AI over the next few years

[Nutmuncher]

I’ve recently shifted my reading content from war, doom scrolling and political madness towards being positive for the next few years, mainly scientific breakthroughs and technological advances from AI. There’s so much to be excited about (aside from the inescapable dose of fear and nerves of war doom climate doom and politics) and I think it’s something MN should be talking about more.

AI is coming whether we like it or not, it’s going to bring with it a seismic shift for the world that’s going to be incredible but also bring with it a tricky societal transition that will impact us all in some way, jobs will change, industry will evolve, the human touch will become increasingly important. How easily we transition to that new world is another story, how will those who don’t use devices or aren’t technology native actually navigate a more connected world? The economic implications if entire industries go or certain careers are no longer needed could be catastrophic if not managed properly and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. But I want to focus on the positives so let’s gloss over the bumpy transition period for now 😅

The advances and changes we’re going to see in the coming years will make today look like the 80’s in a relatively short space of time. The pace of progress in companies such as Anthropic, SpaceX, OpenAI right now is breathtaking. People think picture editing or making dodgy FB posters whenever you mention AI but it’s so much more than that, we just think it’s bad for the environment and that it’s taking jobs away when actually alongside technology and robotics it’s going to revolutionise how we live dramatically.

Excited about-

Medical advances and breakthroughs, we’ve seen the impact GLP-1s brought, there’s so much more just like those coming in the next few years. Drugs are being discovered super fast, research is taking months instead of years and analysis of clinical trials is more thorough and accurate. As new technologies come available the medicines keep improving. Gene therapy and having targeted treatments based on our own genetics is an exciting area of research that’s currently happening, the understanding of our own bodies will be a major step forward. I have always been keen in longevity and wellness, areas which I’m watching like a hawk.

Education. AI isn’t going to be a hologram teacher (not yet anyway) instead it could help teachers tailor lessons to each child, minimise many of the laborious administrative tasks, help to identify learning difficulties earlier and much more. I think classrooms are going to look very different in the next 5 years.

Industry. Rather than replacing entire industries, AI will automate repetitive work, improve decision-making and help people work more efficiently. Some sectors will change more than others and productivity will increase along with efficiency in the businesses that adopt and adapt. I think industry and workplaces in general will soon be judged on how quickly they use new technology, those that do will appear relevant and capable and those that don’t will resemble an office if it were still using a typewriter today.

Anyone else excited?

Also - where does accountability fit into this brave new AI world? If it "goes wrong" in say a legal or social care or educational setting, does current legislation have enough specific focus to determine that? And these fields are already using AI, especially in the US where it has already been used for sentencing decisions in the justice system.

With regards to education, there's an interesting thread running about an academy introducing Ipads to mid range primary school children without any consultation with parents. I find this worrying.

I think it's more likely to kill us all than lead to the kind of utopia OP has in mind.

I hope it's as big a flop as many are predicting. That's probably the best outcome.

Apologies I had to go and plug myself back in and charge for a few hours 🙄

I’m curious, have you read any of my responses because unless I’m mistaken they’re fairly human centric, optimistic and not out of the realms of possibility considering the speed of progress technology is seeing.

Consider a source of news that isn’t Facebook or the Daily Mail to broaden your world view, there’s a whole lot of change out there and it’s those naively assuming it won’t happen that are going to struggle the most. Remember, BlackBerry scoffed when the iPhone was released claiming smartphones would never take off. Look what happened there.

The rate of progress now is astounding the software engineers, Anthropic just rereleased Claude Mythos 5 and Fable 5 because the US administration pulled it saying it was too powerful and needed further testing and safeguards which they’ve done and now it’s available to use again. Let’s see what comes from that.

I think reasonable societal change will start being felt in the next 2-3 years. By the mid 2030’s I believe life will look very different for all of us.

But you’re being overly optimistic. A more balanced view is more human.

Chat GPT got 14cm, Gemini got 17.33cm

But if you typed the question in as you present it here it is really unclear where the non-stretch thread comes in to the bracelet.

In the 70s my dad worked on big government computers related to the nuclear projects, he wrote code on paper punch cards. He told me he spent two weeks writing a code that got chewed up by the computer and spat back out at him, after that he always wrote two copies.

Crazy where we've come in 50 years, where will we be in another 50 years? DD is only 8 so will still be working age then.

If you read my OP it clearly mentions a focus on optimism, not sure if you caught that bit? I’m wanting to focus on a positive future for us all, a balanced view would be actually we really don’t know how society will adapt to all of these immense changes, it could go either way but rather than fall into a pit of doom I’m being hopeful that we come out on the other side unscathed and actually in a great place.

Psychosis often takes on the form of the dominant concerns of the time
Its not that AI is causing psychosis.

OP be interested to know what books did you read about AI and would recommend?

