It is generally believed that in a capitalist economy business leaders decide on their next steps based on how they think "the market" will respond. Lately, I have been thinking about the inherent dangers of such decisions in an era of ultra-rapid change. Considering the speed at which we're moving, guessing what happens next is a tricky undertaking.
It looks (to me anyway) that in chasing profits, "the market" has prejudices. Above anything else, it prefers the lowest possible costs. But that means, it wants the greatest quantity even it it means sacrificing quality. Fast beats out slow, and machine made wins over human made.
As I approached this topic, I had a long conversation with my dear friend Sibylle Westbrook, who is well known to crime writers as an enthusiast of our genre, as well as an author of children's books. When I brought up my topic of today, we wandered into a conversation of how the fashion industry works in this regard. Sibylle's an expert in the field. As a case in point, she brought up the current enthusiasm for Fast Fashion: clothes that are cheap and plentiful but because the are "the latest fad," need not be durable.
This can be fun for a lot of people and produce delightfully large bottom lines to manufacturers. The market says "go for it." But let's hold on for a second. What about the downside, such as the environmental costs of manufacturing clothes with a built-in short life span and shipping them around the world. To say nothing of the millions of tons of cast off fabric clogging up the trash. And what about the quality of life of the workers in faraway countries. As usual in such scenarios, those who benefit from the situation are not the ones who have to clean up the mess. Or to pay for the clean up. Looked at with these points in mind, those "bargains" don't really come cheap.
The growth of Artificial Intelligence is a thorny case in point. And for me, the most urgent one. The AI band wagon is full of happy participants. Many, many proponents in corporations are rapidly letting AI take over jobs from human beings, pesky things that we are. We want decent wages and benefits. We sometimes get sick. We can walk out if we can get a better deal elsewhere. AI is so much cheaper.
But is it? Really? Are we sure that the quality of a company's products and services will be just as good with AI? If a company cuts staff because AI can take over things like writing reports, can management trust that those reports are well thought out and germane? Are we really progressing if we accept/demand that workers use AI instead of their own brains?
And what about the concomitant costs? Are they all being considered when we decide what is best?
I have been following the writings of Paul Krugman, a Nobel prize winning economist. He is even more skeptical than I. And, as economists do, he bases his conclusions on facts. He worries about the gargantuan amount of electricity that AI installations require. Even if power production levels can be raised in time to keep up with AI's growth, the cost will go up fast and furiously. Chances are that the cost of electrical power will rise for everyone, not just for the tech companies. In fact, that has already started to happen. Then, there are the environmental impacts of huge increases in power production. Are these outcomes being considered before the crossover to AI?
Regular readers of this blog might have seen my doubts about the wisdom of allowing AI to be used in schools. I fear for the brain development of nine-year-olds. I am also quite concerned that the latest batch of college grads are having a dreadful time trying to find entry-level jobs because employers have turned entry-level work over to AI. Entry-level jobs are the doorway to new staff members becoming highly competent and hard-working members of a corporation's staff. Where are those new employees going to come from? Will the jobs at the next level up have to be filled with raw recruits? Is having ignorant people doing higher level work the right choice?
There are lots of question marks in this post. I don't have the answers. But I think that these questions are important. They may be vital.
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As you say, many questions. Alas, as is usually the case, we're probably going to learn the answers the hard way: Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!
ReplyDeleteYour column brushes on an issue that I've thought about quite a bit over the past 10-20 years (without finding any answers...) That is our blindness toward limited resources. We continually burn resources as if they're endless, until the end comes in sight, and then it's EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY! We've already encountered that with oil, climate change, etc. But there are MANY other resources that are limited in nature, but we continue to burn through them. As once example: helium. It's a noble gas (which means it doesn't combine with other elements to make molecules). Gold is also a noble element, but being a solid, it can be alloyed to combine with other materials. But helium is a gas and is super light-weight (which is why it's used in zepelins and party balloons). But all that helium comes from the ground, where it's been trapped (and mixed in with natural gas). That's the only reason it's still around, because once it enters the atmosphere, being lighter than the other gases in the atmosphere, it floats to the top and then 'escapes' into space as it's struck by the solar wind (much as most of the hydrogen, from water, escaped from Mars). Helium is used for many processes, but it's not being conserved, and one day the supply will become scarce.
That's just one example. Look around, you'll find any number of other 'resources' that are not as endless as we assume.
From AA: I wrote you a long response, Everett. But I think it got rejected because there was a link in it. I will send that to you in an email, but here is basically what I tried to say.
DeleteIt’s no surprise to me, Everett, that have deeper understanding than I of this subject. By chance, today, one of my favorite podcasts has a piece about rare minerals and shortages. They focus on plans to mine minerals from the ocean floor, and the dangers of disturbing that part of our sacred planet. I will send thec link to you separately. It is only a 20 minute podcast, and I think you will find it interesting.
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DeleteHey it's Wendall. I really worry about all this, all the time, as I find my students to be using their own brains and imaginations less and less. Frankly, glad I won't be around fifty years from now!
ReplyDeleteMe, too, Wendall! Thank you. I have heard from many people who are teachers that whose students have changed drastically in the past four or five years. One, who teaches tenth grade history, reports that this year's students are withdrawn and don't seem to know how to participate in class. Another has changed his style of teaching. All he was getting was AI generated homework assignments. He now has the kids write their compositions in class. Another says kids are not reading the assigned texts. They get an AI summary and write their book report based on what AI tells them. To me the saddest part of that is that they will not fall in love with reading.
DeleteFar ahead of you as I am on the calendar, I feel grateful that I have lived most of my life able see human progress in the making. I think of that a lot.
The late Julian Simon, a friend of mine at the University of Illinois, was a Prof of Economics and Business Administration. I think he would have suggested that the current fears about AI are overblown. He was well known for his controversial proposition with respect to issues such as peak oil etc. that ultimately human ingenuity will solve all such problems. His arguments are very compelling. Read The Ultimate Resource by J L Simon.
ReplyDeleteI know that you and I disagree on this, Stan. Dr. Simon is probably right that the future will bring us people who will be able to deal with the mess being made by people today. And to be fair, the humanity has been able to, in one way or another, compensate for the difficulties, resulting from bad decisions in the past. It is very likely that that's what will happen with the mess being made right now. It it's predictably correct. But it is cold. It does not consider the suffering that results from those bad decisions. And it does not take into account those changes in what it means to be human. Those aspects of being human that can deliver joy on our secret planet.
ReplyDeleteSACRED PLAENT!
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