Will AI take my job ?

Whenever a new technology becomes commonplace, there will be disruptions. Technology and their associated disruptions have occurred throughout history. e.g. The monks / clergy were primarily responsible for making books (by hand). This restricted the flow of knowledge. Then the printing press came along. In the 1920s, telephone companies employed thousands of folks as operators. Today algorithms have largely taken over. Essentially any manual / repetitive task was automated out of existence.

Rates of Change

I don’t think we understand rates of change very well. The reason AI is all the rage now is that it offers an opportunity for a gigantic leap in the rate of change of innovation. No one can say what it will usher in. But it seems like an ideal vehicle to bring about this big change. Big rates of change is what brings about disruptions and opportunities. The big players can’t possibly address them all.

Getting Through Your Day

Some days can be exhausting. For many, most days are exhausting. We just think that it’s the way things are and plough along. Same thing, day in and day out. That’s life ! On one end of the spectrum things seem like they are exhausting because we are bored of it. It no longer excites us. The monotony carries over into boredom which carries over to exhaustion. On the other end of the spectrum are the passionate ones.

Assistive Vs Transformative Technologies

Software is eating the world. Or rather, software has already eaten the world. There isn’t an industry that has not or will not be disrupted by tech. But all tech is not created equal. Some help in making things more efficient (assistive) while some absolutely disrupt entire ecosystems (transformative) The internet began as a DARPA project. Initially it connected only a few universities. Today it’s pretty much a fundamental right. Since it’s inception it has transformed everything.

The Dishwasher Test for "Am I Rich ?"

No one Knows Anything

It’s actually true. When an “expert” says something, we take it at face value. We never question it and keep propagating those views. Without even pausing to consider if it’s really true or not. Our emotions and biases seem to have a greater effect on if we accept that viewpoint or not. Irrespective of whether we accept the viewpoint or not, we just assume that the author knows what s/he is talking about.

History

For most of us history is something that happened far back in the past, with no relevance to us now. That’s just not true. A lot of what we consider “far off in the past” is actually quite recent (in relative terms). e.g. the cold war got over just 30 years ago. 200 years ago, Napolean was still around ! The technological progress of man in the last 100 years has been more than all of the progress we have made since we walked the earth.

Co-operation and Competition

I came across an interesting term in a book I just read. The Origins of Virtue by Matt Ridley. In it he used the term “Co-operation and Competition” as a means to describe the “tug-of-war” within the various biological processes of the human body. The same applies to industry / society / economies too. A healthy combination of both is required to thrive. Co-operation on it’s own would devolve into something like Communism.