Dateline: 17 July 2035
There is a new generation in charge, and it is not the Zoomers, nor Gen-Z. Oh sure, the tech revolution was spawned by Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers such as Bill Gates and Elon Musk, but it was the Millennials who really supercharged it with artificial intelligence (AI) and the metaverse.
Now the Millennials (Gen-Y) are decidedly middle-aged, and in the tech world that is over the hill. Zoomers, despite being the biggest percentage of the global population, are pushing 40 and are still addicted to online gaming, YouTube and Google.
Generation Alpha have been calling themselves Gen.AI (note the period) and they were at school when ChatGPT arrived on the scene. So much so that this generation cannot function without AI. It is totally dependent on it.
Which makes it hugely productive. Having billions of prompt engineers, AI wranglers, and generative pretrainers is pretty useful — as long as the systems stay on the exponential upward curve. It seems there is no industry in the world that has not benefited from “modern” AI, and Gen.AI is the crowd in charge.
But here’s the thing — the whiz kids of today have virtually never had to figure things out for themselves. They have never had to learn by trial and (mainly) error, feel the hard slog of real knowledge gained from experience, and use curiosity to constantly explore the unknown. Because AI knows everything.
“That’s the problem with the youth of today,” laments a retired professor. “They’re incapable of original thought. They only know how to manipulate the machines into giving them the ‘best’ answers!”
For companies looking to hire these bright young minds it is even worse. For real innovation and inventiveness, you need to break the mould and think differently, not follow best practice. You cannot do that when you are relying on pretrained models, no matter how massive they are.
Which ultimately begs the question: Are humans using the computers, or are computers using the humans?
- First published on Mindbullets, July 20 2023
Beating the AI blues
Machines don’t have a heart
Dateline: 12 January 2022
That is the problem with artificial intelligence (AI) — it is pretty cold and mechanical; and it lacks emotional intelligence.
Companies such as Google and Amazon have worked hard over the last five years to inject some warmth and “humanity” into their voice assistants, but it is an uphill battle. “Not very witty, and no sense of humour either,” was how one reviewer described the latest incarnation of Siri on Apple’s iPhones.
Which is why more and more people are starting to rebuff smart assistants and work directly with humans instead. Nowhere is this more obvious than with the so-called Generation Z — the new kids in town. They are happy to enjoy the benefits automation has brought, such as more leisure time and services on demand, but do not ask them to become brand ambassadors or fall in love with their gadgets. They could not care less.
Human attributes and values, such as empathy, caring and kindness, as well as emotions such as fear, love or frustration; these are things no machine can ever really understand. Computers can be taught to recognise emotions in people, to read their facial expressions and analyse their voices; but they cannot relate, cannot react in ways beyond how they have been programmed to respond.
As Jack Ma said four years ago: “Don’t worry about machines taking your job. Machines are smart, but they don’t have heart. People have heart!”
Don’t tell me. I am feeling really let down by technology; the joy of a new gadget or smart new system has paled. It sounds kinda silly to say: “My smartphone doesn’t understand me!” I guess I’ve just got the AI blues.
And don’t tell me there is an app for that!
- First published on Mindbullets, 13 December 2018
• 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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