And you’ve likely heard AI referred to as “bigger than the Industrial Revolution” a time or two.
In some ways, I think it will be.
But I think it’s imperative that we understand what impacts AI will and won’t have.
For example, I heard an analogy yesterday from a podcaster I really respect that I think totally misses the mark.
He said “AI will be like the industrial revolution, but for intelligence. Where the Industrial leveled the playing field for strength and resources by creating machines, AI will level the playing field for intelligence.”
I think that’s entirely wrong. And it actually casts a massively dystopian vision for the future of the world.
The Industrial Revolution certainly did level the playing field on physical ability.
You don’t need to be particularly strong or have a lot of endurance to use a cotton gin, or a printing press, or even to use an assembly line to build a car.
So you no longer needed an army of strong people to accomplish big tasks. Suddenly, anyone was able to do just about any job, and those who were prized for their strength had to adjust.
But to say that AI will have the same effect makes a faulty assumption both about the parallels between strength and intelligence and about the capabilities of AI.
First, strength and intelligence are not the same. In a world of video game “attributes” where you build characters on a “1-10” scale of strength, intelligence, charisma, etc. it can feel like these characteristics are interchangeable widgets in the real world. They are not.
Within humans, strength has hard limits.
No human being, no matter how mighty, will ever be able to lift a 2,000 pound steel plate without assistance.
Similarly, no human being will ever run a mile in two minutes flat.
With improvements to technology, form, and training, humans have made very slight improvements in world records over time. Compare Michael Phelps to Mark Spitz, for example. But even Michael Phelps can’t swing the English Channel in half an hour (even if endurance weren’t a consideration).
Intelligence does not work the same way. The limits to what mankind can accomplish with its mind are only theoretical, and always changing.
Given infinite time, resources, life span, etc… there’s really no telling what Albert Einstein or Thomas Edison or Galilelo could have accomplished.
And that’s where the beauty of AI will be on full display: imagine putting the brains of Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, or Galilelo into a computer that wasn’t bound by time, resources, life span, or any other human limitation?
The potential good that could be accomplished is literally infinite. And that should be very exciting!
But there’s where the false equivalency begins…
Because it’s assumed that if these computers can all think with the intelligence of Albert Einstein, it doesn’t matter who is using them.
But it matters a great deal.
AI is still controlled by user inputs, and the users’ imagination and intelligence will be limitations on what the computers can accomplish.
They have to be, because, otherwise, we really do open the doors to some kind of dystopian, Isaac Asimov futuristic nightmare.
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