An Optimist’s Vision of AI

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The era of artificial intelligence is here, and it’s generating despair and fear over the loss of control and the worry that artificial intelligence is about to unleash killer robots and enslave humanity. Perhaps…or, something else. Artificial intelligence will improve lives and generate greater access to education, improve healthcare, and advance climate science. Among many other improvements, AI’s benefits greatly outweigh its costs. AI has its costs since everything comes with a price (there are always both sides to the ledger), but the extraordinary benefits that artificial intelligence can unleash are worth the effort. Don’t slow down, pause, or restrict research, development, and AI applications. Prometheus gave the world fire and while we can still cause great harm, it was among the single greatest advancements for humankind. Artificial intelligence can be the same thing for our modern-day recipients of fire from the gods. But, we can’t be naïve. We can still burn the earth down if we are not careful.

AI will not destroy the world – and is more likely to save it. I’s trajectory points towards a future where it not only enhances technological capabilities but also enriches human lives. Its evolving role will be characterized by a synergy between human and artificial intelligence, propelling societal progress and opening new frontiers of innovation and discovery is not just a technological advancement; it’s a catalyst for a new era of human endeavor.

Its impact is vast, touching every aspect of our lives and work. As AI continues to evolve, its role in shaping our society and driving innovation will only become more significant, opening new horizons for growth, creativity, and human potential.

The Hitchhikers Guide to Climate Change

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Addressing climate change requires a mix of practical solutions, innovative thinking, and a change in our collective attitude. It’s like realizing that the Earth is not unlike a spacecraft, and we’re all astronauts. The only difference is we can’t step out for a breath of fresh air if we mess this up. As we embark on this journey, remember the words of the great intergalactic traveler, Ford Prefect: “Don’t Panic.” With a bit of effort, creativity, and a willingness to change, we can navigate through this. And perhaps, one day, we’ll look back and tell ourselves, “So long, and thanks for all the fish” – knowing that we did our part to keep the planet habitable for the dolphins, and ourselves.

Today, Tomorrow, and the Apocalypse

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The future does not need us, and apparently, we don’t need it either.

The future isn’t what it used to be.

Humankind evolved to have a long-term view, either from religious teachings, the seasons, empires, and epoques, beyond the temporal spaces of our lifetimes. We went from living in an extended present to thinking about a long-term future.

Our horizons have gotten much shorter. When I wrote my latest book, “The Ten Year Horizon,” ten years seemed a sufficient and faraway temporal space to discuss a long arc of basic scientific research and discovery that could address our most urgent problems. However, it’s most appropriate to think a century ahead in order to understand the future we really want. It’s not just for us, it’s for generations to come.

Collectively, mankind has never had so many ways to destroy itself through self-made dangers including nuclear weapons, bioterrorism, climate change, antibiotic resistance, and many other self-manufactured threats. It is time for temporal maturity and ignore the tumultuous waves striking the boat today and keep our eye on the long-term horizon.

Short-term thinking has brought the potential for a catastrophic crisis even closer. Perhaps now it is time to grow up and think about the future. What do we want to be – because whatever that may be, we are certainly not working towards it now.

Conservation Won’t Work

Advanced Technology, Article, Lectures, Public Policy, Science, The Market

In crisis there is opportunity. The infrastructure of modern society – utilities, telecom systems, energy systems, highways, and other components – is essential for global economic development, unavoidable, demanded by many, pose insurmountable obstacles, and is poised at the edge of transformational change. They Want What We Have Emerging economies need a range of basic…

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Lessons Lost

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Open markets, free global trade, and limited state interference lead to greater shared prosperity. Heavy-handed Industrial policy and state intervention impede progress. It’s the economy and inequality, trade imbalances, are not what drive shared global wealth. Industrial policy, restricted trade, government subsidy, and overall intervention are challenging to get right, and hoping to achieve multiple goals simultaneously. One subsidy does not tackle climate change, boost industrial and economic growth, or enhance security. It is bound to fail. Time to revisit how things actually work through incentives to innovate, sensible economic models, prosperity, and wealth creation. No other mechanisms drive change or address the world’s most critical issues.

