Due to launch of GPTChat last few weeks are full of AI-buzz. I had some fun with the newest OpenAI release myself. I produced my first lines of code and in two hours of prompt improving I managed to solve issue I gave up on with my Excel skills many months ago. Simple statistical analysis of calendar. I had a very similar feeling to discovering and understanding crypto. Stunned. Awe. Curiosity. Fascination.
If somebody is still looking for the next Bitcoin, here it is. But beware, you might actually miss it, and wake up in the whole different world already. Many were heralding the end of the Moore for computing. Transistors can only be that small. 2nm are on the way, pushing the boundaries, and engineers are talking about 3D architecture. While being its own league, AI development might become the new centre of attention. Number of transistors in average chip doubles every 18months, while AI develops in much faster pace, capabilities of artificial intelligence double every 3months!
It means while computing doubles, the power of AI grows 64x.
Let that sink in.
Seriously, project that to the next decade. Think about it for a moment. Play with calculator.
One day computers might be as smart as humans, but it will be a very brief moment.
One guy, who is accused of the most quotes said once:
Oh, not. This time it is another Albert, another physicist.
The claim stays true anyway. People enchanted by possibilities seems to ignore challenges completely. Symptomatic is OpenAI guy asked about dangers answering immediately with Terminator thing. Say what?! It's not 2005. PR guys did they job. Even though there is a big push for opening these kind o models OpenAI already moved from the corporate growth phase of "Don't be evil" to "monetized, close source and practice power play". This only shows how current economic model is not viable for Internet of future. You can only imagine dystopia of AGI in the hands of corporate officers.
So what will be brought with Web 4.0?
Pictures and text is just the beginning. Text to speech is almost there with last Google development and first AI musicians are already popular in Asia. Video and gaming will be next. In few years we will probably see fully generative Spotify creating music instantly based on the music created by humans. Do you miss Kurt Cobain or Michael Jackson? Would you like to hear the newest The Prodigy tracks mixed by... anybody you fucking wish? Prompt it!
Even soon Google search will be replaced by AI-powered engines. Why would you crawl the entire Internet, while you can download the whole 100GB AI-training data? This is possible right now, but data is guarded tightly. Right now each prompt costs OpenAI few cents, but hey! There is a Moore's law bringing marginal costs down to 0.
Do you remember interactive, looped episode of Netflix' Black Mirror? This is nothing compared to fully generative, unique TV series served according to your wanting! In gaming first we will see GPTChat-powered NPCs, but later on there will come whole worlds generated by AI in real time. The only boundaries will come only from chips and available computation. Hence, the price of hardware will skyrocket. Even more in case of political tensions. I might end not selling my GPU mining rigs after all.
Shortage of chips is just the first challenge in this new brave world. Even more disturbing will be less and less knowledge about what actually is really. Let's forget we are living in a simulation anyway for a moment. Media (and social media) as we know it will be absolutely untrustworthy and obsolete. I can imagine conflict and power striving only growing, incentive to use the newest tools to manipulate masses will be massive, pun not intended. In the old economical structures we would experience only more and more uncertainity. AI detecting AI? It will end up as infinite arms race, ultimately ineffective.
I have this thesis: sustainable AI might be built only on the top of Web 3.0, account ownership and reputation system will help. Only blockchain-based account will serve as a platform for trustworthy voice in public debate. Hive-like protocol might shine here.
Another important aspect is democratisation. Freedom of choice is necessary when it comes to networks. Each network will probably have its own AI models/data sets to use. It's impossible to detach language from values. Right now AIs are restricted in certain ways to avoid copying human biases. At the end, the model is only as ethical as data it was trained on. AI funded by DAO and parameters governed by witnesses? Who knows. There is definitely no space for traditional companies here. Monthly subscriptions make it tool for elites. Ad revenue model will influence independence of such tool.
It's quite funny, technology comes first for creatives and white collars, quite opposite than what we used to though just 10 years ago. It's hard to think about job market of the future, it's more plausible jobs will become obsolete in general. All these kids dreaming about streamer, influencer and content creator "jobs" might be the wisest there. In that case we cannot rely on centralised services throwing leftovers from the table. We need decentralised base layer distributing inflation via community voting. We need Hive. Alternatively we might end up with people sucking UBI from government's tit. This is not less dystopian vision than big-tech having all the power.
Of course technology and business will do its thing. However, we are approaching this dangerous, red, thin line and consequences of neglect might be much more serious than anything previously known to humanity. My brain tends to be pessimistic in a microscale, and optimistic in a macro perspective. I believe at the end we will avoid the great filter. We have all tools needed.
comic by: https://www.monkeyuser.com/
First Web 3.0, then Web 4.0.