Lionel Messi looks across on a free-kick.
Humans have two fundamental abilities— physical and cognitive. Majority of today’s professionals— designers, doctors, lawyers, civil servants, scientists and software engineers derive their worth not from their physical ability, but from their cognitive capacity.
Industrial Revolution had rendered physical labour mostly irrelevant; Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution is now set to make our cognitive abilities redundant. Self-driving cars are on the cusp of taking over transportation, algorithms are gaining the ability to produce poems, compose music, draft news reports and translate literature books accurately. What if a sufficiently advanced AI gains enough power and dexterity to replace even doctors, engineers and scientists?
Even if such a scenario plays out, I believe sports and performing arts would remain insulated from an AI onslaught precisely because the appeal of both these fields stems from human performance. For instance, technological advancement in sports has provided modern athletes with scientific diets, better training and computer aids to devise the perfect game strategy, but the athletes themselves aren’t in any way different from say, marathon runners of classical Greece. We pay to watch these athletes perform and compete within the realm of human possibility and we steadfastly detest technology having an overbearing impact on the game. This is why FIA regulates car wingspan, ATP restricts racquet size and every sporting authority bans drug use.
I believe even with a supremely advanced AI, people would still come to watch an inferior, slower and less agile human species battling it out on the field, than watch two machines engage in a pointless duel. An AI doctor might be in greater demand for diagnosing cancer, but no one would want to watch an AI footballer dribble its way past humans and score a goal. Even in the game of chess, ever since IBM’s Deep Blue beat Kasparov in 1997, the supremacy of machines over humans remains undisputed, but there’s hardly any allure for AI chess tournaments.
Regardless of how intelligent and dexterous machines might become, sportsmen and performing artists will remain invaluable to our society. In a future world inundated by AI, I wouldn’t be surprised if the most popular aspiration among kids is not on becoming doctors or scientists but on becoming the next Lionel Messi.
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Thought process is awesome ...
crème de la crème
I'm assuming the phrase is meant for me :D
''As there is Technology to Create External Well Being,there is whole dimension of Science and Technology to create Inner Well being''-Sadhguru on AI
superb article anna .
Great sir. New perspective. Never thought or read from this point of view or angle from anywhere else. Keep writing sir. We are big fan of u will certainly be following...
Thank you, Anon.
You are Inspiration for all of Us Sîr?
Such a iconic player ever ......Thank you for revitalizing again with your inspirational blog....
wonderful words.......,different style of expression.....and more than that truth about today's society.......thanq for all these sir.
Beautifully written Sir! Like always :)
Isn't it strange that to develop and use that AI machine humans need high cognitive ability and the whole of AI's existence and emergence is based on how we enhance our conginitive skills.
With AI we can have a doctor with excellent diagnosing ability but can we have a doctor with empathy?
AI can compose a poem, but a poem without emotions and feelings? No reader would be able to relate to them.
AI can definitely complement other professions. But do you really think it can replace any or all fields will be equally insulated?
Your post was like food to brain. :)
AI's emergence is dependent on our cognitive skill. But once we develop a self-improving AI, there's no end to how good AI can become.
Regarding your example on AI doctor, sure, essential human values like empathy, compassion, love, care are most difficult to emulate by an AI. But that's not an insurmountable task. Physicist Max Tegmark presents a wonderful analogy. He says that human advancements are dotted across a mountainous landscape with each mountain peak representing one cognitive human skill. AI is the water level that's rising and drowning these peaks as the technology advances over time.
Some mountain peaks are short, like say the ability to win a chess game, which AI has already inundated. Some are moderate, such as diagnosing an MRI scan for tumours. This peak is also being drowned as we speak. The highest peaks are the ones I mentioned earlier (love, care, empathy etc) which will be overtaken too, given sufficient time.
The same argument goes for poems. In fact, AI technology has already improved to the point that it can accurately translate literature without loss of essence. I'd give it 5 years before we see AI passing the Turing test for poems i.e., you'll be unable to figure out whether the poem's written by a human or an AI algorithm.
I genuinely believe that the threat from AI is imminent and existential. We need to get the technology right and make it safe.
Futuristic and optimistic. Can't agree more. Tegmark's analogy says it all. :)
You seem to be a professional in giving a sharp n precisely furnished expression of thought and equally artistic in injecting your arguments provided proper reasons and references....
You have such a stunning skill in writing...but...how come you fail the mains thrice....??????
Great Article. But i think the youth of today are more interested in playing warfare games in computer rather than going out to play outside.
Well, that's a topic for another day.
Most of the commenters are goats.