The short-lived Human-AI Symbiotic Relationship: Exploring the Assembly Line of Intelligence
How long will the honeymoon phase last?
This article discusses how AI development is currently in “the Human assistant” phase, which still requires human Input, Monitoring, direction, and control. It will also discuss how it is used and how long the symbiotic relationship will last and how it will impact your pocket.
The trend of asymmetric leaps in technology continues
It is incredible that we still do not know how consciousness works, don’t understand how the brain functions, and disagree on a definition of intelligence. Yet, we managed to create something Magical that our Ape brain could not comprehend how far it would go.
Where are we now?
It’s here already; it’s not science fiction, it’s not a theory, and it’s not Nuclear fusion that has been “just around the corner” for the last 50 years; AI is affecting everyone with access to an internet connection.
I am not talking about those broad definitions of AI, like “a calculator is an AI” from those silly people obsessed with messing with descriptions; I mean an entity that can think and act like humans.
How is it being used:
Using the example of humans domesticating horses for travel, it is not about getting the horse from one place to another; it is getting a human to travel faster; the human could take the same trip on foot, yet it will be exhausting and slow. Instead, they use the muscle power of the horse and its limited intelligence to get where they want; if there is no one on the horse, there is no point unless AI becomes an entity by itself with different and distinct goals.
Machines as a force multiplier of productivity requiring less Human energy :
There was a time when all clothes were handmade; it used to take days of knitting to make something that resembles a shirt; now, thanks to machines and some dinosaur juice, the process can be done on mass in minutes.
As far as mental and physical energy expended on creating one piece of clothing, it might be 1/1000 of what it used to cost. Interestingly the process takes more energy, just not human energy or effort.
The brilliant fool:
Anyone who interacts with publicly available platforms like GPT3 and Chat-GPT will have two conflicting thoughts, how can this thing be so foolish yet, so brilliant? You would ask a question, and the answer would sometimes be completely irrelevant, false, and occasionally unintelligent. In other cases, you would get the impression you discovered Mozart, Picasso, and Shakespeare.
It is inconsistent, and its shortcomings might be unfixable or at least not easily; it doesn’t know what exactly you want other than the information available from your online history. It doesn’t even know you, and the person typing could be someone to who the account used doesn’t even belong; in most cases, the issue is that the human asking the question cannot even formulate it properly, and the only way around it is for some trial and error from both sides to tweak the answer.
where we are now and how it is being used
So it’s not perfect, but it’s being widely used, whether to shorten the time needed for research, collect data, flag content for human review, tweak algorithms on tick-tock, or surprisingly create incredible creative art, and it’s pretty good at that which was theorized to be the last frontier AI would conquer.
The assembly line of intelligence:
One of the main side effects of assembly lines is the lack of need for any special skills to create or more accurately replicate a very complex machine; working on an assembly line is often touted as a brainless repetitive activity with little need for training and hence lower barriers for entry, this was not the case before, building cars for example used to be an artisanal craft where the car builder would know and build many components from scratch, it was an inefficient prosses.
Lower barrier for entry, lack of need for rare talent, and shorter time from raw material to end product meant lower wages; expect that to be the case for all jobs that currently require brain power; it might be good news since, theoretically, this will lower prices of many services and products that will require less skilled humans to operate in number and in time, productivity will skyrocket, but there is, however, a huge caveat, will this productivity only benefit the tech gurus and the corporate one percent? I will not elaborate on whether this will happen; we will soon find out.
The soulless surf
Soon we will enjoy not using our brains anymore, or at least not as often, and be pure consumers with little to contribute; it is guiltless serfdom of a machine with no emotions, sort of the vegan burger that tastes exactly like real meat, but no animal was harmed. For now, AI is our soulless serf; enjoy your meal but know that someday it might eat you.
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