The World Ahead
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Greetings and welcome to the early fall edition of Barefoot Bytes, our monthly(ish) newsletter that opines on all things business, software, marketing, and data science. In this edition I’ll be writing about the future.
15 Years from now...
My son Hunter Brodie turned 3 over Labor Day weekend. We had a Spiderman-themed birthday party with all the fixin’s. We had family staying with us, and it was a bit of a madhouse.
After the party, as I was unsuccessfully scrubbing cupcake frosting off of the chair upholstery, I started thinking about what the future might look like for my boy. Technology is changing fast, and accelerating. So in this edition I want to cover what the world might look like 15 years from now, through the eyes of my son. In particular, I expect we will see the rollout of artificial general intelligence (AGI) during this time, and it will impact nearly all of his life. It will be almost unrecognizable from my own.
AGI
So what is AGI? AGI refers to AI systems that are “generally smarter than humans”. Others define it as AI systems that can “outperform humans on most tasks”. The major players including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind are all working towards the ultimate goal of AGI. In July, OpenAI released its five-step roadmap to AGI to their employees, and will be releasing it to investors and others outside of the company soon. The five steps include:
Level 1: Chatbots
AI with natural conversation language abilities. This came in November of 2022 with ChatGPT, and other LLMs have followed. Old news, but let’s recall that people believed a machine’s ability to pass the Turing test was decades away, and we crushed it, and are bored with it. Just incredible.
Level 2: Reasoners
AI's with expert human-levels of problem solving across a broad range of topics. These systems are expected to perform reasoning at the level of PhD’s, without access to external resources. While editing the original draft of this newsletter, OpenAI released their o1 models, which can handle advanced reasoning. For instance, it beat ChatGPT-4o in the qualifying exam for the International Mathematics Olympiad by a long shot. GPT-4o only correctly solved 13% of the exam's problems, while o1 scored 83%. So as of September 2024, we have reached level two.
Level 3: Agents
Autonomous AI systems that can take actions independently or from human instruction. These systems will be able to act on behalf of a user for extended periods of time, making complex decisions and adapting to circumstances. The closest thing we have to this right now, available to consumers at least, is probably Microsoft Copilot. It’s not there yet, but I predict that it will be the first publicly available system to reach this level.
Level 4: Innovators
AI that can aid in the invention of new ideas and contribute to human knowledge. I believe that this will be the most mind blowing and exciting time of the progression of this technology.
Two of the biggest innovations I hope to see at this level are with climate change (discussed further below) and natural resources. Vinod Khosla writes, “AI will transform how we discover and utilize natural resources such as lithium, cobalt, and copper, such that our resource discovery capabilities outpace consumption. The current challenge is not a lack of resources, but a limitation in our capacity to find them – a barrier AI is poised to help break.”
This is also where we will see the democratization of medicine and hopefully major breakthroughs in nuclear fusion. Think about a world that isn’t governed by the pursuit of natural resources and energy, as it is today.
Level 5: Organizations
AI that is capable of doing all of the work of an organization independently. Hello SkyNet.
I’ve seen reports that OpenAI execs believe we’ll reach Level 5 within five years. Others say ten. Regardless, on Hunter Brodie’s 18th birthday, I firmly believe we will have reached Level 5 of AGI and it will have become pervasive in nearly all of his life. Indulge me as I pontificate what that journey will look like for him.
Education
He’s in preschool now. This is fairly analog and I don’t expect that to change. Through elementary, middle, and high school though he’ll be introduced to more and more AI systems. This is already underway. At Barefoot we are currently working with two educational institutions on several AI systems to improve student outcomes and increase institutional efficiency. He will have a tutorbot, available 24/7, personalized to his learning style. It can help with homework, papers, exams, and the like. He will never learn cursive. He will never create covers for textbooks using construction paper or used grocery bags. Course materials will be digital, personalized, and updated in real-time. Teachers will be able to handle a far larger number of students with the help of these AI systems.
I don’t believe he will go to a traditional four-year undergraduate school. I believe this will be limited to wealthy elites and those that are looking to pursue a career in AI or Academia.
Instead, I see the rise of vocational schools, but not as we know them today. After a year or two of further broad education, he will decide on a specialization and dive deep. But this specialization will not be something that will necessarily help him secure employment and financial stability. It will be about pursuing his passion and finding happiness. It could be art, music, engineering, climate resilience, robotics, AI, or anything else that brings him purpose and passion.
