This year’s TV X-mas show in Danish television is “The Timetravel” and features two kids travelling back to my youth in 1994 to save X-max. My 10-year old son finds it hilarious to see all the outdated technology and that spurred a conversation on how his world would look like when he has kids that are 10 years old. Due to my work he is very familiar with AI and was sadden by the prospect of an easy-mode future. So what did that easy-mode future look like?
Basically we had become robots living in a clinical world filled with white buildings and eternal blue skies. Nobody had to learn anything in school because you could just download the skill to your brain directly from an AI. You didn’t have to work as small nano-bots did all the work needed, and you were free to do what you wanted. He didn’t like that: “It is going to be like a computer game that is too easy, all the challenges will be gone, and it is really boring”. Food was no longer something we ate, but injections with all the right nutrients, and human struggle in every sense was gone. And it was really dull. His only fear was if the AIs and nanobots grew tired of humans and decided they could just as well do without us.
While his thoughts raise many interesting ideas about the human condition, and how important challenges and struggles are for us to find meaning and fulfilment in life, I find it equally interesting that he is pointing to a future we are actively pursuing, and which might come before we know it. Today, it is hard to go back and envision a world without the pervasive smartphone – maybe one day it will be equally hard to imagine a life without personalized AIs and nanobots doing your bidding?
The race is on for getting to AGI – anthropics CEO, Dario Amodei, guesstimates this to be reached within the next 2-3 years based on current progress. The ARC AGI challenge (a challenge created to show more general intelligence in solving problems) this year showed remarkable progress in getting to 53.3% correct solutions. Neurallink is working to bring us the computer / brain interface, Tesla the robots that will do all the work, and many more are working on all sorts of creations that will enable easy-mode.
While I have listen to many pod-casts, read tons of papers, and work with AI every day, the conversation with my son gave me pause. And is by far the most thought provoking and important thing I have heard this year. Do we even want a future that is easy-mode? Are we building the right things? Have we asked the next generations if this is what they really want for their future? We didn’t get the chance with the smartphone and social media, and are experiencing the shifts this has created in society – what shifts will AGI bring about, and are we even remotely ready for them, do we even want them?
I don’t know, but I do know that the thought of any easy-mode future saddens me. Computer games that are too easy is just mind numbing button pushing, I don’t want life to be that.