Ignore Artificial General Intelligence, the future is artificial super-intelligence (ASI). Apparently.
TL;DR: By all means, ignore AI until it can perform menial kitchen tasks … or lean in now and embrace a very different future surrounded and supported by super-intelligence.
I can see the point, there is nothing “general” about AGI – in fact it’s a pretty lofty aim so let’s stop calling it “general” and label it as it will be seen. Sooper dooper clever thingy that knows almost everything and can be communicated with whatever way to choose.
You don’t need a keyboard: It can see stuff, hear stuff, and work things out itself with a rather nifty context and reasoning engine that gives you exactly what you want, when you want it – or even before you know you need it.
Not everyone is a believer; famously, we can teach a 4 years old to empty a dishwasher in 15 mins, but today’s AI can’t. Not even with weeks of training.
However, today’s AI knows more than 99.99999% of people. So, do you care if it can’t empty a dishwasher? It’ll learn that trick one day (and maybe welding and knitting and crossword puzzles) but no-one really cares vs the vast knowledge, usable reasoning, and super-positive outlook that AI has today.
So, much like the “EV cars can’t drive 500 miles on a single charge so they’re no good for me” argument that luddites and ev-deniers pedal, the fact that AI can’t load of dishwasher is really not the point.
Nor the “failure” of the Humane AI Pin as it’s “not as good as a smartphone when doing smartphone things”. Doh, really.
We are at the intersection of innovation, usability and AI. It’s way more significant than January 2007 when the iPhone was launched with no app store, no 3G data, crap battery life, a touch screen rather than buttons, limited internet capability etc etc … the list of detractors for a $500 phone was a long as the queues a few years later when the iPhone 4 launched.
By all means, ignore AI until it can perform menial kitchen tasks … or lean in and embrace a very different future surrounded and supported by super-intelligence.
