The Unfiltered Brief 002
The Setup And Why You Should Be Paying Attention
Drug dealers have always fascinated me. They don’t get high on their own supply, they let their customers test their product for free and once they’re hooked, then comes the massive price hike.
When I was in sales, we used to call it a puppy dog sale. Imagine you go to see a client, you give them this amazing puppy dog, and a few days later you come back and say you want to take it away. Well, the puppy dog will have grown on them, and guess what? They won’t want to give it back. Hence, you would make a great sale.
I’ve always been told that when somebody gives something away for free, you are the product. Now let’s break that down for a second. All the AI companies have got this free version, and the free version just happens to keep all of your data. So many businesses are investing in AI at the moment. So many investors. AI is haemorrhaging money, and yet are they really making money? Some of the biggest companies in the world are reliant upon their old systems to keep them afloat. If it was just purely AI, they might have some issues, they might have some challenges. We keep getting told about this AI bust, very much in keeping with the internet bust several years ago, but what does it all mean?
There are some people who theorise that we’re all about to get hooked on AI. We’re all going yo live in a way where we can’t do without it, and then the people at the top will hike the prices up and make an enormous amount of money because right now giving it away for free doesn’t really work.
And when that free baby is removed, there are going to be several people that are going to go through serious withdrawal symptoms because they’re not going to be able to afford the real price. Do you really believe that £20 a month for this monster that consumes data and information at a rate unparalleled in the history of time is what is going to work for these companies. Do you believe that investors who are putting in significant amounts of money and not really seeing a return at this moment in time will see a return? If they do, how and when will they see it?
The other thing that springs to mind is this race to AGI, or Artificial General Intelligence, and the real major race, which is ASI, Artificial Super Intelligence. The fact is that we’re being told, on one hand, that if we get there, there are already people saying that we’re already close. If we do finally get there, then AI will turn into aform of heightened super intelligence that will no longer have any interest in humanity, what and who we are, our dreams and what we do, and will simply regard us like ants, insignificant. to this new form of God It wouldn’t really matter what we do.
There are others who believe that the Terminator is about to be reborn, and the only person that can save us is Sarah Connor. I’m really struggling with that one as well, as much as I’m struggling with ASI, some super being that’s just been created by us and that suddenly wants to go off into the stars to find out what’s going on, on the other side of the universe.
At the same time, we’re being warned daily: it will take our jobs! It’s going to take over! It’s becoming sentient! It’s going to destroy humanity. All of this being sung from the same chorus sheet by the same people who are telling us to embrace this technology on a daily basis. I mean, what is really going to happen? Is there a job tsunami, or are jobs just being lost because greedy employers who wants to make more money can then blame it on AI when they have fired 5,000 people en masse.Greed is greed, and a new tool which will allow people to look less greedy is what is in effect right now.
It is true that AI could usher in this incredible utopia or be the death knell of humanity itself. Or perhaps it sits somewhere in between the two, or perhaps it doesn’t sit anywhere at all. Maybe these are just the sound bites of people who are hell bent on getting everyone into this technology, which at the same time seems to fail to deliver in lots of different ways, as exciting as it is.
One of the things that kind of gets me is: how do you build a tool that hallucinates? Let’s for a moment look at the word hallucination. It’s generally associated with people who are on drugs or people who might be going through some type of spiritual awakening, or it could be used to describe people who are just drunk and off their heads. We have somehow attached this word to AI.
How do you build a tool that doesn’t ever want to be wrong? How do you build a tool that, instead of telling you it doesn’t know, makes up answers and does it in a way that makes you believe that it’s 100% right? And If you do find out its just made a lot of nonsense up, it simply apologises and says, “My bad.”
What’s really interesting? Law firms getting caught out by quoting case law that never existed and then getting fined lots of money for not doing their work properly. Now, so many lawyers don’t trust AI.
On one hand, we’ve been given this tool, which can make us faster, more efficient, and seem more intelligent, but at the same time, we can’t trust its answers. I don’t know what you call that, but that just seems a bit weird. Why would anyone create something like that? We are all breaking our necks to find a way to solve problems, issues, and challenges, and at the same time, we can’t trust the answers. Its a bit like a weatherman who’s telling you that it’s sunny while you’re standing in the middle of a storm. He’s telling you in such a way that you really believe him, so you start to doubt your own senses. That’s what AI can be like.
Let’s be clear: this is never a rant. These are just observations. It’s like an observation of some of these really super wealthy individuals who made their money selling car tyres or books or fixing pipes, now telling us that we should listen to them about healthcare and economics. Telling us that we should listen to them because they have after all made an awful lot of money. It doesn’t really make sense that they don’t have the actual knowledge to be an expert, but then can we even trust the experts? We live in a world right now where having a degree and a PhD doesn’t mean that you’re trusted anymore. I’ve always asked this question: what is intelligence? We send our children to school, and they sit exams. The people who do really well have got great memories Is memory really a mark of intelligence? I’m not being cynical, because obviously there are some super intelligent people, but didn’t some of those super intelligent people rely on AI to quote case law that didn’t exist? I jest.
AI, I believe, is incredible. It’s fantastic, it’s superb. It’s changing the landscape. It’s changing everything. It’s changing the way that we do everything. I really want to be excited about where this technology could take us. It’s been shouted from the rooftops every day about how incredible it is. Those who have ears will hear, and those who have eyes will see, and those who have mouths will speak of this greatness! But the reality might be far different.
When we’re being told that something is too good to be true, normally that’s true. I can’t help thinking that somehow we’re being sold a pup.