AI is History

We are 1,5 years into the appearance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into our lives. Definitely, it took our lives by storm in the first year but seems to become more mainstream and on the background ever more. And that is where the challenge now lies, as the impact of new technology is overrated in the short term and underrated in the long term. We have just entered the long term.

?? This document has been written without the use of AI.

As a history nut I have gained much insight in present day developments due to the perspective of previous events in history. I love the quote by Ray Dalio :

"Everything has happened before in some way, but it surprises us because we haven't experienced it ourselves yet".

That makes our human race prone to making the same mistakes and miscalculations over and over again. Thankfully with the age of information we have the resources and access to learn from those past events much better than previous generations.

AI is a General Purpose Technology (also GPT, unlike Generative Pre-trained Transformer) as I wrote about in my blog AI Think, Therefore AI AM. There have been many GPT's before and pace is picking up on them. As they are more than just an innovation, they will become part of life as if they have ever been there. Just think of the wheel, electricity or the internet and what their impact has been, but we now consider them to be just here. Unless there is no electricity or internet, then you just scream out loud "woe on me" for not having it. We don't think about those technologies anymore, because they are always present.

And so it is, as we cannot keep thinking about electricity all day because we would miss out on all other 10.000 choices we make each day and go clearly mad. This is not by default a bad thing, but not thinking about AI anymore and sitting in the backseat for it to arrive is not a smart choice. This is the choice you have right now, as it will become more embedded in all apps, consumer goods and companies without your effort. You can accept it as electricity being there or you can move along with it.

There is, however, a key difference with other General Purpose Technologies is that AI will continue to evolve "on its own" as well, unlike any technology before.

As it is now still guided by human development, the time will come soon that it will be optimizing itself as it will outsmart humans by far in its optimization process. I am not telling that it will be smarter than humans anytime soon (within 5 years) but I am saying it will take over some subprocesses now still managed by humans to push the boundaries even further.

And that is the key differentiator to all other technologies; it will not only be an enabler for the human race to evolve further, it will also become an entity in our lives to come. Bold statement? No! Just think of the age of Adam Smith that companies were invented to be entities in our lives. They could hold money, inventory and even be liable. How preposterous that would be! And yet, if we want self-driving cars to be held accountable, we need to invent something in that matter. As history shows, the idea itself is not preposterous and companies today hold more assets and money than all people privately together. Those companies are still held by individuals in the end, but nevertheless you get the concept.

So as we are progressing with AI, have now seen the birth to the general public and are still at its infancy, this is the time to get to know more about it if you haven't done so before.

You can still grasp all the basic concepts, see its shortcomings when using it and laugh at some of its answers. You can learn about not taking it for granted, check its answers and build on your prompt building skills even though that will progress in the future as well. I am thankful for the years that we had floppy disks, VGA screens and even modems to use the internet because it makes you understand the full concept better. I see the same with AI at this moment.

Having read many books on history since 2001, I am now beginning to value all the insights that history brings. As you can still read in my 3-star review on Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations from 2006, you might not always "get it" the first time. But it will build your understanding of the major driving forces in the world brick by brick.

I will ask you to do the same and invest in history to build our future.

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?? I am Paul de Metter, entrepreneur & human technologist.

?? What do I mean by that? I just love the progress of technology, but am equally interested in the human side and impact. Follow me if you are interested or feel the same.