AI Has Arrived - And It’s a Big Deal!

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AI has arrived - and it's a BIG deal!
 
I don't know to what extent you are following the launch of the ChatGPT model as part of the Open AI platform. You can read more and sign up and play around with it yourself here. I highly recommend it. 

Open AI is a research and deployment company whose mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.

There have been a lot of discussions, hype, fear, and talk about AI for decades. Artificial Intelligence (AI) really started even before we had computers the way we think of them today. Many theories around automated computation were put forward by people like Alan Turing and others. 

But my point today is not to talk about the history or the problems that are a result of the increasing penetration of software in our lives. I am sure I will return to that in future posts. It's a very important conversation. 

Rather I simply want to make 2 points. 

First, it took traditional media a very long time to even recognize the significance of this launch. In fact, it was blowing up on Twitter but NYT and other main media establishments didn't say beep about it. It still hasn't exactly dominated our airwaves. Has it? Later in the week and perhaps when you read this post you will have seen some articles and news clips. But it's a fascinating observation and might just be further evidence of what an incredible negativity bias we are surrounded by. And I'll bet you that more and more of the articles about Open AI will focus on the problems. Not the benefits. 

I think this is a HUGE deal. The fact that every human on the planet now can have instant access to a really smart writer and researcher is simply astounding. It's like having instant access to the world's accumulated knowledge. All in a conversational form. I am blown away by the attempts and trials I personally have played around with this week. The implications for learning, wisdom, patient care, and simply a more educated public MUST be enormous. Yes, there are dangers and problems here as well that we must learn to navigate but let's just for a few weeks just CELEBRATE and BATHE in the glory of the incredible human goodness that this can offer. And it's free. At least so far. 

I will simply leave you with one example that you can read and judge for yourself. It's not a particularly incredible one but I chose it because it is a relevant one for this newsletter. 

I typed in that simple question. And within seconds I had  6 rather compelling and complete paragraphs written that I could reflect on. And this is in the first inning. Can you imagine how much better this will get over time? Can you envision how much better our politics and public discourse could be if more people used forums like these to help inform our beliefs and shared experience? 

Yes, there are many risks and problems. We can only hope that no one can monopolize or commercialize these powerful technologies in ways that introduce bias, bad intentions, or skewed monetization incentives that corrupt this incredible gift we have just received. 

As you can tell I am incredibly excited about this. It might be the most significant technological launch since the internet. At least it feels like it. 

And like with all new innovations let's not only try to find the problems with them. Let's instead recognize the enormous potential within them and work together just to make them better. Assume positivity. This is like a newborn baby for humanity taking its first steps. It will fall. It will whine. It will cry. But with our help can give humanity new legs that can make us all better.

Thank you Open AI!