This article is inspired by the doom and gloom of the press on AI. Kevin Roose kicked it off with an article and podcast (Hard Fork, The Daily) that paints such an inaccurate narrative that I couldn’t stay silent. This also stems from the absolutely awful narratives from Sam Altman and Amodei that job loss in the knowledge field, and just jobs in general, will be devastating.
Who the F knows? Let me clarify my statement. Thirty years ago we had all kinds of predictions about the Internet. What it was. What it was going to do. Etc. Most proved absolutely untrue. The one thing everyone got right was that it was a disruptor.
How many jobs were lost in print media? Books, magazines, etc. How much inefficient capital flowed through those industries? Look at today: we have Amazon, Meta, Google, and a gaggle of other companies. How many jobs were lost? How many jobs, companies, etc. were created?
It’s spreading to other industries. Take pharmacies: Cost Plus Drugs by Mark Cuban has reduced the cost of so many drugs. He’s pushing harder and getting more traction, and his costs are going down, and he’s passing that value along to you and me in the form of lower costs. This is what AI is just now doing to our world.
In my opinion, we are squarely in the mid-1990s of the AI era. It’s doing a little, and people and companies are still trying to figure out what to do with it. There has been some early success, and a lot of "I’ve tried this and it didn’t work." I have all kinds of ideas on how this will work, and where it goes. So do many other people. I doubt less than half will be close to accurate.
My broader point: AI is a disruptor. It’s disrupting the current order. There will be chaos, there will be loss, there will be so much gain. I feel the gains from AI have been much more than anything it’s taken from me. I may absolutely change my mind tomorrow given new information. It’s a great time to be alive.
rasp1.com · also me: jasondpike.com