Knowledge Surfing

As is fitting of the times, I spent a few minutes with ChatGPT/Dall*E to prompt my way to that image. In the distant past (last year), I would have used a search engine, scouring the internet for such an image. If I could even find anything close to what I wanted, I’d then be worried about copyright, and the fact the image is probably also being used by someone else. Now, I know this image is “my own”, at least I think so, and it represents exactly what I wanted.

I went through several iterations before I got to this image, and I could go through several more rounds, tweaking along the way, but it was less than 5 minute’s worth of work. Such is “the power of AI”.

This image represents a couple of things that are going on right now. Between advances in hardware tech, and the rise of new things such as LLMs, and quantum computing, and humanoid robotics, there’s a wave of things that threaten to swamp our human understanding of the world and the way things work. I recently had a discussion with a friend who’s working in the core of all this AI hullabaloo, and they are clearly thinking “what does this all mean? It’s moving so fast we haven’t truly thought about the implications to humanity…”. Just let that sink in for a moment. If you thought you were being overwhelmed as an outsider, the people on the inside are having the same thoughts.

OK, so… What to do?