The Artificial Intelligence learning curve. Part 2

By Gonzalo López Martí – Creative Director
www.LopezMartiMiami.com/

You can read part 1 of this article CLICK HERE.

• There is a saying in the videogame industry: a successful game must be easy and intuitive so everyone can learn to dabble in it at a glance, yet difficult enough that it takes a very long time to become an expert.
• This logic will most possibly apply to AI.
• Technology democratizes tools.
• While in parallel it fosters hyper specialization.
• Collaboration among different fields of expertise will be more and more necessary.
• Which leads us to possibly the ultimate and most paradigm-changing aspect of AI: the whole concept of intellectual property will be diluted and challenged.
• The whole copyright legal framework will need to be overhauled.
• More little contributions by more people will be the norm.
• Check the credits of a modern Billboard chart-topper and compare it to a hit from 50 years ago.
• A Beatles song used to have two composers (Lennon, McCartney) and maybe one producer (George Martin).
• The average pop track today has dozens of credited producers.
• AI will allow more and more rappers and DJs unable to write a score or play an instrument to create music.
• The paradox of technology: it democratizes creativity, yet it diffuses authorship.

WORK WORK WORK

• As Marshall McLuhan said: “We drive into the future using only our rearview mirror”.
• If the rearview mirror tells us anything about new technologies, it is that, as much as they relieve us from hard toil, they also make us busier.
• AI will not be the exception.
• The notion that technology gives us more leisure and me-time is just false.
• The Maslow Pyramid doesn’t apply.
• Technology helps us avoid tough physical labor, e.g., working the fields with an ox plow.
• At the same time, it finds a way to sneak work into our attention span wherever we are.
• 24/7.
• AI will keep us working non-stop.
• With our full consent, mind you.

PASSIVE INCOME

• AI will derail careers and create new ones.
• The lucky ones will strike gold and obtain steady income from scalable, perpetual machine-like platforms requiring little maintenance.
• The rest of us will be stuck in a rut of diminishing returns and labor limbo.
• Here’s an idea that will not solve anything and will only prolong the growing pains: the so-called Universal Basic Income.
• Welfare for everyone.
• The pandemic was a great proof of concept.
• Need I remind you that t didn’t pass muster?
• The moment you give everyone a thousand dollars, a thousand dollars becomes zero.
• Rampant inflation.
• Priorities run berserk.
• Shameless freeloading.
• Fraud.

DOOMSDAY SCENARIO

• Will AI become some sort of massive omnipresent apex predator attempting to exterminate us like roaches?
• I doubt it.
• It is a mistake to project our genetic traits, let alone our human emotions, onto AI.
• A machine has no reason to experience love, fear, competitiveness, vanity, jealousy, hope or despair.
• These are evolutionary behaviors we carry in our reptilian brains since we were invertebrates attempting to procreate and survive another day.
• There’s no reason for AI to be beset by these atavistic biological drivers.
• Odd as it may sound from a human logic, it doesn’t necessarily have the deep-seated desire to survive and multiply that we living organisms have.
• AI is not some big conniving antagonist lurking in your hard disk.
• Why would it?
• It may sound counterintuitive, but it is not unreasonable to expect for AI to be a selfless, purely “generous” entity.
• In any case, I’m old enough to know that predictions are futile.
• We’ll see.