society would never tolerate this danger from a tool.
> it is actually unethical to bind an independent actor to labor for us
So if I run a script that's unethical? How is a LLM inference loop different than a script?
> But our society would never tolerate this danger from a tool.
Sure about that? Cars kill people, chainsaws kill people, heck, a lot of useless tools such as alcohol kill people. We tolerate dangerous tools just fine, there has never been a tool where humanity would be like 'nope, its cool, but its dangerous so we are going to stop using it'. Not biological weapons, not cars, we never go back.
Instead of making the genuinely helpful AI that eases cumbersome things that people do not want to spend time doing, companies are racing to making generative AI models which are stealing from artists and creatives. And Ai models which have been given agency to do things when they not posess the thinking and reasonig that comes with consciousness. And yes if you run a script to do the same, it is unethical.
ML and DL have their place in research which can push the frontiers of the problems and solutions know to humans today. But are the majority if the companies focusing on that? Nope.
Any technology is a tool and if it is in the wrong hands and there are no guardrails in place, both the human and the technology become dangerous. A car in th hands of a robber, a chainsaw in the hands of someone who has an intent to hurt someone,etc.
My theory is, to build an AI that just helps with 'cumbersome things', and does not come bundled with the faculties to do a whole lot of other things, is impossible. Jagged intelligence and all of that, but intelligence is about patterns on all levels of abstractions, so if you have something that can do your expense report for you, you probably have something that can also evaluate whether its a good expense report and displace someone who does it by hand. To call this unethical is, well, an opinion. The whole history of humanity can be summarized to "learn useful things and automate them".
As for tools in the wrong hands and all, sure. Obviously. My point was that humanity never abandons a technology because of risks, or real issues.
More broadly, what distinguishes humans from AI is what makes humans dangerous. Our society tolerates the danger humans pose, as it's considered a prerequisite for a free society. But our society would never tolerate this danger from a tool.