Are we living in the AI present, or is the future of artificial intelligence still years away? Jeremy Kahn, AI editor at Fortune, believes that artificial intelligence will be significantly improved from where we are today in two to five years, but “it still won’t be enough to do the entire job.”
author Mastering AI: A survival guide for a super-powered future As more employers incorporate large-scale language learning into their workflows and companies like Amazon (AMZN) adopt the fourth-generation Graviton processor, we comment on the use cases for AI programs.
“The power of what technology can do for people is so powerful, it’s so much more than you’d get by just cutting staff. Again, the technology isn’t good enough yet to actually replace people, but it is good enough to make people much more productive.”
For more market trends, click here to watch the full episode of Asking for a Trend.
This post Luke Carberry Morgan.
Video Transcript
A new book offers predictions about the impact of AI over the next decade.
Big tech companies have been driving the market this year, but our next guest argues that AI could deepen many existing inequalities.
Joining us today is author of Mastering AIA: Your Guide to Surviving the Superpowered Future and Fortune’s AI Editor.
By the way, Jeremy Kahn, Jeremy.
I’m glad you came.
Ah, thanks for the invite.
So we’re talking with Jerem about the news that AWS will be releasing its fourth Graviton processor, a chip made in-house.
Jeremy, what do you think about that?
Any quick thought reactions?
Well, I mean, I think Amazon has been trying to secure competitive chips in the market for a while.
The company was caught a bit off guard by the boom and scale of AI-based language models, and didn’t have chipsets that were really well designed for that kind of AI.
So they’ve been trying to play catch up, and this acquisition will go some way to show that they have a force in the market and that they have chips that can meet customer demand.
Well, maybe it will help them in their big cloud computing battle with Microsoft and Google.
Read your book.
Well, Jeremy, the big picture is interesting.
Well, I think you hear a lot of people saying, even in the video where Jensen Wong is talking, that we’re in such a historic moment.
They would say the next industrial revolution has begun.
Well, it’s kind of a tipping point, a paradigm shift, because, you know, the internet is now mobile.
AI, it sounds like you’re in that camp.
Yeah, I mean, I think this is a very transformative technology and a big thing.
Well, I think we are indeed at the beginning of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, if you want to call it that, which is going to transform many aspects of how we live and work, and how businesses are organized.
Yeah, I think that’s going to have a big impact.
Jeremy, what do the skeptics think?
If you play around with AI chatbots, they will tell you that it still needs a bit more work, some fine-tuning against the so-called hallucinations, the ones that are just made up.
Well, there are some skeptics here.
They say there is still a long way to go.
Well, what do you think about that?
I think there are definitely some areas that could be improved.
Well, you know, we don’t have a system right now.
They are as capable as we would expect them to be.
But I think that will change over the next two to five years. Why is Jeremy so confident?
Given what’s happened to this technology, how much investment is being made now, and how much commitment we’ve got from the largest technology companies in the world, I think this problem will be solved to the extent that we can use this technology in a way that enhances productivity.
For example, if you look at what they’re already doing for programmers, that was one of the early use cases for AI co-piloting, and it’s really taken off, and now you can’t find a skilled software developer who isn’t using one of these systems as a co-programmer.
And I think it will be much the same for other knowledge workers.
Let’s talk about coding. This is one of those things where I think what other sectors, what other industries are really going to be upended and redefined as we try to gamify this.
Yeah, I mean, I think coding is obviously one of the first ones.
I think legal accounting will be heavily impacted by these co-pilot technologies, and functions like marketing are already using AI heavily for first draft writing.
Well, I think the creative industries are going to be impacted, whether that be designing an entire campaign, whether that be music or Hollywood.
Well, it could have a big impact on the publishing industry too.
There are so many vertical sectors, what does this mean for the labour market?
Yeah.
Yes, I think there’s a lot of concern about mass unemployment, but I don’t think that’s a real risk, because I don’t think this is going to replace all workers at the same time.
Essentially, yes, many jobs will change, but I don’t think everyone will lose their job at once.
And that part is exactly what you said before.
I don’t think the technology exists yet.
And I think even over a two to five year period, things will improve a lot.
Still, it probably won’t be enough to get the whole job done.
So if I’m working now, what I’m doing will change, but it won’t change and I think I’ll have to work fully.
Well, that may mean that they’ll have to significantly reduce the number of young people going into certain professions, because, for example, some pretty good industries like law and banking may be hiring hundreds of young people to use as a kind of cannon fodder to do basic research and due diligence. They’re just not going to need as many of them.
In general, how do we create the conditions for as many people as possible to benefit from the big changes that may occur here?
Well, I think how you perceive technology is a big factor.
And what if, instead of looking at it as a replacement for human labor and thinking, “Oh, how can we get rid of humans,” we started to see it as an increase in productivity, an increase in human intelligence?
Well, I think this will go a long way to making sure that we get the benefits of this, because what people can actually do with this technology is incredibly powerful, and much more than you’d get by just excluding people.
Again, technology is not yet good enough to actually replace humans, but it is good enough to make people significantly more productive, in your opinion.
What is the regulator’s role here?
Yes, I think regulation is necessary.
So essentially, I think yesterday was what was needed.
Well, I don’t think we should trust that tech companies will deliver a business model that aligns our interests with theirs.
But I have faith in the regulators.
What do you think?
So, that’s the thing, but I think some people can figure it out because of their experience and their technical ability.
right.
Well, I think we need to make sure we have regulators that have that experience, and we try them out, and they probably need to hire people from the technology sector, I know some people worry about regulatory capture.
Well, they have to work for the regulators for a while.
We do this in other areas too.
Well, you know, right now the government doesn’t have a lot of expertise in this area, but I think we need to build that capacity quickly.
Do you think AI can be used for on-air business anchoring?
Maybe there will be digital avatars out there.
It’s pretty good.
No one there, Jeremy.
thank you.
Congratulations.
thank you.
