There are billions of dollars going into research to improve artificial intelligence, robotics, self-driving cars, and automation … all things that will render hundreds of millions of people redundant in their jobs in the coming 10–20 years. As Fred Wilson, a highly respected VC based in New York recently put it, “If you are in your twenties, AI will define your lifetime.”
So with all that research going into technologies that improve machine competitiveness vis a vis humans, what’s happening on the other side to improve human competitiveness vis a vis machines?
Have we entered the next round in the war between humans and machines?
I think yes, for sure.
And no, not at all.
In fact, I don’t know if there ever was, or ever will be (at least not for a long time), a war between humans and machines. What there has been, and what there will be more of, is a war between the owners of those machines, and everyone else.
Or at least something somewhere between a conscious “war”, and an unconscious class-based war based on self-interest, ignorance, and the pursuit of massive profits at the neglect of most everything else, by those who have the power to pursue massive profits.
If you’re outside of Silicon Valley … you’re at a huge disadvantage as the global tectonic plates of technology, economics, social shifts, and population dynamics collide. Here in Lebanon and MENA we have a lot to be worried about.
Chris Sacca (successful entrepreneur and a guy who clearly has his head on top of his shoulders) mentions in his podcast on the Tim Ferriss Show (episode #132) how the digital divide is expanding opportunities in some ways, but isn’t doing much to address the issues of “the haves and have nots. There’s a health care divide, education divide, criminal justice divide, a nutritional divide. And yet much of the tech available today doesn’t seem to be improving those situations very much.”
In a separate post, I wrote about how Cal Newport describes in “Deep Work” that with the fast-emerging trends in automation, artificial intelligence, robotics, self-driving cars, etc, there are three kinds of people who will succeed in the near future:
- The High-Skilled Workers
- The Superstars
- The Owners
And the rest of us? Good luck.
But we are not in a static position as relates to human capacities.
If we take into account all that we’ve known for decades, plus recent advancements, plus put in as much investment into humans as we’re putting into machines, we have a chance to create a better future that doesn’t render hundreds of millions of humans redundant and out of work, and we also have a chance at having hundreds of thousands of more amazing minds worldwide be building amazing solutions and growing amazing enterprises that address some of (or all of) the many deep problems that still plague our world.
Our current situation in the world has been created by a relatively tiny segment of the global population who has been given the education and opportunity to create and scale amazing innovations. If we’re able to change the situation so hundreds of thousands, or better yet millions, of people can get support to pursue amazing innovations to improve the world, then solutions will be found that we can’t even imagine today within our current constraints and world view.
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The question is then two-fold:
- How do each of us, as individuals or families, work towards continuous improvement for purposes of happiness, finding meaning, and having a reliable financial footing for our near-term and long-term needs, stability, and survival?
- What’s the responsibility of governments and nations to improve opportunities for the happiness, social development, security, and economic stability of our people and countries?
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Let’s start with us as individuals and families. Here are a few ideas for improving Natural Intelligence, and utilization of that NI, worldwide:
- Get off social media. Yes, no joke … or minimally, take control of it and reduce it to the bare minimum in your life. All the crappy websites, updates, notifications, apps, cat videos, click-bait, etc are not just sucking your time from actual important things in your life, they are actually physically rewiring your brain for less functioning and less productivity, are emotionally weakening you, reducing your ability to find meaning and joy in life, and research shows that they are actually reducing your abilities to think, problem-solve, work, and learn. As Eric Jackson wrote in an article on Forbes back in 2012:
Just say no to Facebook. Shut them off.. They’re a time suck. Mark Zuckerberg has built a $100 billion empire off our inability to stop doing Quadrant 4 [not urgent, not important] stuff!
The only thing you’re doing by spending those hours on Facebook and other social media and click-bait sites is sending more of your paycheck, future, and happiness to the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and his cronies, who are largely then reinvesting that money to take away more of your future time, paycheck, and happiness through other engineered distractions that add little to the quality of life for most people.
