Will Generative AI/ML be a friend or foe? The Empowered Age of the Polymath in our dystopian & divisive world.

This edition will explore the reason we don't have many 'polymaths' in 2022. What could you do to become one? Position yourself to become more fulfilled and capitalise on future opportunities.

Thank you!

I'm in awe with the response so far to this newsletter. 150+ senior business leaders worldwide, with handful of 2nd degree contacts. It's nice to meet you and glad you are coming along for the journey. I would also like to thank those of you who have sent encouraging messages.

So far, I've networked mostly in person and with diverse people from C-suite / UNHWs - to people from all walks of life.

This Newsletter's Goal:

"I have striven sincerely to avoid these pitfalls and to use plain language even at the risk of sounding casual or unprofessional." The Story of Art, E.H. Gombrich, 1950

I hope to write this article thinking of the diverse diaspora of people that it may reach. I think of my daughters - who may just be entering the world of business - and the confusing nature of business and technical 'jargon'. Instead I will use 'plain language' as Gombrich outlines in the preface of his take on the history of Art. I aim to bring you some insight and further reading should you be interested in expanding your horizons.

This second instalment will look into the future, to how Artificial intelligence might affect our lives and work. Hope to tease out concrete opportunities for everyone - from business owners to students. (I can recommend David Wood 's books & podcasts on the futurist's perspective.)

There is slight difference between machine learning, deep learning and Artificial intelligence - this article explains this difference further.

Here, we will delve into the second aspect: Machine Learning/AI, most importantly the Generative AI (using models created to generate previously did not exist art etc.).

So, should we be scared? (thoughts of Yoshua Bengio) Or should we embrace AI? Machine learning already permeates all facets of our lives without us knowing. From targeted adverts, to Tiktok knowing you better than you know yourself, the world of machine learning can be daunting and scary. A good book on this is Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom?or the MUST READ nonfiction history of this field by Cade Metz called Genius maker, what a long saga!

AI models will follow the information that they are fed, much like us humans. Good in, good out. Rubbish in and rubbish out.

Each model's accuracy & efficiency is totally dependent on the quality, authenticity and size of the training data set. and how biased datasets might also affect the performance of each version of the model. So would a machine learning from us, learn our weaknesses? Is AI indeed Gullible?

Shall we be scared of or embrace AI? Well, like most overnight success, AI's arrival had not been overnight, it's been a long trek and many years of uncertainty, self believe, research and community plus investment to get to today. see Wired Race for AI Supremacy

AI is only the first phase, and if all come to pass, the general Artificial intelligence might arrive in years to come.. yet like innovation of photography, cinemas, cars to personal & cloud computing, each disruptive technology will change the world hopefully for better (maybe even FixTheWorld). It is about how the power dynamic shift and how humankind can adapt and thrive in due course and arrive at a more equitable and just world. A fantastic keynote by Alan D. Thompson on latest of AI world below:

Uproars of AI in Art:

Since beginning of 2022, from public launch of OpenAI 's DALLE.2 (closed codes for partners with censorship), and Stability AI 's open sourced Stable Diffusion (open platform for others to plug & play and adopt their open codes, keeping control of their product is a challenge.).

Many people are indeed up in arms with the seemingly plagiarism of art without artist's consent. A great article that explains why Greg Rutkowski is a more popular prompt than Picasso, and he's not happy about it! on MIT Tech Review. I empathise and could appreciate the frustration from Greg's perspective!

On the other hand, it is a major step of democratisation Art creation by the AI engines: As investor of DALLE.2, microsoft will be integrating version of it to new product "designer" and bing browser, no doubt Google will be adding their version and thus floodgate will open by end of 2022!

What does this mean for us non artists, like me who grew up from council estates and never visited proper museum until 40's. I can tell you that having tried the different AI art engines in the last two weeks, it spelled great opportunities, excitement and empowered the inner artist in me.

However, it is not as easy as it sound, like genetic & biological process of making a perfectly formed organic babies (mother's body would automatically reject malformed embryos by process of miscarriage, 85% due to chromosome abnormalities).

With AI art, my limited experience had been failure rate of 90%+ as there are multitude of monstrosities created by these AI engine, thankfully they were just ephemeral pixels on screens. However 0.1% of those creations were mostly magnificent (except the hands and legs which are still weird looking, why?) example of some good ones I created below:

In order to create better Art pieces, I had to research and re-learn names, styles and the flowery and at times I thought wishy washy "art expert /gallery owner speak".. but with those words, they truly unlocked the power of these AI engines.. I managed to create photo realistic images of people, food, animal to Philosophers as imagined by AI.

In fact thanks to OpenArt.ai community I won 500credits!

Life Savers or not?

Ofcourse, art maybe great for the eyes, but in terms of real life impact, some might argue that it is nothing compare to the "Power of AI" unleashed by Alpha Fold by DeepMind in predicting shape of proteins, these work are already adding enormous values to medical field and saving lives.

Therefore, from creating art to research and application of data to create info that can be used in real life, time and resources investments required before AI is just not comparable, as Reid Hoffman explained eloquently on his post Blitzscaling Creativity with DALL-E.

What does this all mean? In my humble opinion it means our lives and jobs will be affected, it is how we choose our respond that is the opportunity. We are now second year into the pandemic, everyone worldwide is affected by de-globalisation, war in Ukraine (& likely impact on world economies), inflation etc.

Life's full of challenges, it was much worst few centuries back: think back in time before modernisation or even proper lighting/sanitation, when poor people were relying on fireflies to read, and life expectancy was 40/50years old and child mortality was 50%, there were already many polymaths then!

