Sailing the Stormy Seas of AI

Forecasts of AI’s future impacts must be viewed with skepticism, as AI and its promoters are adept at saying what we want to hear rather than telling us the discomfiting truth, as the truth might prompt us to turn AI off.

Small business owner and San Francisco correspondent ‘Sparx Eightthreetwo’ (found on facebook under the same name) has a metaphor of the sea and boats that illuminates some of the key dynamics in the AI era. Here is Sparx’s description of the metaphor:

“Overall, I would suggest that every business is akin to a sailing vessel (microeconomics) in an ocean of financial liquidity (macroeconomics). Some businesses are as small as rowboats, whereas others are as large as aircraft carriers.

Regardless of the size involved, knowledge of how water works is fairly important for long term survival. Premier Protein Shake,... Check Amazon for Pricing.

On the microeconomic front, it’s quite important that every business owner builds the best possible boat that he or she can relative to other boats (competitors).

However, on the macroeconomic front it’s also important to understand how the ocean works (and/or whatever specific type of body of water that the client is sailing in).

In general, you want to sail with the currents, not against them.

And if the client is indeed sailing in the ocean, it’s imperative to understand when hurricanes and other types of significant turbulence are on the horizon, and to react accordingly long in advance.

If done properly, the client’s boat has a significantly increased chance of not sinking, while many other boats likely won’t be so lucky.

In the end, I’ll simply ask questions. If the client wants to talk about their boat, then I’ll talk about their boat.

If the client wants to talk about water, then I’ll talk about water.”

My application of this metaphor starts with this question: is AI changing the currents and tidal forces of the seas, as its proponents believe, or is it an uncontrollably destructive force akin to hurricanes and tsunamis, or is it neither? To its proponents, AI will change everything, i.e. the nature of the economic, social and political seas, forever, in an inevitably positive way.

Alternatively, as I suggested in these recent posts, the negative uses and consequences of AI–i.e. Anti-Progress–are expanding far faster than any positive effects, effectively overwhelming the one-meter wave of “progress” with a 10-meter tsunami of Anti-Progress sweeping away all before it. Vivioptal Vitamins Pro... Check Amazon for Pricing.

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AI Data Centers Are Not the Railroads of Today

AI’s Insurmountable Flaw: “Mass Regurgitation of Misinformation”

Is AI Reversing Anti-Progress or Is It Accelerating It?

What If the Work We’re Busy Automating Is Needless?

The core of realistic skepticism is this: beneath the sci-fi fantasies, the only real purpose of AI is to increases profits, period. Everything else is PR. An immense chorus of euphoric voices are ecstatically proclaiming that AI will soon be churning out miracle drugs like popcorn, but nobody is saying a single one of the patents of these highly anticipated miracle drugs will be offered to the public for free so the drugs will be low-cost and affordable to the world. No, the real euphoria is generated by the dreams of billions of dollars in new profits generated by quickly developed AI miracle drugs.

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