If you missed yesterday’s post, this is a non-fitness industry specific essay about what’s happening with AI. And why I think most people are not yet appreciating how crazy this all might get.
Tomorrow we shall return to our regularly scheduled fitness business programming. 🙂
Yesterday we covered the exponential increase in AI’s speed of development, as well as a run down of several recent examples of dystopian AI shenanigans already happening.
Today, we’ll cover:
- A near term takeaway for businesses
- What to do about this
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BONUS SIDEBAR: Before we dig in, please allow me to offer a serving of value…
Want some short term fitness business advice?
For this next bit, violently human brands will have a competitive advantage in building trust over less human, clearly AI-generated brands.
However, the “violently human” part will matter.
The vast majority of all new content will be well-written, expertly structured, and professionalish. But also ever-so-slightly shitty in a way you just can’t put your finger on.
Personal brands who know how to leverage their unique and imperfect humanity will build more connection and trust than ever.
So here’s the smart play, at least for now:
- Out-human the robots your lazy and less-skilled competitors are relying on to push out mediocre content
- Leverage AI to look for increasing efficiencies via more sophisticated automations and workflows
- Use AI to coach you by critiquing your content and strategy and exposing blindspots
In other words, think less about AI as your first draft/copywriter, and more about AI as your editor/collaborator.
More to come in future BFU writings as to how to operationalize the above.
Back to more existential concerns…
Where Is This All Going?
NOTE: No one knows. Obviously. But here’s my best guess.
In the shorter term (~next 3-5 years), I expect not much will change.
In fact, I predict a massive increase in the awareness of the threats posted by AI in the next 12-24 months, without much change in the way society functions. Although you’ll start seeing this covered in the news nearly every day, and more and more people will notice and even start to panic, life won’t look too different.
This will be followed by 12-24 months of everyone adjusting. The naysayers will proclaim that people like me are overly reactive ninnies, and that the “AI-panic” was all an over-hyped fever dream.
Right around that time, based on median projections, I expect we’ll have 12-24 months of exponential “takeoff”; both the speed of advancement and the lagging diffusion will finally start to impact everyone’s day-to-day life in ways that are hard to miss.
So that’s the shorter term.
But in the longer term,
3-10 years, depending on who you ask and what you believe,
AI will be better than humans at pretty much every digital task you can think of, including ones that require creativity.
This will be a weird, weird world.
This strikes me as passing through an event horizon. All guesses about what will happen on the other side are highly suspect.
But in the next 10-15 years,
We may have (mostly) cured cancer and many diseases of aging,
AND sped up GDP growth by 50-200%,
But ALSO spiked unemployment to 20% or more,
While making artisanally manufactured bioweapons much more easily available.
To say nothing of the possibility of “artificial superintelligence,” a tipping point where the AI becomes impossibly more intelligent than us and takes over society and/or decides to eliminate us. :-/
*gulp*
So Whadda We Do?
We should note again: there IS a scenario where progress flattens out. Maybe the Silicon Valley people are all wrong, and high on their own supply.
Perhaps we’ll look back with blushed cheeks at this moment, like the Malthusian freak outs about overpopulation. Concerns of an over-crowded planet now seem almost comical, given the current and coming population implosions in most developed countries.
If that happens, well, I’m sorry for stressing you out.
I’ll make it up to you.
I’ll make us all t-shirts that say:
“I finally got peak versions of AI and all I got was this t-shirt! And a tsunami of slightly shitty Instagram content selling me stuff I don’t need.”
But it’s also wise to protect the downside when facing the risk of ruin. I’d rather be embarrassed in 5 years than be kicking myself for not making a bigger fuss.
Not only that, but I hope it’s clear the existing technologies already point to nefarious use cases.
So if this is all shocking or upsetting or surprising, now is the time to start educating yourself on what’s happening.
Because the next 3-10 years are shaping up to be an actual “Hinge of History.”
To that end, here are a few resources to get you started:
- Tristan Harris TED Talk II Why AI Is Our Ultimate Test and Greatest Invitation – This is a good overview of WHY this is such a big deal, and why we have to collaborate on a tenable path ASAP.
- AI 2027 – This is a narrative forecast by one of the world’s greatest superforecasters and an OpenAI whistleblower who walked away from millions of dollars to be able to speak freely about his concerns. Super trigger warning. (I found this deeply destabilizing and had to take the rest of the day off after I read this.)
- The Case For and Against AGI by 2030 – This 80,000 Hours Podcast is the audio version of an article laying out the most cogent and non-hysterical cases for AGI by 2030, as well as a very fair assessment of why we might NOT get over the hump.
NOTE: I didn’t want to bury you with a zillion recommendations. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
But since I went down this rabbit hole in late March, I’ve been reading, studying, and watching AI resources pretty much every spare minute. Happy to make more recs for books, podcasts, blogs, YouTube channels, and newsletters.
Just reply “RESOURCES” and I’ll send you a list.
Final Thoughts
If you feel a bit crazy inside after reading this series, remember:
Humans are AMAZING.
Sure, we mess stuff up a lot. But net net, we tend to figure things out given enough time and the proper threat of extinction.
We even have some precedent for working together on a global scale. We don’t always do it perfectly, but so far we’ve avoided nuclear annihilation.
And culture matters.
That’s why there’s value in highlighting the promise and peril of AI. Oftentimes, for better or worse, cultural pressures are as impactful as legal or regulatory ones.
As a simple action plan, I suggest:
- Commit to starting (or furthering) your education with the above resources within the next 30 days
- Consider following some AI-news resources to keep up with what’s happening (the daily AI Rundown newsletter, although full of ads, is a good concise daily overview)
- Engage friends and family in conversation about how they’re thinking about all of this and help them understand the speed of progress and stakes
These steps will help improve your own thinking and contribute to any conversations on the topic in your personal or professional circles. Which means the society at large will become slowly more aware of what’s at stake. Which in turn, can lead to some of the cultural pressure we need to help find the right balance of regulation to make sure we don’t drive the car off the cliff.
If AI takes off, we need as many educated brains as possible thinking about how we might move forward.
And on the other hand,
If you think this is all hysterical, Galaxy Brained, hand-waving…
What’s the basis for your disagreement?
What’s the evidence you have that makes you certain your probabilities are more sophisticated than the ones I present above?
If you just have the general sense that “this all sounds kind of crazy, so…”
Or
“Claude always makes simple mistakes when I’m vibe-cording, surely AI will stop getting better….”
I would encourage you to re-read the points of concern in Part 1.
Because it’s later than you think.
I stand for humans,
Mark
PS If you’re interested in this topic…
I’d love to invite you to sign up for my new semi-regular blog and side project, Humanity and Meaning in the Age of Robots.
It’s the main place I’ll be sharing what I’m learning about and thinking about in regards to impending robot gods.
NOTE: I don’t know the frequency yet, or even when this will launch. But it will only be when I have something to say. Expect to hear from me 1-2x per month at most.