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- Music lessons. Yes, music lessons dramatically improve mental capacities, at any age, but especially for young people, when it physically affects the development of the brain. In fact, the effects of music on brain development, plus other psychological and social benefits, have been known for so long, I think the gross lack of music education for most young people ranges somewhere between gross neglect and criminality. Imagine, for example, that we had an amazing vaccine that could prevent massive suffering or death, but that our politicians and leaders just didn’t think it was a priority. Yes, I think the lack of music education is that severe. (More info at Johns Hopkins School of Ed, the Guardian, or on Time here and here.)
Don’t let arguments such as “it’s not part of our culture” or “it’s too expensive” get in the way of you or your kids learning an instrument. A lot of instruments are free, there are great lessons online (though a teacher is highly recommended), and using the instrument we’re all (mostly) born with — our voice — works just as well!
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- Nutrition: Ensuring adequate nutrition has a substantial impact on brain development and functionality. Even for adults, the brain consumes a large amount of energy, and poor eating habits or eating a lot of junk food can have a direct impact on how you can think, remember, problem-solve, and learn. The next step past nutrition is the new trend in “nootropics”, food supplements that are designed to increase brain functioning.
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- Become an avid and continuous learner. There has always been so much to learn in life, but now this is even more important since the world is moving so fast. If you don’t want to quickly fall into the realm of the irrelevant, start enjoying the pleasures of learning! There are so many wonderful books, podcasts, and online courses available … pick a topic that is related to where you want to be and do in the coming few years, and go deep! It’s never too late to start …
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- Have goals and ambitions! Think of all the amazing things you can do in this world, filter down to the things that matter most to you, and then get down to working towards them!!
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- There are other important things as well … such as reducing stress, sleeping well, doing exercise, going for walks in nature (yes, it matters), and more, but the most important part is you taking control of your life, and deciding that you want to be amazing and do amazing things.
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So now, what’s the responsibility of governments in all this?
Governments create the frameworks that we all live in, and they have access to research teams, can commission research and conferences, leverage the media, and provide direct funds or incentives. Leaders need to see it as a core part of their immediate mission to build competitiveness in their countries, or risk the lives and futures of their citizens as technology and the world overwhelms them.
In addition to specific programs related to the issues above, governments also should be heavily investing in innovation, technology, research, and education, through funding university-based research, improving policies that enhance startup and enterprise competitiveness, building strong connections to other innovation hubs globally, and celebrating innovation, research, and entrepreneurship in their own communities and countries.
(More about this in a future post.)
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One last clip from the Chris Sacca podcast I mentioned above:
“One [of the listeners] postulated that in the future something like 30% of us will have it good, and 70% will have it bad. I actually think on this current path it’s going to be way worse than that. There will be way fewer people who have it good and the rest will struggle. In the old economy people had careers and pensions and benefits. That doesn’t exist anymore. It’s been replace by people who are called associates, who work hourly, who don’t really qualify for benefits, who don’t really have a safety net. And there are scary implications for that. I saw a prophetic comment recently on Twitter about how the future will basically be 10 trillionaires and the rest of us will be taking turns serving espressos to each other and driving around in each others’ Ubers. Obviously that’s intensely dystopian, but there’s a trend line pointing in that direction.”
People have been “losing control over their own destiny” for decades due to economic, market, and social forces. You as an individual, we as a community, and the broader we as a nation, region, and world, need to re-take that control over our own destiny (and destinies), and create the world that we want to live in.
Good luck to all of us.
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OTHER RESOURCES:
- Guardian article: Is the Internet Killing Our Brains?
- Scientific American: Will Artificial Intelligence Surpass Our Own?
- HuffPost: AI vs. Human Intelligence: Why Computers Will Never Create Disruptive Innovations
- WallStDaily: Artifical Intelligence vs. Human Intelligence