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Employment
The reason for this is that rote jobs, both physical labor and digital ones, will be a thing of the past. Labor supply will far outweigh demand. It is likely that a universal basic income will be provided to everyone to account for this gross imbalance. Each country will need to decide how they want to handle this issue. But the idea is that, because we no longer need humans to do the jobs that they have been doing, there will not be enough jobs to keep everyone that wants to work busy. This includes most jobs, all the way from farm workers to data analysts.
In a capitalist Democracy like the United States, the mental model has always been to get educated and work hard to earn money to provide a good life for you and your family. This benefited both the individual and society as a whole with GDP growth being the primary goal of our nation. We will need to completely reimagine this paradigm. There will be a base quality of life that everyone will get to experience, without working especially hard. AGI can be the great equalizer. Everyone will have access to fantastic education, personalized cheap healthcare, and almost limitless opportunity. So when shaping his young mind, rather than telling him to excel in school so that he can secure a job, imagine a world where we tell him to get educated to find passion and pursue happiness. It will be a fundamental change for our nation, and to the human experience.
The original line in the Declaration of Independence was, “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Property”. Thomas Jefferson edited that line to, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. Since that time, “happiness” has still basically meant money. While admittedly biased as a UVA graduate, is it possible that Jefferson’s genius saw a future when it was no longer financial gain that we would spend our lives pursuing? In fairness though, he got that line from John Locke.
Adult Life
Will he need to know how to drive a car? Yes, but only because I believe it’s important that he’s prepared for an apocalypse. But he won't need to, because self-driving cars will be prevalent. Something that really bugs me is that people tend to expect perfection from our automations and robots. A single self-driving car accident makes headlines. Meanwhile, we get into somewhere between 20-40k car accidents in America?per day.?Self-driving cars don’t need to be perfect for it to make sense for us to adopt them. For them to be safer, they simply need to be only slightly better than humans, and we are already there for many use cases.
It’s akin to a conversation I had recently with someone who told me that they don’t use LLM’s because sometimes they lie. That’s true. But so do people. People lie or tell you things that are incorrect all the time. A lot more than best in class LLMs. The LLMs are already more trustworthy than people in general.
The quality of his life will be the science fiction we grew up with. Laundry, house cleaning, dishes, driving - all will be handled by robots.
The 40 hour work week will be a thing of the past. In 1920, economist John Maynard Keynes postulated a 15 hour work week. While I probably missed that boat, my boy will enjoy this in his lifetime. I don’t resent this timing, as I am one of the lucky ones to find passion and purpose in my work. But most don’t. I foresee perhaps 3 days and 10-20 hours of work per week will be more than enough. This has far-reaching implications. How will he spend the rest of his time? My hope is that it will be in the pursuit of passion and happiness.
What Else?
I believe there will be movements that operate like religions on both sides. There will be radical groups that pray to AI as a supreme being. And there will others that believe it is some form of the devil on earth. I doubt my son will be involved, but he probably will have a friend or two from high school that joins one or the other.
I believe that the new version of “keeping up with the Jones’s” will include the newest version of robots and other autonomous agents that improve the quality of life at home. Rosey the Robot from the Jetson’s was model XB-500. Imagine a dinner party where Mrs. Jones is showing off their new XB-1000 that also cleans the gutters and she can trust with babysitting at 2+ years old, making all of the other guests super jelly.
I believe that his generation will be the first to normalize brain-computer interfaces and other biotech implants and enhancements. He’ll easily surpass age 100 due to these enhancements and other improvements in modern medicine.
I believe that Level 4 of AGI will unlock previously inconceivable innovations that prevent a global climate catastrophe. At least I sure hope so.
I believe that we will see an unparalleled artistic renaissance. Imagine how many brilliant artists are working 9-5 today instead of creating.
I believe that governments have already enacted top secret programs, partnering with private companies, to develop the most cutting edge military AI systems. AI is a matter of national security at a level exceeding nuclear weapons. International coalitions will be formed and treaties signed along geopolitical lines to promote global safety as the AI-race will hit breakneck speeds of innovation. Not to be bleak, but if China wins the AI race, much of what I write above will not happen.
The Future is Bright
Despite all the risk around the rapid advancement of technology more powerful than the world has ever seen, I remain optimistic about Hunter Brodie’s future. This new technology, harnessed for good, can make his world a safer and better place. He will barely remember a world before AGI, in the same way that I vaguely remember using encyclopedias before that first AOL CD hit my mailbox. He will be able to accelerate his education, enjoy an unprecedented quality of life, and be blessed with the experience of building his own family without the constant pressure of economic success.
It is the imperative of my generation to be stewards of this technology and secure that future for him. His future, and the future of humanity, depends on it. No pressure.
Bytes
Some reinforcement of the ideas above:
Hunter Jensen Barefoot Solutions, CEO
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