Why All of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Predictions are Wrong

There are two main predictions with AI, that it will lead to disaster, catastrophe, the extinction of humans, and the end of the world. Or, that it will lead to utopia where no one has to work and everyone can live doing everything they want in a perfect world of peace and prosperity. Both are wrong, and I'll give you recent historical examples to compare that made the same predictions and didn't come true. I'll explain why these are popular predictions, and what actually happens.

People love to think about the end of the world. People being arrogant, self-centered, and ego-centric love to think that they are living in the end times. That they are the special chosen ones to see the end of history. They are always wrong, but people just love the idea. People have become rich on selling the idea that global warming is going to kill everyone for generations now. Michael Crichton has a speech called 'Aliens Cause Global Warming' that is good and has an excellent title. The end of the world will always sell, because many people naturally want to be part of the end of the world. So every ten years there's a big end of the world movement. Christians have been predicting the end of the world every year for the last 2,000 years. It's because people want to be at the center of that important thing, because it would help give their lives meaning.

Nuclear winter is a good example. It seems reasonable that if the largest bombs ever built were actually used on a large scale then it would destroy the climate of the entire world and end things as we know it. And legitimately if many of the major cities were destroyed things would noticeably change. Nuclear bombs have been used twice, both in Japan, in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Horrible death and destruction. And yet, they almost immediately began to be rebuilt and were back at their previous population levels in about 10 years.

Also, almost no one realizes how many nuclear bombs have gone off. In the world over 2,000 nuclear bombs have been tested. We can't even notice without a radiation detector. So the odds that somehow nuclear winter is going to kill all life, or even all human life, on the planet seems ridiculous.

The opposite of the catastrophe is the utopia. When the internet was invented many people thought it would lead to a utopia because instead of guessing at things and not knowing the truth, now everyone would be able to know anything they wanted and be able to research and verify all information. That turned out to be wrong. Human nature still exists, so humans use new technology to lie, steal, subjugate, and trick other humans faster and at larger scale. There is good that comes with new technology and there is bad. That's true for all technology. Cars allowed people to travel further and faster to have better jobs and education and visit new places and see friends and family, and that technology also allowed for mechanized warfare. Horse stirrups allowed people to travel further to visit family and friends, and it allowed mounted cavalry to be better at killing in war. New technology has positives and negatives.

These extremes are popular because that's what is exciting, it catches attention, it gets shared, people like the drama, the excitement, the fear. Fear is a strong emotion. Humans care about edge cases more than the norm because that's what you have to watch out for, humans care about fear more because you can only withstand a limited amount of bad but an infinite amount of good. Human nature is geared to pay attention to the potential catastrophe, and sometimes to think about the potential utopia.

Humans adapt with technology. Harvey Firestone originally made tires to go on wheels of wagons pulled by horses and he adapted as the technology of cars came into existence. The person that stuck with the wagon ended up being left behind, but maybe made it through their life okay. Technology adoption and science adoption changes with the generation, so there's always somewhat of a lag.

Right now AI is replacing artists. But, it's also giving leverage to some artists allowing them to work faster, better, and cheaper. For instance, I'm working on illustrating a children's book. I inquired with some people for prices for professional illustration. It was expensive. So I've been working with a few AI programs to do the illustrations myself. I'm making progress, but there is a steep learning curve. There are still amateur and professional levels of tools, and amateur and professional levels of skill. I'm not using free AI because it's not good enough. I also didn't buy the most expensive AI. I've had to learn some of the tricks of the trade the hard way, like generating separate reference images for each character and scene before assembling them to reduce drift in the images. A professional that uses these tools every day and has been doing it for years wouldn't have made that mistake.

Similarly, I can buy all of the tools of a classic marble sculptor, which is hammer and chisel. I can hammer and crack rock, but I can't sculpt what they can sculpt. This gap between the professional and the amateur with the same tools has always existed and will always exist. There are now multi-dimensional CNC machines that can carve sculptures. I also don't know how to do that. I could learn either of these skills, at least to a certain level, with time and effort. But without that time and effort I won't be good at carving marble with a hammer and chisel or with a CNC machine.

Both the catastrophic and utopian visions of the future of AI are wrong. They are correct that major changes are underway. Some people will ignore the new technology, others will embrace the new technology. The change will happen either way with the changing of the generations. Just as horse stirrups, cars, nuclear weapons and energy, the internet, electricity, the printing press, steel manufacturing, steam power, sailing ships, and many other inventions have reshaped the world, so will AI. None of them destroyed the world, and none of them perfect the world.

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