The Many Faces of Artificial Intelligence

AI is not a singular thing. The statement that, "AI isn't smart enough for that yet.", is an incorrect statement. The AI you use may be totally different than the AI I use. What I use for research is different than what I use to generate images.

AI chatbots are everywhere and use specially trained LLM's for myriad different functions from sex chats to customer service. I've found that Microsoft Copilot, which is built into my new laptop at a base level is fantastic for research, fact checking and image generation. It really is a help to me, but it's not specialized enough for some of the things I do, so I go elsewhere.

One thing I can say for sure, we are only scratching the surface of what we can get AI to do for us or, in some cases, instead of us. Many jobs are on the way out now. I wouldn't want to be starting out now as a junior software developer or a graphic designer as I feel those are the targets first to be hit by AI.

There are tutorials everywhere about how to use AI to write books for you, create designs for your t-shirts, build apps for you and help you plan your vacations. All of these things are reality quite a bit sooner than I predicted. I thought we had at least a decade more to go before we would see these kinds of capabilities.

So...we can't stop AI. Not even if we wanted to. It's too cool, too profitable and makes too much sense for us to deny it the future it will inevitably shape. To put it bluntly, AI will make many of our jobs obsolete.

It's not the first time this kind of thing has happened and we can learn from those in the past who faced a similar situation. Remember Dorothy Vaughn? That amazing woman who taught herself and then her human, "Computers", to program the IBM 7090 using Fortran? Her initiative was instrumental in transitioning NASA from human computers to machines. She didn't wait around to see what happened, it was obvious to her and she took what I would call inspired action to make sure she and those she was leading would have a place in the new computing space at NASA.

We are on the precipice of a new era and whether we like it or not, we either adapt to it or become obsolete.

Take heart! You don't have to become an expert at training large language models or building interfaces for them to find your place in the AI world. Learning how to efficiently and effectively use the AI already built will give you a leg up. I'm older than many people on the planet and I remember how amazing it was to be able to type something into a search engine and get a result instead of looking it up in an encyclopedia, so I have some experience in using world changing technology as an early adopter.

Do yourself a favor and spend a half hour this week discovering the AI tools that can enhance the work you're already doing. Also, find some tools that you could use to learn something new about AI and how it works. Like learning to type in the 80's, learning about AI now is going to help you embrace it fully in the future.

Is AI Good? Yes it is.

IS AI Evil? Yes it is.

Both statements are true.