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I take as gospel what my buddy Ian Rogers once said: “Convenience Wins, Hubris Loses.” He was critiquing convenience in the music industry at the time, but the insight was dead on. We see it all the time in technology; why do anything that isn’t an app? Or put another way, if it’s not on my phone, why bother?
Many have observed that Search is broken. This is the secular equivalent of the “God is dead” theology of the 1960s, in that Search is dead and we (via SEO) have killed it. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is used to prop up this formerly invincible business. Google has made a concerted effort to integrate AI into Search with some bumpy results.
AI is not a new technology. It is actually ancient in the tech years. Some have even been passed off as ersatz therapists but were merely mimicking things an actual therapist might say (or ask, to be more precise).
Now we’re told in (sometimes) breathless headlines about its effect on society in the near future: massive layoffs, trillions of dollars spent on data centers and breakthroughs in science. To be clear, some big things have happened: layoffs (mostly in IT), data centers are being built, electrical energy and science are ramping up. Even libraries will feel the influence of AI.
So is this convenience or hubris? According to Gary Marcus (and his ilk), it’s the latter. Others say it’s “snake oil”. Despite their negative views, governments are increasingly being called upon to respond. So far, most are unsure how to handle AI’s demands for energy. And the political implications are only now being addressed.
There are legal issues with AI too. Some describe AI as a plagiarism platform and note that it is nearly impossible to detect in writing, but they’re trying. Of course, there are those who see it positively in the education space and want to incorporate it proactively.
The odd thing about AI is that it’s not particularly convenient. It takes money (A LOT) of money to create it. It’s pay-to-play and is dominated by four rich players. Those players have money and aren’t afraid to spend it but even those outside the “Big Four” want to invest in AI. That’s probably what Silicon Valley is best at: burning through money.
The seemingly insatiable maw of AI also requires tons of data—all the data on the internet and then some. Some academic publishers have recently revealed that they have pushed their author’s works into this furnace, at a profit, to be analyzed, digested and reconstituted somewhere (and somewhen) else.
I think that while AI is good at (statistical) prediction, AGI is a problem. Hallucinations are currently the dirty (not very) secret of AI. To be sure there is a mad scramble to fix this problem, we might need to remember that curation is something that humans (mostly) do well. And why not? We’ve got a 10,000 year head start on AI.
AI is inseparable from AI companies (i.e. big tech and some smaller players who hope to become big tech). They have a vested interest in AI and its marketplace and the hype has increased. Big tech is profiting from the confusion between the types of AI and capitalizing on the wow factor of certain products, especially those that can do audio and video.
There may well be another “AI winter” in the next few months. Like many technologies, AI is not immune to boom/bust cycles; this has happened to cryptocurrency and VR. It doesn’t mean that AI (and others) don’t have a place in the world. What’s perhaps in AI’s favor is that it can sometimes answer the question we should put to all technologies: “What problem does this solve?”
What if the AI prophets are right, and people are no longer needed? What would massive dislocation of the workforce look like? There are some interesting guesses. Hint: it would probably make Universal Basic Income a NECESSITY.
For several years, the Silicon Valley ethos has been to disrupt societal norms; everything from getting to the airport to managing your diet has become an app. These are actual problems being addressed (please don’t make me return to keeping a map book of Atlanta in my car!). Other times, they promise to make things easier that are already pretty easy or actually make those things harder and more expensive, or worse. Sometimes, we have to choose between convenience and ethical considerations. Just because we can do it doesn’t mean we ought to do it.
Even when convenient, humans can only absorb so much change. We should keep in mind E.O. Wilson’s warning: “The real problem of humanity is the following: we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology.”
-Bob Craigmile
Columbia Theological Seminary