I don’t read books on AI because unless they’re less than weeks old they’re out of date with regards to the technology.

Instead I follow several experts on X and search news articles regularly to stay informed. I highly recommend the Moonshots podcast on YouTube, a group of experts and leaders in tech and software, they release excellent detailed content every few days that is up to date and easy to absorb.

Local job centre meeting and heard that 7/10 jobs could be replaced by AI by 2030…. Didn’t believe it but same day a local company announced its focus is digital streamlining as that’s what its customers want… looks like it’s coming in quick and will change everything.

No, I am not excited at all. AI has its uses in science and medicine dealing with large data sets, but should remain there. As it is, it is eroding quality and pricing in many other professions (I am a translator and it is destroying our industry with inferior output and price dumping). It should stay the hell out of creative sectors. We need more human interaction, not less, as a society. The fact that some people form friendships and even relationships with AI chat bots should give everyone pause for thought. A horrible development. Some people ask AI what to wear on a particular day or what to cook with what's in the fridge - it's destroying independent thought.

A crazy person can fixate on their toaster and convince themselves the toaster is talking to them.
However, almost certainly the toaster making company won't have been spending the last few years telling everyone that listened that in their opinion the toasters they make could well become sentient and start.talking to people and it would be very scary/exciting when that happened.
If the toaster company had done so then I would consider.them partially responsible for the crazy persons psychosis (along with the gormless journalists who accepted their claims of toaster sentience unquestioningly).

You're telling someone in their late 50s they have time to prepare for a complete career change?! Seriously?! Also in many professions AI is vastly inferior to humans, just cheaper.

Nope but the programmers still help to refine. Look up self-recursive improvement, which we are nearing. AI is now writing the bulk of its own code and nearing a point where it can improve its own code in a continuous feedback loop. So Fable 5 writes and develops Fable 6, which writes Fable 7. Humans not necessarily in the loop.

We have also moved into a phase of agentic AI. So previously you gave a prompt to an LLM and reviewed the output. You decided whether or not to use the output. Now the tech world is using agents. So you give an agent a goal and that agent goes off and decides how to achieve the goal. An orchestrator agent manages a group of sub-agents. So they chunk up the tasks by agent, do the task, come back to the main agent, refine and deliver. Entire research workflows can be managed and performed without direct human involvement

Humans are still in the loop at the moment, but for how long? And at what point do we realise we’ve lost control? The architects of AI (Geoffrey Hinton et al) freely admit they don’t quite understand how these vast neural networks reach the conclusions they do.

I would hope maybe a few more years for such a significant portion of the workforce, but you’re right it is coming in quick, the exponential curve of businesses adopting the tech and how it fits into society is what will surprise many people, they think it’s years away when actually, it’s around the corner.

I work for a global company and the human connection is incredibly important, we’re focusing on it freeing up time so that we can actually work simpler and forge more connections and bonds with colleagues and clients.

Until AI can clean my house I am uninterested

It'll be there soon, you and I and most other normal people just won't be able to afford it!

The dogged, unchanging, sledgehammer-like mindlessness of the OP’s AI-generated responses has me thinking my job might be safe for a while yet.

Thanks, OP - an uplifting thread after all!

I’m not sure whether I should be flattered or offended that you think my responses are AI 😅 give me some credit here. How are my replies sledgehammer mindlessness?

No, it isn't! I wanted to use as much non-stretch as possible, hence asking for the minimum elastic requirement. As it turns out, I'd only get 5cm of non-stretch, so I changed the design.

I genuinely worry that the human capacity for logical problem-solving is being eroded by AI availability - I include myself in this; I got stuck on a very easy problem. Since LLMs are objectively terrible at the same, the handcart to hell is picking up speed. Human critical skills are going to be very much needed (as in 'critical thinking', not 'criticising').

But that's just the point - technological advancement is rapid, but infrastructural policy and societal norm changes are glacial. That disparity is exactly where the downfall will take place.

And as for the altruism you seem to think companies and government innately possess? As I said, naive.

More hopeful than naive.

How we adapt to the societal changes will largely depend on age, skillset, ambition and how a person uses the tech.

Millions of people have access to smartphones today yet only use them for gaming or social media instead of actually enriching their knowledge or improving their skills, they have a world of possibility in their hands yet hold back from truly leveraging that potential. Many people would be equally happy enough if they were still playing Snake on a Nokia watching BGT and having a Friday takeaway. But better medicines and diagnostic abilities will take care of health in ways we never could before, a simplified work week removes huge stress factors for millions, life would get easier.

Like the times it helps plan murders or terror attacks.

OpenAI faces criminal probe over role of ChatGPT in shooting https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62j4ldp2jqo

How a chatbot encouraged a man who wanted to kill the Queen www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67012224