Date: 2025-01-06 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00027713
AI
Artificial Intelligence (Augmented Ignorance)
Unlocking the Economic Potential of the US Generative AI Ecosystem
Accenture / Microsoft ... November 2024
Artificial Intelligence (Augmented Ignorance)
Unlocking the Economic Potential of the US Generative AI Ecosystem
Accenture / Microsoft ... November 2024
MSFT-US-Generative-AI-Ecosystem-WHITE-PAPER-FINAL-Nov-20-2024.pdf
and
Original article: https://cdn-dynmedia-1.microsoft.com/is/content/microsoftcorp/microsoft/msc/documents/presentations/CSR/MSFT-US-Generative-AI-Ecosystem-WHITE-PAPER-FINAL-Nov-20-2024.pdf
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
It has become increasingly unclear to me whether AI is progress, or something that is pushing humankind back at ever accelerating pace into a new dark age!
I am 84 years old, and still 'of reasonably sound mind!' ... though perhaps not as flexible as I was when I was younger.
As a 'tool', AI is pretty amazing and valuable ... but as a substitute for rigorous human thinking, it is likely to prove dumb and dangerous.
And we don't have very much rigorous human thinking. Most of what goes for 'thinking' is merely replaying something that already exists, maybe with some modest modification.
This bothers me quite profoundly. In my youth ... at Cambridge University and later during professional training ... I was interested in and somewhat involved in some of the academic thinking of the time. One of the issues that was in play at that time was to do with the use of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) as a foundational measure of economic performance and proxy for progress in general. Econonomic luminaries like Maynard Keynes and Joan Robinson were calling for a better metric than the prevailing GDP ... and now, more than 60 years later, GDP is still being used!
GDP is a flawed metric. The reason that it is still being used is that it suits the rich and powerful, but for everyone else is is a waste of time!
40+ years ago, when Reagan was President of the United States, about half of the US population was 'above' the average in economic status, and about half of the US population was 'below' the average. The 'choices' that were made then, and for the subsequent 40+ years have resulted in a society where about 20% of the population is 'above' the average and 80% and 'below' the average ... a massive increase in 'inequality' that has made most of the population 'pretty damn mad!'.
There has never ever been the sort of massive wealth concentrated at the 'top' that now exists. It exists everywhere ... in the USA, in Europe, in Russia, in China ... essentially everywhere, and this wealthy elite makes the rules, protects their interests and mostly 'does not give a damn' about everyone else.
My knowledge of AI is not huge ... but the core logic of AI suggests to me that AI will accelerate what is already in progress rather than enabling what to me is an essential much needed course correction in human understanding, thinking and decision making!
I am comfortable with Generative AI as a 'tool' in the hands of a 'decent' person ... but as a 'brain' to complement / replace a human, I anticipate 'mayhem on steroids!.
This Accenture / Microsoft report (November 2024) is interesting, but quite limited in scope. Specifically simplistic thinking that focuses on the economy without incorporating impacts on people (society) and nature (environment) is totally inadequate. This sort of thinking may have worked in the early days of the industrial revolution when Victoria was Queen of England, but not any more.
MORE TO COME!
Peter Burgess