It's Time to Welcome Artificial Intelligence (AI) - Are You Scared or Excited?
It's Time to Welcome Artificial Intelligence (AI) - Are You Scared or Excited?
Will the introduction of AI into our lives change "everything" or will it be a nothing burger? Can AI truly transform the way we live and work?
We are entering the era of AI. Perhaps not a sentient Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) just yet, but everything revolves around AI at the moment. And rightly so.
Lately, I’ve been playing with this technology, chatting with it, using it as a search engine, and even creating some incredible art using nothing more than a prompt. It’s fascinating stuff. This article, too, has gone through some AI proofreading and visualization. Some people have fallen head over heels in love with AI and are seeing it being used for more or less everything in the near future. I tend to agree.
There is no denying that a whirlwind of changes is upon us.
Jobs will be lost, but some will be created. Productivity will skyrocket. Innovation will breathe new ideas and services. Listen, things will be different. There is no stopping that. So it would be best to accept it as fact, adapt to this new reality, and go with the flow.
What good has it done anyone fighting the wind? What happened to the people who stubbornly fought learning to use computers, smartphones and the internet?
There are things in our development as a civilization from which there is no stepping back. Fire, wheel, combustion engine, electricity, personal computer, smartphone, the internet, plane, Bitcoin... Once we discover how much our lives can become better and easier, how much more productive we can be with just one such discovery, everything changes. A Pandora’s box has been opened, and there’s no closing it ever again.
Now, you and I can argue whether these innovations or discoveries have been a net positive or a net negative in our lives, but that’s beside the point. They came, they conquered, and they stayed. AI has finally moved from the dreamscape of storytellers into practical reality. Just how much it will impact our lives is yet to be determined. Still, from what I’ve seen thus far, it’s not so much a revolution but more an evolution following the discoveries of personal computers, smartphones, and the internet into its logical next step. I would argue it was inevitable.
People are dreaming up new AI applications daily, which can be overwhelming. It might be wise to focus on the applications that will change how you do things in your personal life, especially your work. While we cannot all become experts in using AI, we should probably all start playing with it. If only to stay in touch with the emerging technology and its language.
I never bothered learning to code and it feels like time has run over me and my “worth on the market” hard in the past decade.
Overnight the world was taken over by geeks. All it took was a generation, and those awkward little weirdos, as they would have been called in the nineties when I was growing up, are among the highest-paying individuals in the world. They’ve been the most sought-after specialists for two decades now. They’re the ones with all the power behind every. They’re the ones who control what we are allowed to see, hear even think, directly or indirectly. Yes, the IT crowd has taken over. Revenge of the geeks leaves a different taste in one’s mouth today.
I’m somewhat reluctant to admit that I’m glad that even they are about to become obsolete in the market once a useful coding artificial intelligence arrives. Welcome to the club, boys and girls. No more double or triple booking of jobs, where you do nothing and no one can tell because we’re technological simpletons. No more easy money in obscene quantities and unchecked power over everyone.
We are in the infant stages of AI and already creating face melting digital art, basic web pages and step by step coding is being made as simple as writing a few cleverly written lines of prompt.
Not code, mind you, simple sentences even you and I can think of. Just imagine how easy this will become in about 5-10 years. That is a leap from a black-and-white flip phone to a modern smartphone. From something made for using calls to a device that replaces almost everything in our lives, often even the things it really shouldn’t, especially in the social environment.
If the invention of a personal computer replaced whole offices of secretaries, I’m thinking the next iteration of AI will be replacing whole buildings of blue-collar workers.
The sad part is that people will lose their jobs, careers will become obsolete, and we will all have to adapt to a new reality all over again. Realistically, for some generations, especially the ones who struggled with keeping up with the internet and computers in the first place, this will be an impossible task. Unless you’re an inquisitive soul with the desire and willingness to learn and try new things (most aren’t), I think my generation (born from 1980 and up) will be a part of the forgotten ones in this particular wave. I can already feel the wheels of innovation walking above my head and disappearing in the distance.
I am acutely aware that I will not be the beneficiary of AI technology in the sense of being able to capitalize on it. This will be in the domain of the next generation and the first movers at the tip of the spear in today’s world.
It may only be a matter of time before I become “my parents” and form only short, grumpy sentences about how the world had gone mad and why can’t they make anything easy and simple, you know - analog - anymore. I’m not looking forward to that, but that’s just life. I, too, am getting older.
What I am looking forward to, though, is seeing where this AI evolution will be taking us next. I fully intend to follow the stream for as long as I am capable and use whatever tools will be available to make my life easier and better.
If you think that AI is just a useless, overused buzzword, you’re probably right. Today. But you’ll be wrong tomorrow.
