Think: As many of you know, I’ve been writing and thinking a great deal about artificial intelligence. While I remain bullish on AI’s many positive contributions to society, I remain deeply troubled by its dangers and its “unknowns.” Generally speaking, I am not in favor of strict regulations but after much contemplation I’ve come down in favor of the highest and strongest forms of self-regulation (for the inventors) and governmental regulation (for the technology companies). I explain my rationale in this opinion piece: Regulate AI like Humanity’s Future Depends Upon It.
Think the Unthinkable: Change is constant. What was once useful and helpful is replaced by something else and the old thing, over time, becomes obsolete. Think telephone operators, dictionaries, phone books, etc. Artificial intelligence is about to send this obsolescence into “warp drive.” Consider these two articles: Why Google and Bing’s Embrace of Generative AI Could Upend the SEO Industry and How AI Assistants are Already Changing the Way Code Gets Made. The first article discusses how the $68 billion SEO/advertising industry will change, and the second shares how the work of many of today’s 100 million coders may go away.
Think Bigger: China Unveils World’s First AI-Power Vertical Farm with 20-Floors. By harnessing the power of AI and by better utilizing the various spectrums of light, China is now growing and harvesting lettuce in just 35 days. The vertical farm undoubtedly uses a great deal of energy to power both the AI and the LED lighting, but once clean, affordable energy becomes more available and abundant, look for vertical/urban farming to sprout as rapidly as those vertically-grown heads of lettuce.
Think Different: If I was a farmer (which I am not), I would begin researching, reading and thinking about this topic: Study shows that inoculating soil with fungi can increase plant yield by 40 percent. (There was a big “catch” in the study, however: The introduction of fungi did not work in all soils and, in some cases, actually decreased the yield of certain fields.)
Think Long-Term: Nuclear fusion–which I think of as trying to capture the immense power of an artificial mini-sun in a bottle–won’t change the world anytime soon, but I am confident it will change the world. Whether this milestone is 10 or 20 years away I can’t say, but this week’s news that Japan unveiled a 6-story experimental nuclear fusion reactor has brought us one step closer to this elusive goal.
Afterthought: “There is no better teacher than history in determining the future … there are answers worth billions of dollars in $30 history books .“–Charlie Munger
