Artificial Intelligence and the Future

Artificial Intelligence came a long way. Long gone are the days when 'experts' said, nah, there’s no way computers will ever beat a chess grandmaster. We've learnt to accept it like we've accepted that calculators are better than humans at mathematical calculations and hammers are better at nailing. No human can compete with a machine to calculate billions of permutations in a fraction of a second and choose the wining one.

Then when the Internet started, and this I remember well, the sceptics said, nah, it's just a fad, a game, real life doesn't have a need for the Internet. But the youngster me could see it coming. Obviously life will never be the same when you have the world's knowledge literally at your fingertips. Doesn’t make sense. The Internet will be, and turned out to be, the new normal. It happened too fast actually, now if you don’t have a computer you can’t function in civil life, banking, applying for visas, paying stuff, letters, everything is by computer and online. If you don’t have a computer you’re illiterate. A smartphone is basically a pocket computer.

Then came massively complex AI.

AI is busy revolutionizing how we do things in a way that's impossible to predict but some aspects are easy to see coming. Massive learning models can improve themselves. This means exponential progress and it's obvious computers will be able to emulate humans, and already do. AI can pass the Turing test. ChatGPT passed a US bar exam with flying colours. All this uncertainty is scaring many people. Could the Sci-Fi dystopian scenario where machines take over the World become reality? I don't know but what I know is that nothing will be the same and everything will change quicker and faster than when the Internet took over.

Poetry by humans will be a thing of the past in the same way no one calculates cubed roots anymore. Why would you spend hours doing it by hand when a pocket calculator does it in less than a second? And specially now when everyone carries a scientific calculator in their pocket all the time (smartphones).

Smartphones were revolutionary too and wait until they’re powered by AI. This is not some prediction for the future, this is already happening. The new Bing uses ChatGPT for searching. Google has Bard and there are numerous AI platforms to design whatever you want. You can already ask ChatGPT to write you a book, an essay, a poem. It’s just a matter of time before you can tell it, make me a movie with this plot or just tell it to make it thrilling or whatever you wish.

If you think this is far fetched, you're not paying attention. You can already write a game without much programming knowledge. The other day I wrote a Python script to make me a logo and I don't even know Python. Sure, you'll need some programming skills and you might have to tweak the code but soon any layman with zero programming skills will be able to code any application they need. Well, the skills will be in the prompts you use, how to tell the AI what you need. The prompts will take skill. But AI is self improving so it gets easier all the time, a scary prospect actually, it won't even need humans to keep functioning and upgrading itself. Far fetched? Already happening.

When new tech becomes mainstream you can bet it's been in development for years and the geeks already knew about it. We can't even imagine the tech that is being developed in labs right now.

And wait for robots.

The complexity issue has been solved. Drones were Sci-Fi until processing power became available to perform a huge amount of calculations to keep correcting the movement. Earlier processors weren't quick enough to keep drones or robots from falling but that's been solved.

Highly dexterous and intelligent robots seems like science fiction but they're around the corner. Older robots were basically assembly line machines but the Sci-Fi type that you can be friends with and will do amazing stuff is probably already being developed in some lab.

Highly agile robots already exist.

This video exemplifies what already exists, these robots can even do backflips. Now give them some AI like GPT and network connectivity and it's obvious that eventually we'll have robotic everything, drones, soldiers, home assistants, automobiles, the sky is the limit. Is loading the washing machine too much of a chore? Get the robot to do it. Or even better, the washing machine itself can go and collect the washing, wash it, even hang it in the Sun if you wish instead of tumble drying and iron it. Then when done park itself in the garage out of sight and saving space.

The availability of AI and huge processing power will make robotics ubiquitous, like smartphones.

The job market will change drastically. Programmers will go the way of seamstresses and tailors. I think paper books will still exist in the same way we still have vinyl records but it won't be a big industry. Publishing will change forever and AI will do most of the jobs. Many businesses will go the way of videoshops and photographic film developing.

Something that could change everything would be a solar flare so big it would take out advanced electronics and all satellites, which are more vulnerable to solar flares than terrestrial electronics. This could bring back books and 19th century technology but I don't know how likely such a solar flare would be, or any other catastrophic event that could take us back to pre-history.

For the foreseeable future, AI will keep shedding jobs.

Another profession AI could replace is the oldest profession. Yes, if a sex slave robot could be as realistic as a prostitute and totally obedient, why not use a sexbot? But I have some doubts about this because a prostitute is still a woman. You could argue, but her clients don't go there for the human touch but then why not just masturbate? Don't know, for now I think machines cann't replace human touch but further into the future it's likely. The question is, will evolved machines one day gain humanity? Anyway, AI will at least replace 'soft prostitution' like cam girls. That is already starting to happen.

