Today’s edition shares two counterpoints on how the current generative AI wave will play out and impact humanity. Check them out below.
1. Ted Chiang calls artificial intelligence a “poor choice of words in 1954”
Ted Chiang is the renowned scifi author behind the short story “Story Of Your Life” which was adapted into the acclaimed film “Arrival”.
The Financial Times sat with him to discuss the current goings on in the world of artificial intelligence. After all, who better than a scifi author to opine on what decidedly feels like a scifi world.
I like Ted and his thoughts are valuable in how they put the current AI trends into perspective. He thinks “applied statistics” is a better term for the current wave of artificial intelligence. And he’s not wrong - as we talked about in the second edition of Future Telescope, systems like ChatGPT work on the “Transformer” architecture, which basically runs advanced statistical algorithms to predict which word comes next.
So if you’re also curious to find out what one of the finest scifi minds of our generation has to say about the AI breakthroughs we’ve been seeing, read it here |(non-paywalled version here)
2. Marc Andreessen has an even stronger opinion on how AI will save the world
Marc Andreessen is one half of Andreessen-Horowitz : the VC firm behind notable successes like Airbnb, Stripe, and Github. (along with some notable failures). He is an opinionated man, and someone who stands to make a lot of money if the current wave of generative AI becomes entrenched into the way we live.
He wrote an op-ed in the WSJ titled “Why software is eating the world” back in 2011. It was lauded as prophetic for its time, with the central hypothesis being that “we are in the middle of a dramatic and broad technological and economic shift in which software companies are poised to take over large swathes of the economy.”
Well, in retrospect, he wasn’t wrong.
And now, in 2023, he has another opinion piece on AI being the saviour the world needs. I don’t necessarily agree with every point he makes, but man, he has been at the centre of the Silicon Valley revolution ever since he co-founded Netscape in 1994. So there’s definitely some weight to his words.
Check it out here.
Today’s edition aims to give a balanced perspective on the topic of generative AI and how it will impact the world we live in. From a respected scifi author comparing it to the volleyball from “Castaway” to a leading venture capitalist calling it “the saviour of the world”, it is up to us how do we decipher it.
After all, as we have seen on this very newsletter, this is a wave that’s unlocking new ways of creativity, technical accomplishment, and expression. But in addition, there are good reasons to maintain a level head and not get carried away!
It’s good to know both sides of the coin as we step into this beautiful new world!
That’s it for the 18th draft, see you next week!
Very well said