AI is changing everything

we have had AI around for more than a decade now, but for most people, there was nothing earth shattering about it. As in, humans did not see their world change in a dramatic way just because there was a chatbot on their bank’s website, or their email client sorted their incoming messages into folders. Maybe because that felt more like automation than actual, capital letter Intelligence.

Capital letter Intelligence is something that only humans have, at least that is what we commonly thought. At the same time as AI has made more and more progress, we rethought our understanding of intelligence when we learned about how octopi perceive their world. The movie My Octopus Teacher arrived just in time – was that a coincidence?

In a podcast with 42courses, Chris Duffey, a leading tech futurist said that AI has been becoming more emancipated (my word).

AI, at the at the starting point, … about 7 to 5 years ago it was around this notion of being an assistant. It’s somewhat evolved to a more active role in terms of copilot.And now a number of AI companies are exploring this notion of almost an executive coach where an assistant or copilot feels like it’s still doing things that the user is asking it to do without proactive measures …

This evolved, emancipated AI was inevitable based on the culture of information technology players. Once a ball like this gets rolling, many want to take a turn at kicking it further.

A standard followup question is whether that is a good thing. Is that progress? But what I think is even more important to ask, and is often ignored, whether it is worth the very high price we and future generations are paying,

A very high price in terms of cheapening creative and intellectual work, and the high energy AI devours. I agree with Chris Duffey that what AI’s capabilities are phenomenal, and mind blowing, like a circus trick. It is amazing that some people can be transported by driverless cars, and that novels and poetry written by AI can win literary awards, that we can just use AI to compose music for our videos, etc. There is much to be said for flattening skills.

But what about the humans? What are they gonna do? What will bring them joy and fulfillment? and what will earn them a living? What will motivate them to develop skills and sensibilities, not to mention such virtues as persistance? What will the masses of humans do with their lives?