More profound than fire, this is how Sundar Pichai, Google CEO qualified AI a few years ago?
Fire has been a game-changer in the history of mankind, providing us with energy and heat. It has enabled us to compete with stronger animals, while also making us more equal, since cold resistance and a strong immune system were no longer the only decisive factors for survival.
AI is transforming the way we think about equality. Thanks to ChatGPT, life-changing models are now accessible to the public, allowing anyone to share their written ideas and thoughts, something that has traditionally been a major competitive factor in society.
Incidentally, I think this is just payback, as these models are trained on public web data, from Reddit posts to blogs. In the short history of Big Data, GAFAM have access to immense amounts of data, but have failed to process and share it with their users.
AI is similar to fire in that it is creating a level playing field, eliminating the need for certain skills. As students are increasingly using ChatGPT to complete written assignments, this raises the question of what is the point of learning if ChatGPT knows the answer for you?
Learning is the most essential skill, but it is ultimately just one skill among many, and eventually, as fire has done, technology will level this.
One way learning could completely disappear would be though one of the many companies such as Neuralink aiming to implant chips into your brain. Their goals have always been to merge humans with AI and ChatGPT provides a glimpse of what this would be like.
At first, this seemed like a moonshot, but with the recent historic trial by Synchron in which paralyzed patients were able to effectively control computers things are getting clearer, and it seems like a matter of time before learning is no longer a thing.
AI is a technology that has the potential to transform lives in ways we have only begun to imagine. As Elon Musk says, “the Future is going to be weird”.
