I spend a lot of time thinking about real world analogies for the Internet, and more recently for artificial intelligence. One analogy for the Internet I keep coming back to is the automobile, something which I think works well when also applied to AI. I feel like artificial intelligence is to the mind what the automobile has been for the body. I predict that in the 2100s we’ll be working hard to extract AI from our daily lives in similar ways to how we are working to extract automobiles from our daily lives today. I don’t think the Internet is relevant anymore, and everyone will see computers and networking simply as artificial intelligence moving forward, and AI will be used to abstract away meaningful things in our day in perpetually new and troubling ways.
Like the automobile, artificial intelligence will have utility and purpose in about 10-30% of the time. However, another 30% of the time it will be stretched and pushed to be used when it probably wasn’t the best solution. Then the final 30% of the time when AI is a really bad idea, because people are captured by market forces and thinking, they will choose to ignore the negative repercussions of AI until it is far too late. I don’t doubt that the automobile has significant uses and has transformed our world, but the way that we went all in on the automobile instead of light rail, or even just walking, is something that will reflect our decision making process for how artificial intelligence will be applied throughout our lives–whether we want it or not.
Think about all the stupid money that was spent in the world between 1925 and 1975 on automobile infrastructure, and how we are just now learning how buses, rail, and walkable cities were starved out of the popular imagination in these moments. That is where we are with artificial intelligence. An obscene amount of money will be spent on AI infrastructure right now at the cost of the environment and our communities in coming years despite all evidence that it might not be the most logical approach. It won’t matter, because the people in power who are leading things are captivated by visions of artificial intelligence in the same way that city planners were captivated by the automobile in the early and transformative years of our cities and automobiles.
Consider getting in your car to drive two blocks to the convenience store, now imagine the AI equivalent. Or worse, think about getting your car to drive four blocks to the gym, when you probably should have walked, biked, or ran. What is the AI equivalent? Now, think about freeways crushing and dividing black communities during the 1950s and 1960s, and AI being used to determine which apartments you can rent based upon your credit score, or deciding whether or not you are a criminal in a court of law. You can look around our cities today and see evidence of the money spent to separate our physical world based upon class and race, which is something that will be much, much, much, more difficult to see when it is artificial intelligence.
I don’t argue that the automobile has done good, but you also can argue that the automobile has done many awful and horrible things to our world. For the first time in my life I am seeing that my life is better without an automobile. Once you get here you begin to see that the automobile has done more harm than good to our world. It is difficult to see when you are sitting in a car in traffic, and paying that car and insurance payment for the car in your garage–it will be impossible to see when sitting at the chat prompt, allowing AI to shape your world. We are entering an era of insanely stupid investment in artificial intelligence, only to eventually realize that the negative impact outweighs the benefits, but it will be too late and will be something that takes us centuries to dig out from the destruction.
