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Will Douglas Haven writes:
Every time I’m asked what’s going to happen next, a Luke Haynes song gets stuck in my head: “Please don’t ask me about the future/I’m no prophet.” But here goes. How will things be in 2030? My answer: Same but different.
There is a huge difference of opinion when it comes to predicting the near-term impacts of generic AI. In one camp we have the AI Futures Project, a small charity-funded research organization led by former OpenAI researcher Daniel Kokotajlow. Nonprofit makes big splash in April ai 2027A projected description of what the world will look like two years from now.
The story follows the rapid growth of an AI firm called OpenBrain (any similarities are coincidental, etc.) and their journey towards the end of their own adventure genre boom or bust. Kokotajlo and his co-authors are no doubt hopeful that AI’s impact over the next decade will exceed that of the Industrial Revolution – a 150-year period of economic and social upheaval so great that we still live in the world it created.
At the other end of the scale is our team general technology: Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor, researchers at Princeton University and co-authors of the book oh snake oilWhich not only pushes back most predictions of AI 2027, but, more importantly, also pushes back its fundamental worldview. He argues that technology doesn’t work that way.
Cutting-edge progress may happen broadly and rapidly, but change in the broader economy and society as a whole moves at a human pace. Widespread adoption of new technologies may be slow; Acceptance slow. AI will be no different.
What should we make of these extremes? ChatGPT came out three years ago last month, but it’s still unclear how well the latest versions of this technology fare at replacing lawyers or software developers or (gulp) journalists. And new updates no longer bring the gradual changes in capability that they used to.