Previously, studying multiple fields were the norm, like theologian physicist Issac Newtons c.1600 or geographer, naturist Alexander von Humboldt c.1700... could it be that all the potential polymaths of present days' time and energy been zapped by society discords or consumed by rubbish media/entertainment and or 24/7 televised sport? Some might even argue reality TV celebrate the mediocre or sedentary lifestyle that led to 50% + of obese people in US?

I'm borderline obese based on BMI 29, despite the fact that I don't watch live TV, reality TV but still I get hooked on some binge 'worthy' documentary, that is what I am blaming for me not being a polymath!

Therefore I would like to submit that it maybe time to be an empowered polymath, some of us have full spectrum lighting, sanitation, home gym, spatial audio whilst running/walking.. some might even have high speed internet everywhere.. maybe it is time to harness people's own creativity using future's AI tools... towards a common goal(s)?

New dawn of Polymaths?

To study without thinking is worthless, to think without study is dangerous. (Confucius, Analects, 2:15)?

Confucius was probably the OG of polymath. Socrates & Platos were also polymaths and developed their thoughts independently in the west. They approach studying differently, where Confucius steered more towards society harmony . see this research paper by Michael A. Peters

So, untalented artists could become an artist enabled by AI in my situation, that brings me to key insights learnt from un-distractable expert, author Nir Eyal 's key advice, I’m paraphrasing as sadly I lost our FixTheWorld.Club recording! His insight was “you need to know what you are distracted from".. therefore meaning is you need to know what goal you have set in life. [my long post about networking & setting goals in 2017 still applicable].?

I humbly submit we must fight our present #AgeOfCollectiveStupidity, as otherwise would have not have such devisive society that has trageatory back to the cold wars and facist times. If there are UFOs looking at earth now, they could be in shocked how we as human has regressed as people do not even know how to ferment for farm food for themselves, and how little polymaths we have now in the second millennia compare to even 17/18th centuries Britain?

Save time hack to focus on learning & creating:

So with a growth mindset, and maybe a good idea to combine that with a Seemingly Un-achievable Mission.. ?

becoming a polymath enabled by AI might be a comparatively easier task.. but time must be saved for family & enjoyments and rest should be invested in the area(s) you might want to choose to become an expert in. This is like doing an Executive MBA except you can see the real results and not just a piece of paper that others might put a value on.

Some might argue that work ethics changed and people want more relaxing time to binge watch rubbish, instead of learning something new, challenging, or struggling writing blog post or creating something, anything?

Believe me, I have a very addictive personality and love binge watching educational YouTube.. some of my personal tricks:

1) doing things on one leg, knees bent

2) shopping for food have no labels

3) only watch programs minimum with IMDB ratings 7.5 or more

4) even then watching or listening to podcasts (hopefully educational) at 2x speed

5) or skipping to main parts of excitements like watching UFC fights, I skip to skirmishes and knockout and choke outs.. after watching 100's of them, I've cancelled my subscription as most fights are similar, and none the same as Randy vs Chuck!.

2022 is therefore IMHO a greatest time alive for those hunger for knowledge and can embrace future with open arms, especially if you are business owner or parents who can nudge your staffs and kids in the right way. No need to pay thousands as many major Ivy League university courses by world renowned professors are freely available on YouTube to Edx/ Coursera (if its any good, you can pay to get the MIT/Harvard certificates!!).?

It is now past the time of blindly follow biased adverts that others put in front of you.

and for a field like AI, GAI where it is evolving on a daily/hourly basis, the best course of action is to get involved, and learn online, join the communities, even for those greatest artists whose work seemingly and unjustly get plagiarised, maybe this could be turned around as opportunity?

How exactly might that happen you might ask, one possibility is that, as OpenAI or StabilityAI has millions at stake, maybe they can compensate existing artists whose name get used every time the engine quoted to get 0.1￠ (like the Synchronization rights in the music industry). If successful, Greg could become a millionaire overnight and retire. Once retired, however, he could go into next phase & potentially use AI engines to improve upon and create newer style of artwork? Could he also move into 3D printed artwork and/or design different seasons of 3D printed Cos-play fashion?

To-be-Polymath's bright future:

As for teenagers, gen-z or corporates rat racers (especially if you are blessed with 20% corporate time rules like those of Google that you can invest in yourself), seems to me, sky is the limit, as OpenAI and stability.AI are going into music (Dance Diffusion, ), videos etc. very soon, business of netflix or disney will be democratised. If you can code, it maybe time to create your own AI engine, and create a field that interests you.

This means that Joe blogg of the street to Mrs. Miggles can become the next Billie Eilish equivalent of George Lucas, Speilberg, or JJ Abrams developing major productions with spatial music scores all by using AI… without the technical challenges/major investments, new Gen-Z AI empowered creatives could focus on maximising the power of the AI platforms and focus on emotional and story telling?

Link that together with behavioural science the sky is the limit but hope great power comes with great responsibilities and they will use it for good an hopefully fix something.

This post is much longer than I had wanted, really need some copywriting assistance! (thanks to my daughter she did manage to help edit half, can you tell which half?)

My weekly challenge to you, should you choose to is this, do one or all 3 of them:

1) Create some AI art free of charge on these sites OpenArt.AI (free with daily free 20 credits that can make 200 pictures) , Pollinations.AI (it hosts even text to video options), Mage.space

2) Happiness is important, working hard is also, why not combine both, and relax and join the free (unless you wanted a certificate) Harvard course on The Path to Happiness: What Chinese Philosophy Teaches us about the Good Life

3) if you find this interesting, please recommend others to this newsletter (or read my first post if you have not done so.)

Any other topics you would like me to cover?

In summary, I think if harnessed properly, AI can help FixTheWorld for sure, no reason to give up!

Suggestions? Leave the comments below or even better directly email me [email protected] or signup to FixTheWorld.Club to be informed.?