Dateline: October 9 2028
The advent of ChatGPT and other generative artificial intelligence (AI) models fuelled a tech boom that benefited giants such as Microsoft and Google, and propelled chip maker Nvidia into the trillion-dollar club. But now the bubble has burst.
Actually, it’s more like a deflated balloon, the day after the party.
The chatbots powered by large language models were so impressive in their ability to understand natural language prompts, and later speech and images, and output well-constructed answers, essays, pictures and video, that experts immediately predicted that GPTs would “change the world”.
And they did, but not entirely in the way we expected. Beyond the hype and the predictions of job disruptions and productivity gains, pitfalls and problems emerged. Vast data centres were built to power this wondrous new technology, requiring multi-billion-dollar investments and gigawatts of power.
Microsoft was forced to resuscitate Three Mile Island’s nuclear plant. Google poured billions into its attempt to put AI into every product, and OpenAI sucked up funding. While Meta and Tesla/X joined the party, Apple waited for the dust to settle before gradually introducing “Apple Intelligence” AI into its systems.
The AI boom was real, and despite teething problems such as “hallucinations”, a raft of new applications, tools and smart processes were unleashed for knowledge workers and service industries.
But in the final analysis, the economics of AI investment are proving to be disappointing. Microsoft and Google have rebuilt their entire corporations around AI, and are struggling to show long-term returns, while Apple’s more sanguine approach is paying dividends. And companies that went all in on AI to reduce headcount and boost productivity are also counting the cost.
You see, AI is very good at playing games, driving cars, bringing avatars to life and optimising schedules, but not much good at negotiating peace treaties, securing trade deals, preventing pandemics, inspiring followers or predicting market behaviour.
The party might be over but AI has powered a new wave of tech innovation, just like electricity and the internet. And the future has changed, forever.
- First published on Mindbullets October 10 2024
You can’t spell alive without AI
Being a modern human means depending on smart systems
Dateline: March 19 2027
When you’re evolved and you know it, be grateful. You’re alive, you’re healthy, you’re — hopefully — wealthy. Well, at least not poor. Compared with our ancestors and long-gone relatives, we’re pretty well off. We’ve conquered famine, disease and (almost) war. Life has never been so good for so many, worldwide.
Sure, we’ve got social and environmental problems, but even those are on the agenda and getting attention. What we don’t have is full-scale world war, apocalypse and deprivation. The world operates on new rules, but it operates. Successfully. Thanks to AI.
Wait, what’s that? Yes, we owe it all to our robot overlords. And by robots, I’m not talking about mechanical humans. The real robots are the smart software systems, driven by deep learning algorithms and fed with huge amounts of data — real world data — that direct and, dare I say it, control our very lives. Because we want them to.
Whether it’s food, fashion, finance or fun — or the freedom to choose, learn, travel or grow — business is all about adding value to people’s lives. That’s its ultimate purpose. Technology, the use of tools, is what drives productivity; and AI makes it exponential. Adding value exponentially is a noble purpose for businesses that rely on smart systems.
Just think how impossible — or at the very least, dull and boring — our daily lives would be without our phones, which carry AI to the edge. Except for the few indigenous jungle holdouts and New Age offgridders, we’re all connected and dependent on the smart data-driven systems in our daily lives. And businesses depend on them to keep supply chains flowing and markets operating efficiently. Granted, we’re giving up some privacy and possibly security, but there’s no technology that doesn’t carry some risk together with the rewards.
The bottom line: in today’s smart society you can’t be alive, truly alive — or in business — without AI.
- First published on Mindbullets March 18 2021
Despite appearances to the contrary, Futureworld cannot and does not predict the future. The Mindbullets scenarios are fictitious and designed purely to explore possible futures, and challenge and stimulate strategic thinking.
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