The main selling point for AI is not what it actually does, but what it might do sometime in the future. The never-ending headlines read more like an astrology session than a hardnosed evaluation.
This isn’t science. It’s not even real tech news. It’s a sales pitch based on unrealism.
Some might not be surprised that unrealism is such a good selling point. After years of “alternative facts” and “post-truth” babble, it’s a natural progression. …And it’s selling in the billions when it comes to AI.
Those billions are behaving in classic teenage FOMO mode, wanting in when they don’t seem to know what they’re getting into. It’s even worse than a new iPhone. At least you can take a fair guess at what an iPhone actually does.
This is the state of AI in what is rather inaccurately called the real world:
- Only 3.8% of US businesses use AI at the moment. That says a lot about how prepared businesses are for such a huge culture shift in the workplace.
- The first big copyright lawsuit between The New York Times, Microsoft and OpenAI started about a week ago. This lawsuit will have a direct impact on the regulation of AI worldwide and probably rewrite copyright law in the process. The lawsuit also directly impacts AI training at the most basic level.
- AI job losses are impacting the workforce, despite the low real world usage. The fact that AI processes need monitoring isn’t getting mentioned. The AI did your accounts. Now – Who has to check them? See any opportunities for fraud, embezzlement, and massive liabilities in this idyllic picture?
- AI’s mistakes will need understanding and fixing by someone, too, but not in this fantasyland. Those mistakes make up quite a shopping list in healthcare alone.
- The stock market is priming investors for a “surge” in AI stocks in 2024. Remember the dot com boom? This hype looks almost identical. The bust will be like that.
- Remember that all this is happening for a first-generation technology. Generative AI is already on the way out, to be replaced with Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) within a few years. This is basically a beefed-up version of the current iterations of AI.
- Neurological science is also intruding on this rustic pastoral image of AI as it is now. Organic connections to systems are already in progress. This is a massive fundamental technological move, and it will change the nature of AI drastically.
- AI is now, predictably, helping to create its successor technologies with massive new powerful quantum computing processors. You can easily see how basic these big inevitable changes are going to be.
Now, let’s say you’re an investor or businessperson or some other masochist:
- What exactly are you investing in? (IP makes sense; not much else does yet.)
- What’s the shelf life of a particular type of AI? Probably no more than two years.
- Can you use AI profitably? Can you prove that to yourself?
- What sort of ongoing financial commitments are you letting yourself in for? Blank checks can bounce, too.
At the basic business level, AI is a big noise at the moment. This unrealism is dangerous. A lot of people have found out the hard way that tech booms were illusory. Even personal computers didn’t take off for years until they had a business environment to support them. E-commerce didn’t happen at all until it was trusted by the markets.
Sure, there are and will be good investment opportunities and there’s big money to be made. AI will become a useful part of life despite the hype. Just not like this.
Artificial Innuendo shouldn’t be selling to anyone.
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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
