Member-only story
AI isn’t Magic, it’s Just a Computer…
The AI hype (more like AI hysteria these days) knows no limit. On the one hand, everyone and their grandmother are racing to implement AI in their business. On the other hand, the same everyone is worried about the consequences of AI. AI will soon dominate the world according to experts (and politicians) convened in Davos recently. Seriously, let’s get real. It’s just a computer.
According to the IMF chief — on stage in Davos, AI will increase productivity (good), increase global growth (good) and increase income everywhere (good). It will also increase polarization (dangerous), spread misinformation (even more dangerous) and take away jobs (bad now, good later). World leaders, experts, pundits and heads of AI companies all sing the same song. AI is great but must be reigned in, brought under control or very bad things will happen.
This is scary. Not the technology (AI), but the attitude. And the fact that all these influential people team up and sing the song Sam Altman (of OpenAI) composed last fall. Doesn’t it occur to them that he’s playing them like a fiddle? He can do that because he’s the only one of them with a real, deep understanding of the technology. The rest, Microsoft’s Nadella included, are buying the gospel and falling in step, scared to appear out of touch or among the ‘unenlightened’.
This allows Altman and half a dozen top level AI-insiders to develop a narrative in which they remain the uncontested leaders and experts. They will be consulted — they literally hold the pen — when regulations are drafted, effectively keeping competition at bay. It’s The Emperor’s New Clothes all over again. Can someone shout out real loud that AI is just a computer? Actually many computers. And that computers have taken over the world long time ago. Even light bulbs have small computers in them. This isn’t magic.
AI is simply another turn in the spiral of technological development — enabled by ‘bigger everything’: More memory, more data, more CPUs, faster everything — and developers taking advantage of all these resources. It couldn’t have happened before because the resources didn’t exist. It happens now because they do. A lot of technical creativity and ingenuity delivering incredible results, lots of bugs and no (human style) intelligence (check out Help! AI is Hallucinating!).
