Why is the headline below no surprise?
Being at the other end of the educational pipeline, I am trying to imagine what it must be like entering white-collar work and learning what AI can do (and you can’t do nearly as well).
If I wanted to know what was happening in the business world , I could open my digital paper and find that AI systems such as Grok are a threat
But I find that I can find AI to be agents taking over the expensive software that my firm is paying for (to SaaS suppliers).
Meanwhile in other countries there are attempts to pull up the drawbridge, presumably with the enemy already in the castle
The Monday morning paper I am digitally flicking through is a series of articles about Artificial Intelligence, mostly about how to put a lid on a boiling pot.
The circularity of control
It’s all a little circular as the loopholes in the legislature to stop AI taking control are themselves identified by artificial intelligence.
I remember writing a 5,000 word report in 1983 on Ezra Pound by hand, only to find a girlfriend had done her economic thesis on a computer she had discovered could be hired from her department.
The computers of the 1980s were very different from the computers we use today. They were large, bulky, and expensive. However, they were also groundbreaking machines that paved the way for the computers we use today.
But like AI they were the door openers to the smart kids who got ahead , that girl went on to be CFO of BGI and now runs a business that started out selling the blockchain and now is at the forefront of AI in California. Does this CV surprise me?
Two ways forward for young people
There is likely to be a lack of opportunities for young people who do not work with AI to get where they need to be. Like the guys who wrote their thesis’ and then had them typed on an electronic typewriter when computers were available (in the early 1980s).
For my generation to now argue that AI is a threat to young people is a failure in imagination.
Undoubtedly there will be law breaking and casualties from the changes that AI will have on those who work with software. But to suppose that AI will not impact those who interact with software no further than through apps on their phones and have no input into what is changing, AI will be just as radical to lifestyle.
For my generation, it may be grandchildren who we worry about , maybe a generation further, there is no stopping the radical changes that will be available to them. They are the generation that can teach us the opportunities and we have only the morality we have inherited from generations before us!
AI is the imagination of the future, for young people. It may be frightening to us older folk but it is the punk rock of those under 20. We ought to remember and be glad.
