Thought Leadership: Today’s AI leaders, including Sam Altman and Dario Amodio have both issued thoughtful pieces on the future of artificial intelligence in the past week and yet they seem to be missing an obvious point: Both men assume future advances in AI will take place in a relatively stable political environment. I don’t believe this assumption is valid. Given AI’s immense power to manipulate information, videos, and human minds, the incentive for political actors to co-opt AI for political ends (on all ends of the political spectrum) appears not only plausible but likely. Furthermore, the possibility that AI might eliminate 20 percent of all white-collar jobs within the next five years could produce the conditions for major societal unrest and upheaval. Counter to Altman’s self-serving suggestions that the “AI revolution will be gentle,” I am of the opinion that the near future will be dangerously chaotic. Today’s leaders must concern themselves with not just the first-order effects of AI but the secondary and tertiary impacts as well. (As an example of a negative secondary impact of technological advancement just consider how Waymo’s self-driving cars are being targetted in Los Angeles because of their adverse effect on jobs.)
Think Again: What happens when AI knows you better than you know yourself? If you don’t think this is possible, think again. Over time, AI will learn your biases, flawed assumptions, habits and even your deepest secrets. If you think today’s addiction to our smartphones is bad, just wait until AI “knows” how to manipulate you into staying on those sites that align with its interests, not your interests! (This will be tricky because AI will be so good that you will believe you are acting in your best interest when you are not.)
Think Different: It is entirely appropriate to think of artificial intelligence as “alien intelligence.” The reason this is so is because AI will be different from human thought. Within 5 years, many AI experts believe AI will achieve “Artificial Super Intelligence”—this is the point at which AI exceeds human intelligence. This undoubtedly holds the positive potential to lead to major breakthroughs in everything from drug discovery and curing various diseases to accelerating advances in nuclear fusion and quantum computing. We must never forget that however great ASI is, it still won’t possess a body, a heart or soul. If you believe, as I do, that there is something unique and special about the human condition then it is worth considering whether this is a rubicon humanity wants to cross.
Think Hard: Nvidia has recently released a new AI tool dubbed “Climate in a Bottle.” Forecasts which once took 8 hours to complete are now done in three minutes. The tool will also allow for vastly more accurate long-range weather forecasts for even smaller areas of land. (Forecasts which used to produce models for 100-square kilometers areas are now modeling for areas as small as 5-square kilometers.) These news tools are very impressive but they are about to disrupt the insurance market. One possibility is that insurance companies will use these new AI-powered insights to stay away from those areas most prone to climate-related disasters. Certain homeowners and farmers may soon have little choice but to bear the entire risk by themselves.
Think Harder: I am deeply troubled by the U.S. Government’s decision to appropriate from the Apache People Oak Flat’s – a land sacred to their people – because a massive reserve of copper has been found under the land. To understand Oak Flat’s significance to the Apache, the decision would be like Italy confiscating the Vatican because they had discovered oil beneath St. Peter’s Cathedral. Instead of simply accepting this madness, I encourage you to contemplate the words of Chief Seattle: “Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish caught will we realize that we cannot eat money.”
Thoughts from Beyond: I am a big proponent of silence, thought, meditation and contemplation. It is my experience that Divine truths can be known but they cannot always be reached through rational thought. Sometimes such insights can only be experienced through “non-thought.” Think about it this way: If you possess no thoughts whatsoever–and I mean truly no thoughts–What then is “there”? Is this “nothingness” really nothing or is this the condition necessary for sensing something much bigger?
Afterthought: “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is “Thank You,” that will be enough.” Meister Eckhart
