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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But sir, I think we are only talking about AI and its impact on cognitive ability and thinking physical ability would be of high value in the future but we also should consider the impact of science & technology in the field of genetics in future, the genome editing can be a game changer in the field of sports, bringing out the best of the abilities of a human.
It definitely makes for an interesting read.different from usual blogging topics.please keep posting such stuff. tnx :)
There's no doubt about it that a strong AI is our future.....but i personally feel that progress is just a kind of illusion...(i mean i am saying this here in a metaphorical way..of-course..i am upsc aspirant and NOT a pessimist definitely...I am a firm believer of welfare state and believe in adequate use of latest technology for realizing it).....
If we talk about the probability of survival let alone about success because...
Success,the way most people understand and evaluate it today, is relatively a new thing may be the creation of capitalist economy prevalent widely all over the world...
But survival i think in today's world is just as elusive as it was at the dawn of life on earth billions of years ago...
At one place as we evaluate the progress of a country through maternal mortality rates and by all means of technology want a new life and her/his mother to survive in this world,thousands of people die in road mishaps that too a creation of technology...At one hand we deploy our valuable resources in the research for antibiotics and other medicines so that we conquer over infection epidemics and on the other we hear about genetic mutations of bacteria and things like drug resistant TB are the truth of our times...
As the society has progressed we proudly call ourselves "the civilized society" that just by keeping our innate animal like tendencies behind the veils of well behaved personalities and that frequently come out in open.....you know what i mean.....
I feel that methods do change, nomenclatures change, the way economies run change, the way humans interact with each other and with all other existent things change... .. situations change hardly...
By the up-gradation of AI its highly likely that employment patterns of people may change on large scale...as people were doing some other things for living before taking up driving as a means of employment..but for me it seems an utopia that AI will change things for any better....
so RESPECTED SIR, as you are a student of anthropology, i would feel myself blessed if you could please comment on this ....Is progress any real?
sorry.... if you found my query out of context of our article....
Sorry if you found my query out of context of YOUR article.....
I liked the Title as much as the article. Thanks Sir !
Thank you, Adarsh.
Hello Sir, I'm an aspirant from Chennai . I'm immensely thankful to you for this platform which has various dimensions of post not only helpful for upsc but also to enrich an overall personality of every aspirant !!
I have a request from our side sir , In future please do write about your experiences in training & about your upcoming big event on August 15 . Because I personally feel like these are special boost tonics which makes us even more focused & excited about our preparation ,gear up our stamina to run the marathon.
Thank you sir
Will keep the blog updated about my training at LBSNAA.
Politics will be under performing arts too right?! I can't imagine AI politicians ?
Why do we value politics? Politics is about power, and power is about deciding who gets what, and how much.
Once we have a supremely advanced AI that can chalk out perfect economic plans, produce valuable goods, reduce economic inequality and propel the world to unbridled prosperity, politics and politicians would lose their grip over people. Once people have enough in their bank accounts, they can't care less about politicians or their speeches. I think this is why the electoral voting percentage in urban India is less compared to the rural areas. With a supremely advanced, benevolent AI, politics as a performing art would lose its charm.
PS: But the trick is in making that supremely advanced AI benevolent, for which our politicians need to get their policies right.
Convinced! But that benevolence would need those individuals who know the heights of human development which is only rare like in some Buddhas, others just know it upar upar se. Problem is you know, humans will start venerating those AI also as they will be so good. Infact I read a research wherein humans get emotionally attached to robots, it showed that humans start ascribing humanly qualities to robots too ( humans where supposed to swith off their power supply but as robots begged humans to not do so, considerable number of people's judgement got affected and the decided against switching off their power supply).
Whatever it may be, AI for sure is mysterious , I just want that it only helps to make this world a better place and not a worse. Thank you
Have a nice day.
I focused on robotics, i was wrong there
AI for poems!!! That's something I did not know. Nice article, something fresh and positive! Thank you I'm your fan.
Sir I like your selection of words.
Thank you, Modi ji!
But sir Ronaldo is better than Messi. Even it has been proved no. of times that possibly Messi is the greatest person ever touched football. :|
One has to be absolutely clueless about football to think Ronaldo is better than Messi. He is nowhere near Messi. It's not even a debate.
Surely Sir 💯
I guess divergent opinions should not be talked down !
Sir, you have written that meditation is one of your hobbies. I would really like to read a post on your meditation practices, what drew you towards it, how did you begin, from where did you learn, how does it help. Please post about it soon. :)
Yes, that's in the works.