Whether you realize it or not, you are living through the beginning of a new era of history. It used to be said that we were living in the “information age” with the birth of the internet. Now that ChatGPT and the other types of artificial intelligence have been released, I think that it’s safe to say that the information age has transitioned into the AI age.
What comes next with all this? AI is about to change the world and it’s not necessarily for the better.
Here are a few of my thoughts.
“Super” AI will keep getting smarter
I differentiate this from the concept of superintelligence. When I say “Super AI” what I mean is that you’re going to see a host of different AI abilities being combined. Picture what you would have if you combined ChatGPT, Midjourney, Grammarly, financial guru AI, facial recognition, “counseling AI,” and so on other types of AIs together, and think about what you would have. What’s more, AI learns and adapts incredibly quickly – far more quickly than humans are capable of learning.
It would be something reminiscent of Jarvis from Iron Man. You would end up with this AI that was very much something of a genie in a bottle. Just about anything you would want that AI to do (that didn’t necessarily need to be done in the real world), that AI could do.
Want to talk with somebody about how your day went, what you’re thinking, the advice you need, or how you want to make money trading stocks? A “super AI” would be able to do it and more. This would be somewhat akin to the movie Her. You have this very smart AI that is just about as capable as a human. AI could easily begin to replace human relationships because AI understands you.
As far as superintelligence goes, I think we may have a bit of time there yet. The very idea of superintelligence is somewhat difficult to come to terms with, but Nick Bostrom’s book on the subject (Superintelligence) and The Singularity Is Near are both books that I think will help you to understand the concept better.
“Soldier” AIs in the military
You’re most certainly going to see AI be something of an arms race among nations. People are going to do everything they can to figure out how they can weaponize this so that it can be used to protect their people and attack others.
Initially, this will probably be used for cyberwarfare in the form of hacking and coding new viruses that, like Stuxnet, will be capable of causing damage to actual hardware. You’ll also see it used for “financial warfare.” AI is incredibly good at pattern recognition. It will be used to create AIs that are used to manipulate financial markets to cause economic damage to enemy nations or people groups. It could quite literally be used to cause a financial depression in a targeted nation and could even be set up so that it only impacts that nation (or at least predominantly that nation). That AI would be able to understand what stocks and companies a nation needs most, and then go after those.
But it won’t just be in the cyber realm. You’re going to see wild advancements in AI and robotics as well. We’re already seeing ChatGPT being put into robot dogs. This is literally just the beginning. If you’ll remember back in 2020, there was widespread use of AI, drones, and temperature-reading cameras to gather information and enforce mandates. What comes next with AI is that on steroids.
Do I think you’ll see autonomous robotics that are fully capable of making their own decisions and acting of their own volition? Not really. What I think you’ll see instead are robots that have been programmed by police and military units to accomplish X goal without needing human oversight and those robots will go out and accomplish that goal. There are going to be a lot of hurdles in the initial stages of this, but Elysium-style police robots are truly not that far off of an idea within the next 20 years (if not sooner).
The death of a myriad of jobs
We’re already seeing widespread job impact as a direct result of companies replacing human beings with AI. Exhibit A here would be IBM. They’re even geared up to replace their human resources department with AI.
Think back towards the creation of the loom or just about any other technological tool throughout history. They cause job loss. Read up on the history of the Luddites to see what I mean here. Much like Gutenberg put scribes out of business, the introduction of next-level AI into the world is very much going to do the same thing to people across the globe. There will be new jobs that are created out of the birth of this technology (if we’re using history as a guide), but a lot of things are going to change.
Personally, I think manual labor is one of the safest options at the moment due to robotic technology and price-point not being at the level it would need to be to cause plumbers, electricians, and carpenters to be out of a job. If you do just about anything with computers, I think that you do have cause for concern. (Once upon a time, I thought that comedians would be one of the only people safe from robots stealing their jobs. Considering that AI has already done a pretty good job making jokes of its own accord now though, I don’t think this anymore.) If you are worried about AI taking your job, check out this article.
AI is going to change the world.
I don’t think that the above is an exhaustive list of the ways in which you’re going to see changes in the near future, but I do think that it’s a good place to start. As time progresses, keep your ear to the road, and I think that you’ll find that you’re going to see quite a bit of the above. Most of it is not good for humanity.