The Future is Artificial Intelligence. Here's How to Make the Most of It.
How humans can collaborate with artificial intelligence processes and the applications that are already advancing.
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Millions of people are now using an artificial intelligence chatbot to write applications for jobs, pretend to be someone’s wife, debate philosophical ideas with college professors or have artists up in arms for creating images that might have copied some of their work.
If you, reader, are like us and told someone this would happen at the beginning of 2022, you probably would have been expected to write a science fiction short story on these predictions rather than an article about the future.
Well, all of this has come true. We at Don’t Count Us Out Yet believe AI processes have advanced more in the past six months than they have in the past 20 plus years. So, how can we make sense of this? Where are we headed in 2023?
To answer these two questions as good journalists, we must first create a framework by asking questions about the advancements, then come to a conclusion. Here are the first questions we need to answer.
Are these advancements just a new way for computer systems to work under the control of humans?
Are we at the beginning of a new era of human evolution where we share evolving with an AI process that can think by itself?
Noah Smith, author of the Noahpinion newsletter, recently shared an interesting take on this topic in his piece called “The Third Magic.” Smith explores how the human species has advanced differently from other species. First, humans advanced through language, written communication and being able to share experiences without having to actually experience them ourselves. Then, humans created rational and scientific approaches, which make predictions of what comes next. Good examples of science doing this include the smallpox vaccine saving millions of lives, airplanes flying us to places we couldn’t have imagined, or the building of skyscrapers where we can work and live way above what was thought possible.
Although creating rational and scientific approaches has solved many major medical, financial and legal issues, it still falls short for many other complex human problems.
However, through today’s AI processes, we have the ability to create solutions to problems without fully understanding how the AI “black box” formed a conclusion. This is going to lead to many of our complex problems being solved, even if we don’t understand how.
A good example of this is how AI processes came up with new moves in the game ‘Go,’ which players had never thought of, to win the championship. Afterward, the expert players had no idea how the AI process came up with those moves.
In Smith’s “The Third Magic” article, he comes to the conclusion that AI processes are now prevalent for many humans to use in everyday life. This new explosion of applications makes it easy for everyone to use this “third magic,” where we don’t fully understand how to explain the AI results we are getting. Whether that comes from talking to an AI chatbot or having DALL-E-2 make a new piece of art, the results can be used to help create new answers.
We have evolved to the point where not just humans, but also AI, can create realities and solve problems separately. AI processes are a larger phenomenon than computers just doing bigger and faster things through programming and algorithms.
As further confirmation of this idea, journalist David Brooks explored this topic in his article entitled “Despite Everything You Think You Know, America Is on the Right Track” for The Atlantic.
“….. the stunning gains in artificial intelligence. Who knows where AI will take us, but in the short term, it means that everybody can have a somewhat well-informed personal research assistant. As Tyler Cowen notes, we’re in the middle of a radical increase in the amount of intelligence in the world,” Brooks stated.
Well, we at Don’t Count Us Out Yet can't answer the above questions with a simple yes or no, but we can tell you that if AI process have evolved to the point of being able to learn by themselves and derive new solutions, then it’s probably time to come up with new ways to work with AI.
We have compiled the following suggestions from experts who we have talked to or read about, which we believe are the most sensible for us to use as we become directly involved with new AI applications. And don’t worry, we will continue to cover all of the ones set to explode on the market for businesses and consumers in 2023.
Anyone using AI applications now has the ability to use text or images to get solutions, as well as numbers. We need to shift our thinking to follow this method.
If one can think of processes for AI to use from algebra, geometry or calculus mathematical principles with text and images, new solutions to complex problems will be on the horizon.
Don’t handicap AI thinking by only asking yes or no questions. Allow AI to find new solutions from open-ended thinking.
Constantly refining and asking the right questions will become more important for human and AI collaborative thinking rather than having the right data.
Direct use of AI processes by professionals and students, not involving computer and technology systems unless needed, will lead to better and faster solutions.
AI processes by themselves in some areas will become as valuable as humans.
Guardrails and boundaries must be established in the way AI learns, but have to be loose enough for answers to not be thought of in advance.
The next few years will see an explosion of new AI applications, as well as new ways to use them.
Want to learn more about AI? Check out this detailed course we’ve created.
There is a lot to think about here, but trust us, lots of new AI information will appear in 2023, and we will try to cover it in as simple a way as possible. Stay tuned and please fasten your seatbelts!
Best,
Craig for the Don’t Count Us Out Yet Staff