Chat GPT AI went from 0 to over 100Million users in less than 2 months. AI is super fucking dangerous, but it’s inevitable, will make our lives better, and you should CAREFULLY love it.
Is AI dangerous? Next to thermonuclear war and an asteroid strike, I’d say it’s the most radically dangerous threat that we face as a species. Buuuuut I’m still super excited. And by the end of this video you will be too.
If you’re terrified of AI right now, you’re rational. If you’re not at least worried it will take a wrong turn into James Cameron territory, you’re not paying attention. To paraphrase Elon Musk, the human endeavor to create AI could be the first step towards a technological utopia or a demon summoning circle. It’s not clear which way it will go. But one thing is for sure, we will not control it. And he’s right, but the truth is, the genie is out of the bottle, and we’re going to have to deal with it.
For the most part our insatiable drive for progress is awesome. The modern world really is a miracle. We have buses that fly for the love of god. And if people like Eric Weinstein are correct, our thirst for progress will lead us to building technology that doesn’t just allow us to fly around the world, it will give us the ability to manipulate time and space itself – propelling us well beyond our solar system at faster than light speeds.
I fear it will be a bit of both.
AI, which simply stands for Artificial Intelligence, is getting smart. Really smart. And AI doesn’t have to outsmart us by much to completely dominate us. Let me give you an example for scale: A moron is technically someone with an IQ of about 70. The average IQ in the US is 98. Einstein was estimated to be 160. And according to the Guiness book of World Records, the highest IQ ever recorded came in at a whopping 210. That means that a super genius is only 3 times smarter than a moron. But Einstein, who was actually only 2.3 times smarter than a moron, had insights that gave birth to nuclear power and nuclear bombs, not to mention lasers, GPS, and a whole lot more. Said another way, a little intelligence goes a loooooooong way.
Nuclear warheads are scary enough, but AI isn’t going to be a little smarter than Einstein, it’s going to be a LOT smarter. Not 5 times smarter or 10 times or even 10,000 times smarter. We’re talking millions of times smarter.
Despite the reality of all the bad stuff that’s coming, here are three traps we must avoid.
1. Burying our heads in the sand.
2. Panicking.
3. Trying to abolish AI.
Panicking is the same as actively taking your own intelligence offline. When you panic, blood leaves your prefrontal cortex, which is the seat of high level cognition. Therefore it actually makes you dumber. And in the face of artificial super intelligence that strikes me as a very bad idea.
This is going to be the bleakest thing that I say today, but if we’re going to walk a wise path forward, we’ve got to face all of this. And, as they say, it’s darkest right before dawn, which I promise is coming. But first, here’s the reality you will instantly know to be true – when humans find powerful things we use them.
Because AI as a weapon is a zero sum game. If only one nation develops it, it will be winner take all. And no one can risk an adversary getting Artificial Super Intelligence while they sit around entering funny prompts into ChatGPT.
In the short term you need to do three things:
1. Reframe your thinking around AI. Don’t see it as the enemy. See it as a tool. You’re not going to be replaced by AI, at least not yet. You’re going to be replaced by a human using AI. Be the human that replaces others.
2. Figure out how AI is going to disrupt you. Face it head on. Don’t run. Don’t hide. Identify your vulnerabilities and shore up your skill set.
3. Identify all of the AI tools that are relevant to you and master them. Learn absolutely everything you can.
Remember, this is the very beginning of a very aggressive revolution. Moving quickly gives you advantages.
First of all, let me acknowledge that I’m a pundit here, not an expert. While we’re working feverishly to integrate AI into our company’s workflow, I’m not the guy who can tell you how AI works under the hood. So what follows will be me thinking out loud based on what I’ve learned from the experts in my attempts to use AI in both my daily life and the daily operations of my company.
