Everyone is currently discussing the convenience and threats that artificial intelligence brings to humanity.
Many of Nietzsche’s works, although perplexing during his lifetime, accurately predicted a 20th century filled with what he called “nihilism”; especially his famous declaration that “God is dead” resonates profoundly. The so-called “superman” replaces God.
Now, as we enter the age of artificial intelligence, modern technology experts claim that the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” will give rise to a new “superman,” leading us to question: Are humans still the tightrope walkers over the abyss?
The disruptive transformation of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) is racing towards us at breakneck speed.
March 14, 2023, may be remembered in the annals of technological advancement.
On this day, OpenAI released GPT-4 in the United States. Shortly thereafter, Microsoft launched Microsoft 365 Copilot, Baidu introduced “Wenxin Yiyan,” Alibaba rolled out “Tongyi Qianwen,” and Google launched Google Bard… All at once, the changes were dazzling and rapid, leaving people in awe.
Tech giants are also expected to quickly adopt AI technology and reduce the size of their R&D teams. GPT threatens all jobs that deal with text and images, nearly covering all white-collar positions. Even Geoffrey Hinton, known as the “godfather of AI,” has issued warnings about the potential dangers of AI, reminding us that AI may soon surpass human intelligence.
Think about it: 40 years ago, our wildest imaginations could not compare to today.
In 2017, when Google’s AlphaGo defeated Go world champion Ke Jie, AI had already shattered the cognitive limits of humanity. If every industry had an AI like “AlphaGo,” AGI would have been realized. How then can humans and AGI coexist harmoniously?
Disrupting Human-Machine Interfaces, Opening the Pandora’s Box of AGI
The first impact of AGI is the breakthrough in human-machine interface interaction, and such breakthroughs always bring revolutionary waves. Let’s start with the previous two breakthroughs. The revolution in IT technology began with the birth of the PC (personal microcomputer), which digitalized the physical world. The reason this revolution could change everyone’s life and work was due to the emergence of the PC graphical interface and mouse; otherwise, computers would still be tools only usable by programmers and engineers who write code. With its advent, the physical world underwent large-scale digitalization, and typing on a PC became a fundamental work skill for people. After digitization, various office automation (OA) systems, enterprise management (ERP), and customer relationship management (CRM) systems emerged, which we refer to as IT information engineering. Information engineering has transformed the entire industrial chain for humanity, resulting in a massive increase in efficiency and a significant improvement in interaction and collaboration. The second revolutionary breakthrough in human-machine interface was the birth of the touchscreen iPhone, which led to the large-scale application and development of mobile internet; its key feature was that touch, the most basic human action, became the mode of interaction with machines. As IT information matured to a certain extent, a byproduct emerged: an increasing amount of data. Data seems to have a natural clustering impulse, just like a drop of water always yearns to flow into the sea; it continually seeks connections, forming a digital ocean. When the digital ocean appears, the accumulation of quantitative changes brings about qualitative changes, prompting people to consider digital transformation and introducing the concept of a new economy. What is the old economy? In my view, if data information is processed by human brains, it is the old economy—despite having IT and informatization, the final decision still rests with you. But today, the volume of data has reached the point of forming an ocean and complex databases, and computers assist us in processing information; in my view, this is the new economy. Thus, who processes data information is the key distinction between the new and old economies. Machines can process information, machines are doing what humans do, and machines are imitating human intelligence, leading to the emergence of AI (artificial intelligence). What impact will AI’s emergence have on human society? There are two landmark events: one is IBM’s Deep Blue defeating a human chess master in 1996. The second is exactly ten years later, in 2016, Google’s DeepMind developed AlphaGo, which defeated Lee Sedol 4 to 1; a year later, at the Go summit in Wuzhen, it won against Ke Jie 3 to 0. The global Go community acknowledged that AlphaGo’s skill exceeded that of human professional Go players. However, over the past few decades, AI’s evolution has primarily occurred at the “engineering” level, until the emergence of ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer) on November 30, 2022, when the human-machine interaction interface could engage in dialogue using human common language. You can simply chat with it, which allowed it to break out of the tech circle and become a tool relevant to everyone, its influence far surpassing that of the graphical interface computer on humanity. Although it is another technological advancement, AGI is different from blockchain, Web 3.0, VR, and the metaverse, which discuss future visions and do not immediately flip the present. The emergence of ChatGPT, with its AGI prototype, was like a wake-up call, as its interaction interface with humans is nothing less familiar than “chatting,” and it processes information through “chatting”—the more it engages, the smarter it gets. The quality of its responses depends on the quality of the questions you ask, rather than being a mere search engine. The reason the change in human-machine interface has such a significant impact is that there exists a digital divide between the new and old economies. As NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang stated, we are now at the “iPhone moment of AI.” The emergence of various applications of ChatGPT fills the widening digital gap between humans and machines. As AI becomes increasingly intelligent, the gap grows deeper, making it increasingly difficult for humans to leap from one shore to the other. Now, the interface has bridged the gap, making AI technology accessible to everyone, reminiscent of Thomas Friedman’s book title from the early 21st century—”The World is Flat.” Therefore, it can be inferred that the next wave of technological impact on human society is likely to be brain-machine interfaces, which will once again bridge the digital divide from the dimension of “interface” and change the world.
