Artificial Intelligence can solve the Big Problems of the 21st Century: a comment on the Times of Burning Man by A. I. Altman
I am also wary of the supposed bonanza that will come if all the big problems are solved. Let’s concede that AI might actually crack humanity’s biggest conundrums. We failed time and again because we would have to implement those solutions. We don’t need to use a large language model to tell us war is bad. and we shouldn’t kill each other. Yet wars keep happening.
He believes that universal basic income will cushion the blow of lost wages. Artificial intelligence might indeed generate the wealth to make such a plan feasible, but there’s little evidence that the people who amass fortunes—or even those who still eke out a modest living—will be inclined to embrace the concept. Altman might have had a great experience at Burning Man, but some kind souls of the Playa seem to be up in arms about a proposal, affecting only people worth over $100 million, to tax some of their unrealized capital gains. The idea that people who become rich at Artificial Intelligence companies will use their money to fund leisure time for the rest of the population is silly. One of the US’s major political parties can’t stand Medicaid, so one can only imagine how populist demagogues will regard UBI.
When a lot of our current jobs go the way of 18th-century lamplighters, we aren’t sure what life will be like. We did get a hint of his vision in a podcast this week that asked tech luminaries and celebrities to share their Spotify playlists. He said that he chose the song “underwater” by Rfs du Sol because it was a tribute to Burning Man. He says that the festival is an example of what the post-AGI society can look like, where people are focused on doing things for each other and making wonderful gifts to get each other.
Altman correctly notes that the march of technology has brought what were once luxuries to everyday people—including some unavailable to pharaohs and lords. Air-conditioning did not appeal to Charlemagne. Working-class people and even some on public assistance have dishwashers, TVs with giant screens, iPhones, and delivery services that bring pumpkin lattes and pet food to their doors. The whole story isn’t acknowledged by Altman. Many people are homeless, even though they have a lot of wealth. William gibson remarked that paradise is not evenly distributed. That’s not because technology has failed—we have. I suspect the same will be true if AGI arrives, especially since so many jobs will be automated.
Source: No, Sam Altman, AI Won’t Solve All of Humanity’s Problems
The Strawberry Shortcut: A Memorino of Yves Béhar’s Misconceptions of Artificial Intelligence
Even if you disagree with his views, it is still clear that artificial general intelligence is going to be the panacea for humanity and bring about a golden age. The strawberry shortcut is a deus ex machina concept that I think we should call The Strawberry Shortcut. Like the shortcake, the premise looks appetizing but is less substantial in the eating.
Maybe he published this so that the train of thought doesn’t see the gains of large language models as an illusion. He says nil-uh. He mocked those that said programs like OpenAI’s GPT4o were simply stupid engines for getting the next token in a queue, as he said in an interview later in the week. “Once it can start to prove unproven mathematical theorems, do we really still want to debate: ‘Oh, but it’s just predicting the next token?'” he said.
There is a mystery behind the LoveFrom and OpenAI news. Is the device one thing, or is it just another thing where the Humane Ai Pin and Rabbit R1 can possibly succeed in focus and execution? A system of connected components has failed.
Not everyone thinks this is an appealing prospect. Yves Béhar says that the same business model that has been exploitative to consumers for decades is the reason why he thinks Artificial intelligence on phones is apathetic. “I find the efforts in using AI for our daily communications and social media just more of the same, as it only serves the attention economy, and isn’t contributing to society.”
There are only a few details that are clear, at least where intentions are concerned. LoveFrom is designing “a product that uses AI to create a computing experience that is less socially disruptive than the iPhone.” The form of the device is still to be determined, as well as when it will be released. The language points to a consumer mass-market device to, in theory, access ChatGPT and Dall-E, and rival the likes of just-announced Apple Intelligence features, which include typing requests, prompts to Siri, and pointing the camera for visual queries on the latest-gen iPhone 16.
The former Apple chief design officer is sometimes gently mocked for his obsession with seemingly small details, but when it comes to a potential mainstream human-AI interface, the man who has spent the past five years preoccupied with buttons—going so far as to create a five-volume history of garment fasteners—could be, in a somewhat inevitable way, the exact kind of person required to walk this particular tightrope of ethics and ambition.