Just like it was with the other buzzwords like “computer,” “internet,” “blockchain,” etc., this next bull market in the stocks will most likely be focused on anything revolving around AI. Just like before, it will end with a bang, where 99,99% of these companies will have failed miserably. But the ones who will survive will be successful, powerful, and wealthy beyond anything we’ve ever seen. Think Google, only magnitudes larger.
My parents only whine about the internet, computers and smartphones. They constantly complain about how they don’t know how to use any of it, how it’s all too complicated and keeps changing, making it impossible for them to keep up. I agree with the latter, especially since I’m the designated technical support guy for the family. The state of usability for people without computer skills is appalling, and I don’t understand why the IT folk haven’t been able to make things user-friendly to a broader user base. They failed miserably on this front!
Ironically, from what I’ve been able to gather thus far, AI could actually make things a heck of a lot easier for all the newbies and layman in general.
In an all-understanding and friendly AI world, there is no longer any need to learn to code, understand specific terminology, and adopt foreign languages to search for basic information. Even Chat GPT understands most languages like nothing I’ve ever seen before and can flip from one to another seamlessly. Furthermore, since it can interpret our inquiry in plain language, it makes searching for anything a piece of cake. It can also present data in such friendly and understandable ways that non-AI systems couldn’t even dream of. It’s a brand new, state-of-the-art technology with limitless possibilities that anyone can use. How about that?
Google and all the most influential platforms are rightly afraid. Once a killer app (no pun intended) comes along, perhaps in the form of a proper personal assistant, making AI accessible to all, in all languages, levels of IT proficiency, and conversation styles with direct access to an infinite all-encompassing universe of information, perhaps even interconnected with some version of the internet of things, they will be rendered entirely obsolete. Unless they’re the ones leading the field, that is.
If what I’ve just written doesn’t inspire you with awe and fascination, think of a time when we had to use those large yellow books with tiny print to find business and phone numbers for everything (phone books), instead of just asking a search engine and be done in seconds. Think back on a time before the internet and what a hassle it was to get information about anything. You had to get dressed, go on a bus, enter a library, and find your answers buried in one of the books there. Something that could take hours at best and days or weeks at worst now takes seconds to minutes from a device you always have on your person. No need to go anywhere anymore and ask anyone. The amount of knowledge and information available to everyone with an internet connection couldn’t have been imagined a few decades ago.
Even if you’re one of the cranky technology haters you have to admit that in quite a few areas of your life, technology has made life incomparably easier than it was before.
Not to mention the other innovations that have completely transformed our lives. Things like planes, cars, air conditioning, nuclear energy, etc. It has, unfortunately, also made some things more difficult for the non-initiated. The most mundane of tasks, I’m afraid, as is the way with all things. Nothing is just good or bad for everyone, all the time. The same fate probably awaits AI.
It can be our best friend, a personal assistant, a turbocharger of our work, it could replace 90% of our employees, but it could also be our worst oppressor, jailer and time waster.
For the most part, we get to choose which part of the equation will be predominant in our life, but not in all cases. AI has some dark possibilities, like with all the other technological advancements. Nuclear energy can provide whole countries with near-free electricity, but on the other hand, atomic bombs can annihilate millions at the push of a button. Location-based applications can be very convenient, especially when traveling. Still, in the hands of the wrong people (primarily governments), this same technology can be used to control and oppress people like nothing before in the history of human civilization.
Don’t fear the AI, fear the humans who wield its power!
AI has yet to prove its capability and desire to cause untold suffering and create hell on Earth. People have proven it over and over again throughout the whole history of humanity. One is a theory, and the other is a proven fact!
Imagine Hitler, Stalin, or any other dictator, with today’s technology available to direct their misguided ideologies. Or just read the novel “1982” by George Orwell if you want nightmares whenever you see a politician playing with technology and limiting your freedom or privacy. Like I did through this whole Covid 19 digital pass tyranny in my part of the world. Once you see the potential for disaster and complete control of the government over its people, you can never unsee it.
Perhaps the determining factor of how you view the odds of AI being a positive influence in our collective lives or a negative one will have less to do with AI in itself but more with your answer to the question that governs it all:
“Is this world a light, good, benevolent place to live with occasional dark spots or is it a dark, bad, evil one with an occasional bright day?”
Whatever your personal view, the future remains unknowable. Only one thing is certain in this life, the one constant - change! Everything is in a constant flux of transmutation, change, and evolution. Ready or not, the next leg is here, for better or worse.
Whether AI will lead into a future full of flying cars, zero accidents, intergalactic flight and incomprehensible new breakthrough ideas or the end of all that we hold dear, remains to be seen.
A “nothing burger” is not an opinion, at least not in the long term, in my opinion. I choose to be an optimist, as there is no point in being a pessimist. It doesn’t help change the future, but it annihilates the pleasure of today. What about you?
Is the future with AI a bright or a dark one?
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