AGI is Changing Our Present, Not Just a Distant Future
Understanding the second key of AGI’s impact is that it is changing the present world at a speed that surpasses our previous cognition, allowing us to witness the awakening of a new form of intelligence. It can create content, such as photos, music, reports, magazines, novels, etc., abilities that were once unique to humans, are now being “generated” by machines. It seems that when the volume of data reaches a certain level, machines appear to have “awakened,” and their intelligent expressions begin to emerge. This is akin to a child suddenly expressing a thought they want to convey after mimicking and repeating adult language, astonishing you as if by magic. When the new generation of AI passes the Turing test (which is just around the corner), it will signify that the distance and time to the singularity for human society have greatly shortened. The third key to understanding AGI’s impact is that the transitional period in which it changes traditional industries and human life may be very short, requiring us to adapt to coexist with it more quickly. The impact of AIGC (AI-generated content) is heading straight for knowledge workers; it will write reports, papers, create PPTs, and designs, affecting all aspects of content production and the creative industry. The emergence of AGI prototypes has produced a plugin effect—anyone who connects with and masters this tool will become extraordinarily powerful. In the past, due to the emergence of the internet, humanity gained the largest storage capacity in history; anything you wanted could be searched. Today, the emergence of large models like GPT can integrate all human knowledge and non-living wisdom into one mind, akin to having a “second brain” beside us. Can we say that life will not change? In the past, it was said that “three cobblers with their wits combined equal Zhuge Liang,” but what if there are countless Zhuge Liangs now? Not only will every industry have its Zhuge Liang, but a multitude of application scenarios will also emerge at a speed that may leave you breathless. If one company already has its Zhuge Liang while another does not, the competitive gap will be colossal. Thus, it initially presents a huge opportunity for enterprise software companies. Each enterprise client needs to create its “AlphaGo” in its industry to become the world champion in that field. I call this the “surrogacy model,” where AI software companies and enterprise clients use their unique industry data to train large models, thus generating an AGI brain that is unique to that industry and has its DNA. Meanwhile, this is also the process of AGI finding more practical application scenarios, which is why we see a sudden emergence of many generative AI tools. The large-scale emergence of AGI will revolutionize which industries? It will certainly be a process of de-industrialization. For example, education. Over 2000 years ago, Confucius advocated for inclusive education, teaching according to ability, and tirelessly educating, with the main educational method being dialogue and private tutoring. However, good teachers are limited, so we had to move toward industrialization, which allows everyone to receive an education. The downside is that everyone is funneled into a system, producing a bunch of standardized parts that are almost identical through a complete set of “standard” production lines. Today, with the emergence of AGI, it is no longer one teacher teaching 300 students; rather, each student has 300 teachers, all of whom are top-tier educators like Zhuge Liang, Einstein, and Shakespeare. This does not impose the obligation of learning on children but returns the right to personalized growth to them, allowing them to learn and develop according to their interests and talents. Its impact on the creative industry will also be unprecedented. In Web 1.0—the information internet: in the early days of the internet, the main supply of content was PGC (professionally generated content), which was in short supply; in Web 2.0—the social internet: in the mid-stage of the internet, UGC (user-generated content) emerged, surpassing demand; and now, in today’s Web 3.0—the value internet: we have AIGC, which will alter the content supply and demand dynamics. It can help you write novels, script plays, create images, edit videos… it almost involves all aspects and stages of the creative industry, making the emergence of AIGC explosive.
Humans and AI Are Not Enemies, But Co-Existence
Conclusion
Today, our greatest concern is the fear of falling behind in the AI era.
Pessimists are right, but optimists bravely move forward. What we need to think about is how to change ourselves and embrace change, becoming innovators as this wave of AGI sweeps in. Because it is not AI that replaces humans, but those who can use AI will replace those who cannot. The rapid pace of AI development makes the differences between those who catch this train and those who do not unimaginable.
Forty years ago, not changing with the times only resulted in career differences; in the next forty years, if we do not innovate and adapt, the difference will be unimaginable. (Source: Wealth Chinese Network)
