Artificial (Un)intelligence
My Hopes and Fears of an AI Future
As an early-stage venture investor, I am privileged to play a tiny role in supporting the development of AI in ways that will hopefully change the world for the better. In the past few years, I have invested in companies that are disrupting industries ranging from healthcare to education to manufacturing, construction, logistics, office work, legal practice, and much more. There is so much promise in how humans can become more productive, safe, healthy, and even intelligent, in our day-to-day personal and professional lives. And this is just the beginning. Nevertheless, there are significant warning signs of how AI can be used in nefarious ways that could actually cause society to regress and lose autonomy for our decisions and livelihoods. Here I share a short list of some of the top reasons why AI innovations provide me with both a great deal of hope as well as fear for our future as a human race.
How AI Gives Me Hope:
The power to extend and improve the quality of lives through advanced medical research that will result in both rapid diagnosis of diseases and discovery of precision therapeutics.
The advent of medical treatment and therapy options that are both highly personalized and require less waiting and expenses for patients.
Bespoke education both inside and outside the classroom that is tailored to each individual learner. See Khanmigo from Khan Academy, as detailed in Sal Khan’s recent book Brave New Words.
Applications in transportation, such as autonomous vehicles, which may eventually become a standard that eliminates death and injuries from road accidents and frees up drivers to be more productive with their time.
More advanced R&D to identify and empower developments in clean energy and climate technology.
Advancements in the exploration of the universe and what discoveries might come of it.
Tools like Large Language Models (LLMs) can help cut through misinformation and disinformation if they can be universally trusted for accuracy and objectivity.
How AI Keeps Me Up and Night:
We may lose human inspiration in areas such as literature, music, and the arts, if technology can become autonomous content creators.
Humans could become increasingly lazy as thinkers and innovators across many different fields as critical thinking becomes less essential for our daily survival.
We will become cyborgs with implanted chips that supplement our brainpower in ways that are necessary to compete in the world and diminish the output of those who do not possess augmented intelligence.
Physical augmentation through AI-driven tools will make humans stronger, which will appeal to many, but will make the debate over trans athletes look like child’s play by comparison.
A surge in fake body images (AI “nudification” per this recent 60 Minutes segment) that could evolve to bespoke “robot humans” that are virtually indistinguishable physically from real humans and eventually embed human-sounding communication and emotions. One could expect robot dolls that utterly obscure the line between fantasy and reality.
Job losses across countless industries without adequate preparation and skills training for an AI-led future.
Wars will be conducted that are faster and deadlier and new forms of warfare will emerge that have not yet even been conceived of.
And the biggest question of all: Who even wrote this blog? Was it me or Artificial (Un)intelligence, as the case may be…?
What excites you and keeps you up at night about where AI is taking our civilization?