Future With AI: Something I Am Worried About
I wrote a post a few weeks ago about why these basic AIs won’t replace your jobs. In this post, I will offer you an in-depth understanding of how your jobs will evolve in the age of AIs. I don’t care about people losing their jobs because of AIs. I don’t believe in the idea of jobs at all. Human beings are not designed for jobs but I am worried about the economic system and how we can distribute the profits created by AIs to everyone so that they can live a better life.
AI these days seems to be a hot topic, maybe because of the release of ChatGPT or maybe I feel that way because of the way we consume information on the internet suggested mostly by recommendation engines. There are tonnes of videos talking about how ChatGPT will replace many jobs/businesses (even from news sources). No doubt ChaGPT appears to be really good at so many things that one can think (or many are even worried) that the way the AI field is progressing soon we will have far better AIs that will replace many jobs. There are so many things you need to consider before you make up your mind to trust a piece of information especially when it is coming from the news or social media. News/social media sources are capable of provoking/shaping your emotions and maybe people will be demotivated if they repeatedly hear that AIs are going to do so and so. Just know that chatGPT can’t replace any job.
To offer a most probable understanding of what may actually happen, I created this post as a part of my complete data science and machine learning course. I am sharing an extended version of this post here to give you a better understanding. At the end of this post, you will learn so many things and get a clear understanding of what may actually happen. So, make sure to read this post till the end and try to connect the dots. It's a long post but worth reading.
Every entrepreneur enters the market with a vision and strong desire to help people, make a difference and sometimes for money but as they face the harsh reality of the market and customers their core motive loses its importance and profitability becomes their first priority somehow. It's not exactly a bad thing but this basic human nature or behaviour is the building block of automation in addition to several other factors like our hunger for progress and advancements. IBM defines automation as a term for technology applications where human input is minimized. Automation over the last 100 years has added immensely to the whole economic output of the world. Our standard of living has also improved, we have added many millionaires and billionaires but the data-based reality is not that promising for the majority of the people.
The Idea Of Work/Job: Concept And Purpose
The idea of a work/job is really interesting because most of the time we forget to ask whether we actually need to work or not.
Do we really need jobs? Do we really need to work as human beings if AIs can do the work for us? Well, I would say if the world would be a simple place with just a few hundred people it would be a lot easier to answer these questions. Though these questions can raise so many other questions. If everything would be available to us easily we would not be working, right? Be it 9 to 5 or a business. We started working because we wanted to survive and for centuries we have managed to do so with the help of our intelligence and knowledge. Nature has designed us in a manner to force us to work(as in survival tone) or you can say there are limited resources, and we need to do something about it otherwise we are going to suffer. For centuries, human beings have learned to survive in communities. We have developed several economic and political systems so that we all can coexist and survive peacefully. We have also developed the idea of capitalism which has served our society for centuries. Now, this idea called capitalism has brought us to the phase of technological advancements where we are trying to build something called “Artificial Intelligence” so that our lives can become a lot easier.
People in a capitalist system either work as employees or as employers. Mostly as employees. The capitalist world always appears to be controlled by very few people and it is known for huge income inequalities. The goal of every other business is to generate profit with low investment and employees are the biggest cost factor for any business. Every business would love to have something that can reduce the cost of running the business while keeping the same revenue or higher and AI is something that can help them, maybe not today but in future.
The concept of jobs has definitely helped us a lot because work offers us a sense of purpose in our purposeless lives and some income to survive. The job and the purpose of life are two different things. We human beings desire some sense of purpose irrespective of whether we work or not, I mean work as in the job. Some people find their purpose in their jobs as well. The author of the book Life 3.0, Max Tegmark, has mentioned five points that jobs offer us:
a social network of friends and colleagues
a healthy and virtuous lifestyle
respect, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and a pleasurable sense of “flow” stemming from doing something one is good at
a sense of being needed and making a difference
a sense of meaning from being part of and serving something larger than oneself
Now he has also talked about how these things can be achieved even outside work like playing sports, clubs, hobbies, music, social events, etc. So, let’s say in the future if all the jobs are replaced by AIs then these are a few things we can do to help human beings find a sense of purpose but this is certainly not how society will evolve at least in the real world. I am not talking about a utopian world. It's better to stick to the current standard of our social reality but there are many possibilities and who knows we end up creating a utopian world for everyone.