The Future After Artificial Intelligence

What comes to mind when I ask you to imagine the world in ten years? What does it look like? How will the everyday lives of people be different from how they are now?

Most don’t think too much about it, but just in the last century, technology has made a consecutive series of extreme leaps forward. With such innovations as the steamboat, the railroad locomotive, the automobile, and the airplane, humanity was suddenly able to reach an unexpected level of interconnectedness that was never before seen in all of our collective history. Out of the shadows of slow progress over several hundred years, everything was drastically altered within just a few short generations. The 19th century saw the monumental rise of production and industrialization, and following in the trail of two world wars during the 20th century, the practical development of technology continued onward through the not-so-friendly competition of an international arms race and a slightly milder journey into the stars.

Then things changed again, and seemingly faster than we were ready for. Born from the compact efficiency of the transistor, another invention came along that connected people from across the world in ways that were once thought to be the realm of science fiction. I’m of course referring to the very thing you’re using right now to read this article: The Internet.

In the span of just three decades, the internet has changed almost everything about the society in which we live. It has propelled the overall transfer of knowledge and information across the world, and it has increased the speed at which ideas are presented, discussed, debated, and concluded. This means that everything from culture, to medicine, to social ideals now have the capacity to change and evolve in an extremely short amount of time; technology is no different.

According to Moore’s Law, the processing power of computers has and will continue to double every two years. That means that as processing continues to grow more efficient in its ability to solve problems, technology will continue to advance at an exponential rate. But if the brains of humans do not continue to progress at the same speed, then how will all of this processing power be used? Who or what will make use of it?

The answer is artificial intelligence.

When you have increasingly complex processing, you can delegate increasingly complex tasks to the computer – to artificial intelligence – to do the things which people take far longer to accomplish.

But what is artificial intelligence?

Imagine a program consisting of a series of mathematical formulas or algorithms and given a set of instructions and starting data to work off of. The instructions orient the algorithms toward learning, developing, and expanding the set of data it already has in order to become increasingly better at the things it’s asked to do. This can include things like writing text, solving equations, or generating images. This definition may be a layman’s oversimplification, but I believe that it is also a functionally correct one. The point is, artificial intelligence is a new form of technology that’s constantly getting better and better, and at an extremely fast rate.

So why is artificial intelligence important?

Artificial intelligence represents another potential culmination of human achievement. As it improves, we will see it enter into frequent use by the public until the point that it reaches the level of being as utterly commonplace as portable gaming systems and smartphones. Children will grow up using artificial intelligence in their homes and on their appliances. People will use artificial intelligence in their work and education. Entertainment will naturally incorporate artificial intelligence into directly interacting with its audience, and will likely be used in the production of the entertainment itself. These are just a few of the possible ways in which we might see AI technology being applied in the near future.

Art and Image Generation

You may or may not have noticed, but all of the images used for this article were generated using artificial intelligence; I did not retrieve them from any database, and I had almost no hand in making them apart from entering in a series of prompts for the AI to work from. The art was generated using Microsoft’s newly released version of their web browser Bing – an upgraded model that utilizes a built in AI chat and image generator to expedite your searches and give you the answers you’re looking for more quickly.

Of course, its not perfect. It still has problems with generating images that include detailed things like fingers or eyeballs, and the query search still occasionally struggles with giving false or fictional information. But its in a constant process of self-improvement.

Just imagine all the things people will be able to accomplish with technology like this in just a few short years! We’re already able to create graphic art at the push of a button, and it won’t be much longer before we’ll be able to do the same with videos and music.

According to a recent Nvidia keynote given at SIGGRAPH 2023, the technology available to artificially produce high resolution video, audio, and images is already here. Tech companies are already developing special graphics processors with AI integrated into their software, and consolidating them down into a compact size. These processors will allow for absurd levels of computation, which in turn means faster thinking computers and faster improvements to the technology itself.

But What About Jobs?

Similarly to the discussions about automation over the last few decades, there has been a great deal of contention lately about the subject of AI and artificially produced work. While many see the potential benefits of the technology beyond the immediate novelty, others are more concerned with how these advancements will affect their professional occupations.

Just as livelihoods disappeared in the early 20th century as new inventions arose (I am thinking of the horse carriage drivers being replaced by cars or the chimney sweeps being removed as a result of indoor heating units), artificial intelligence will likely remove the need for companies to hire certain professions in lieu of a proprietary system. Why hire labor when you can make a one-time purchase for a computer that will do the job for you around the clock?

That being said, with any new development in technology, there comes an influx of new professions and new branches of currently existing ones. The maintenance of AI software and hardware is likely to become a specialization, as will a new type of editing focused on “touching up” the things which an AI might produce.

Its also likely that rather than simply replacing every job wholesale, AI may simply become a tool of convenience, similarly to how cameras can now transfer images directly onto a computer or print on a piece of paper without the need for film. One can imagine that AI might be packaged and sold or even included alongside software such as Adobe Premiere, allowing you to automatically adjust footage to fit the needs of a project or splice together shots for a commercial.

Are We Ready For Artificial Intelligence?

Earlier, I predicted that AI technology will outpace the thinking power of human beings. Much like the internet, we will have sudden access to a tool that allows for extreme convenience and a vast variety of practical applications. But with the great potential for good, there is also a great potential for evil. As with the development of the atom bomb, it’s not hard to imagine how technology can be used for a negative purpose. If people do not grow to reflect the overwhelming changes on the horizon, then it’s possible that that change could result in an abrupt conclusion – one that demonstrates our ancient proclivity for self-interest and violence.

I leave you to form your own decisions about what to make of this new technology, but just know that regardless of whatever you or I choose to think about artificial intelligence, it will continue to grow and evolve, and it will ultimately change the world around us. Only time will tell whether or not that world is a good one - improved by the incorporation of advanced computing technology.