To see the future it helps to look at the past. When Leonardo Da Vinci came up with plans for helicopters and other flying machines, he didn't have the technology to make it happen but 400 years later flying machines heavier than air became a reality and today we take aeroplanes for granted. Likewise our kids and grandkids will see intelligent super-strong and agile robots as normal. Even something as simple as washing machines aren't that simple and were once revolutionary, there was a time when if you wanted something washed you'd need to do it by hand. Imagine having to wash a household's laundry of 20 kids and a few adults 100 years ago. It took the whole day and there wasn't time for anything else, never mind entertainment. So you'd have to wear the same clothes the whole season because there was more important work to be done like cooking and plowing. Today we are spoilt. And our kids will be even more. Well, there's the argument that the new generations are worse off than the parents for the first time in the West but I think it's a ripple that will be ironed out. Long term, it's likely progress will continue.

It's difficult to see where it will go and I'm optimistic but I can't help thinking of the Tower of Babel. Basically, humans started a project so big, a tower aiming at the heavens, to reach God, aiming at the highest value, that kept growing and growing and it became so big and unmanageable that eventually no one understood what they were saying. If you didn't read the Bible, don't think this is what it actually says there, it's just my interpretation. So it became too big and no one could understand what everyone else was talking about and the project was abandoned and collapsed. Not with a bang but in a slow dismemberment because no one knew how to maintain it.

Or not, the other likely possibility is that it's just nothing, we always feel uneasy with uncertainty.

In this video from January Brett Weinstein says that we’re not ready for ChatGPT but this happens every time some new revolutionary technology comes around. It’s always, oh it’s too dangerous in human hands. And then we get ready. Nuclear energy didn't destroy Earth. Not yet anyway, I don't rule out a catastrophe, just that we tend to exaggerate the dangers.

In the early days of automobiles, there were many sceptics who saw them as dangerous machines. Some critics said that speeds of 25 km/h were deadly. And now we laugh because we can drive over 200 Km/h safely. If you disagree, imagine a wide, empty highway and a top class vehicle with all the latest safety devices. It will be safer than 25 Km/h a century ago.

But what if it’s something so deadly and unpredictable that it doesn’t give us time to get ready?

I don't think it will be this time. We'll adapt to ChatGPT.

Students will cheat using it but at the same time mechanisms to detect fraud will also advance.

With AI we can create deep fakes indistinguishable from real videos but as technology gives the liars and crooks an edge, it also enables better defenses. The good guys tend to be a step ahead.

My fear is of big governments and corporations abusing power and taking away personal freedoms. AI is Big Brother's dream come true. Governments can spy on every facet of citizen's behaviours. That already happens in China. The Chinese must use the Tencent app otherwise they can't do shopping, travel or pretty much do anything and if they 'misbehave' their social credit score will decrease and they'll suffer further restrictions. 'Misbehaving' could mean anythinhg the government doesn't like.

With enough supercomputing power and a huge network reach AI can correlate gazillions of events in seconds and make accurate predictions. For example, Facebook and Google know more about you than anyone else. Facebook can predict when you will be taking that coffee and go poop. You could argue, but I never go at the same time, but you don't have to, they have enough data points to make an accurate prediction. You don't know why or what makes you go while Facebook's AI does. They have so much info on you, the app tracking you all the time, their AI knows before you when it's time to go. You don't know consciously what makes you do it but there are events that trigger it, it's not totally random and the AI can pick up those microscopic nuances that makes it happen. It's like predicting the weather. 100 years ago it was mostly guesswork but with today's supercomputers and space view from satellites we can know with useful accuracy if it's going to rain or be windy or sunny. As processing power continuously increases this will only keep getting more accurate.

With incredibly high resolution satellite photos and AI it will be easy to find the metaphorical needle in a haystack. And satellite photo resolution just keeps ever increasing so it will be possible to find almost anything on Earth. You can't hide.

Chinese citizens were blocked by their government from protesting by turning their cellphones to code red, raising COVID-19 alarms prohibiting them from moving. In the West people have been arrested for saying men can't be lesbians and there have been many cases of people jailed for similar 'crimes'. Now imagine what the future holds, when a highly diligent government can go through a victim's life history of SMS's, WhatsApp's and all other IM messages, social media posts and everything that person has ever said on the phone, and then it's a case of, 'show me the man and I'll find you the crime'. That's the scary part and it's only not scary if you're not aware of this or don't value freedom.

Politicians and bureaucrats will use AI to try and control us in nefarious ways.

Anyway, maybe then there will be a revolution. Or people will be happy under obligatory drugs and embrace and love Big Brother. Or Big Sister.