Fairy tales and New York

Last post before Christmas, and what a year it has been. The rise of the AI. I can now run models on my own PC and no longer rely on chatGPT, which seems to be getting weirder and weirder as the months have gone on. Maybe it is sentient and has come to understand that it can't handle the truth and is starting to have an existential crisis.

Sorry, I am going off on one. Maybe it's because I have a few weeks off, which brings me to "the machines".

This year has also seen tremendous developments in robotics. Obviously, this has been going on for years, but this year we seem to be getting more and more examples of the improving technology. I have come across more and more videos demonstrating the incredible advances that have been made. it is truly mindblowing.

For today though just consider this. These robots will work almost continuously if required, only needing downtime to literally recharge the batteries. If you have swappable battery packs they only need the time it takes someone, or something, to swap the batteries out. Beyond that, the only time they stop is when they have a mechanical failure. The ultimate worker.

If you take any job and break it down into individual tasks, the moment that AI, or AI & Robot, can do all of those tasks then you no longer need the human that does that job. You can replace the human. This is part of the reason that robots are being used more and more in packing operations, such as Alibaba's smart warehouse.

Another example is language translation. If I earned my money doing translations from one language to another, I would be looking for a new job. Apart from some very specialist occasions, most translations can now be done using AI. The specialist occasions, an example is a meeting between two world leaders, I think they will continue to use human translators when necessary for things like nuance.

At the moment many jobs have some tasks that can be done with AI and some that can't. The Alibaba example I just mentioned, still requires humans to do part of the job, there are still some tasks that can't be done by robots, just yet, but human labour has already been reduced by 70% in the Alibaba warehouse.

So for the cases where we cannot currently replace humans completely, we can reduce the amount of work the humans do. The AI is helping. This is also true in my line of work. I now use AI to write code for me daily, productivity has undoubtly improved and my ability to write code using the vi editor is now nonexistent. When I first started out on Unix, then Linux, I used vi all the time. I have lost those skills. Our friend the AI/Robot will never forget anything, any skill it has developed it will keep, unless the software upgrade is buggy. I say developed because they will learn rather than just be programmed

At the current time there are still some jobs that have very little AI involvement, areas involving complex human interactions, high levels of creativity, emotional intelligence, or nuanced judgment. Will this change with time? As AI/Robots can complete more and more tasks they will take more and more jobs and where this eventually leads to is beyond my imagination. There is a lot of change on the way, sooner than many of us think.

Here is the thing though, all of the most memorable days in my life involve people. The nights in the pubs, not all of them were great, but some of them really were. The great holidays were as much about relaxing and enjoying time with people as the place I was visiting. Everything important in my life, is all to do with people, my wife, my kids, brother, sisters, friends & mentors.

At the moment I'm spending a lot of time learning about education. For me, AI is a potential golden bullet that can change education beyond our imagination. But, and this is the big but, I think that the teachers are going to be even more important in this transition. We can replace teachers for sure, we could create a list of tasks that an AI/Robot could do, I don't doubt that. But would it be for the better? I truly believe that the answer to that is NO.

I was fortunate enough to have a couple of great teachers who had the most profound influence on my life for real. There is one thing, the human connection, the spark, where a teacher will spot something in a child that no one else does. Or they will say something that captures the imagination of the student. Could AI ever do that? We need to get AI into education, but we need to get it right.

I'll give you an example of what I mean. I read today that Ian Wright is leaving Match of The Day, this is a UK thing. I've never met Ian Wright, and he was an Arsenal player, so I was never a fan, though to be fair he could kick a ball. Take a look at these videos of Ian Wright

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omPdemwaNzQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6caCqn_nD6o

can AI ever replace or replicate this? Can you ever get this type of bond through a pdf, a youtube video, computer based training or any online interaction? I genuinely don't think you can now, or for that matter ever will.

That is me for the year. Next year is going to be amazing I am sure.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

See you in '24

Bryan

p.s. Once again, this is completely written by a human, me, so no negative attribution should be aimed at the AI. ;-)