Put Down the Pitchforks

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Stunning capabilities are emerging from large language models like GPT 4 that, until very recently, were thought to be only theoretical. We could never have the data sets or the processing power to generate real and usable results. Well, all that has changed – rather suddenly.

But is it time for the torches and pitchforks? What are the serious risks that accompany this technology?

There will be good and bad, like every new era. Will it be the Middle Ages all over again and we’ll experience The Plague before the Renaissance, or will it be more balanced and reasonable? There are good, bad, and many things in between whenever humanity advances.

Let it happen. Put down the pitchforks.

ChatGPT Is Not Intelligence

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Artificial intelligence is disrupting all software and services – when applied within narrow and specific parameters. It performs useful tasks and provides meaningful information for decision-makers but within well-defined data sets.AI still has significant limitations, and large language artificial general intelligence programs like ChatGPT (AGI) may not be the big leap forward many imagine. It is not the vanguard of a new era permeating every aspect of our professional, academic, and personal life. AGI’s usefulness is overstated, and it is not going to happen. Intelligence is not a lumbering statistical engine searching for patterns to generate a useful response. AGI is. The predictions of AGI are superficial and dubious. True intelligence is the ability to think and express improbable but insightful ideas (e.g., Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, Newton’s Laws of Motion, and many other improbable, insightful, and truly intelligent insights). Machine learning cannot do this. ChatGPT is a lumbering statistical engine searching for pattern recognition and feeding on incomprehensible terabytes of data and extrapolating the most probable answer. By contrast, the human mind is an efficient elegant system operating with small amounts of information. Human intelligence creates explanations. It does not infer conclusions by brute force and spurious correlations.

Globalization and Optimism

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Isolationism, fragmentation, and pessimism always fail. Globalization has been everyone’s favorite punching bag for a while. It is hard to feel optimistic about its prospects. However, globalization has a better future. If you are a fan of globalization, cooperation, and comparative advantage, the last decade has been extremely challenging. Ten years ago was a time of optimism on a global scale. However, economic and geopolitical forces have combined to add friction and fragmentation to global exchange. The benefits are now even greater and with everyone’s self-interest and mutual benefit, this geopolitical stalemate will pass – more quickly than is commonly thought today. Cooperation, integration, and mutual benefit win in the end. It is time to be optimistic once again.

Discovery, Innovation, and Crisis

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Our most intractable problems cannot be solved with behavior modification, conservation, or our existing technology, regardless of its advanced or widespread applications.

Only new knowledge creating innovative solutions can address our most intractable problems. This can only be achieved through basic scientific discoveries and then combining these discoveries with enterprise-based innovation, commercial discipline, and competition. Innovation, creativity, and competitive dynamics create the most effective innovations, the best solutions, and the most sustainable companies. Developing the best public policy as well as the best structure to enable innovative and creative solutions, as well as the economic incentive to scale these opportunities and make them economically sustainable.

Central planning, bureaucratic industrial policy, government-led economic management, and dictatorial focus have always failed, and always will.

Industrial Policy – Stupidity by Another Name

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Zero-sum thinking has begun. Despite comparative advantage, mutual cooperation, and specialization proving indisputably more beneficial than any other approach to economic interaction, this ideal is under threat. Rules and norms for economic integration lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, created an order-of-magnitude increase in the average wealth of the Western population, and benefited countless hundreds of millions enabling a way of life otherwise unimaginable post-World War II. Now that system is under threat as developed countries subsidize alternative energy, attract manufacturing via expensive subsidies, and restrict the flow of goods and capital. Mutual benefit is out; national gain is now the highest priority. In other words, stupidity and zero-sum thinking have taken over. A handful of bureaucrats, regardless of how brilliant each may be, can never equal the mind of the market. Management and control usually spell disaster eventually. Managed focus on technological development for products and services the central government believes have greater substantial benefit to the overall society may not be calamitous, but the law of unintended consequences has not been repealed. It will be inefficient, substandard, and create potentially dangerous side effects. Innovation, creative freedom, and unstructured thought are essential components to the development of any technology of substance and disruptive benefit.