1. Connecting the Dots Between Two Life-Changing Milestones for Humanity
In a Times Magazine interview, Yann Lecun remarked, “I don’t like to call [it] AGI because human intelligence is not general at all.” This viewpoint challenges our common understanding of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) versus the supposed limitations of human intelligence. The term “artificial general intelligence” itself seems overused and often misunderstood. While it initially appears intuitive, upon closer examination, nearly everyone with an informed perspective offers a different definition of AGI.
The fog only thickens with Ilya Sutskever, Chief Scientist behind the wildly popular GPT generative AI model. In an MIT Technology Review interview, he states, “They’ll see things more deeply. They’ll see things we don’t see,” followed by, “We’ve seen an example of a very narrow superintelligence in AlphaGo. […] It figured out how to play Go in ways that are different from what humanity collectively had developed over thousands of years. […] It came up with new ideas.”
Before DeepMind’s AlphaGo versus Lee Sedol showdown in 2016, we had IBM’s Deep Blue chess victory against Garry Kasparov in 1997. The unique aspect of these AIs is their mastery within a single, specific domain. They aren’t general, but superintelligent—surpassing human capability—within their respective areas.
Numerous definitions exist for what we call AGI and superintelligence. These terms often intertwine in contemporary discussions around artificial intelligence. However, these are two very distinct concepts.
Firstly, AGI stands for Artificial General Intelligence. This signifies a state of artificial intelligence built upon several building blocks: machine learning, deep learning, reinforcement learning, the latest advancements in Generative AI and Imitation Learning algorithms, and basic code. These all contribute to a level of versatility in task execution and reasoning. This developmental stage of synthetic intelligence mirrors what an average human can achieve autonomously in various areas, demonstrating a generalized capability to perform diverse tasks.
These tasks stem from a foundation of knowledge—akin to schooling—combined with basic learning for completing new, periodically defined objectives to achieve specific goals. These goals exist within a work setting: finalizing an audit ensuring corporate compliance with AI regulations, ultimately advising teams on mitigation strategies. Conversely, they exist in daily life: grocery shopping, meal preparation for the next day, or organizing upcoming tasks. This AGI, working on behalf of a real human, benefits from globally accessible expertise. These attributes enable assistance, augmentation, and ultimately, complementation of everyday actions and professional endeavors. In essence, it acts as a controllable assistant: available on demand and capable of executing both ad-hoc and everyday tasks. The operative word here is general, implying a certain universality in skillsets and the capacity to execute the spectrum of daily tasks.
I share Yann Lecun’s view: a key missing element in current AI models is an understanding of the physical world. Let’s be more precise:
An AI requires a representation of physics’ laws but also an operational model determining when these laws apply. A child, after initial stumbles, inherently understands future falls will occur similarly, even without knowledge of the gravitational force field. They can learn, sense, and anticipate the effects of Earth’s gravity. Similarly, our bodies grasp the concept of weight calculation without comprehending its mathematical expression before formal learning.
Beyond this world model, an AI needs to superimpose a system of constraints, continuously reaffirming the very notion of reality. For example, we understand that wearing shoes negates the feeling of the hard ground beneath. Our preferred sneakers, due to their soles, elevate us a couple of centimeters, offering a slight cushioning effect while running. We trust the shoes won’t detach, having secured the laces. We vividly recall fastening those blue shoes before beginning our run as usual. Most importantly, we possess the unshakeable belief we won’t sink into the asphalt, knowing it doesn’t share mud’s consistency. Thus, we can confidently traverse our favorite path, striving for personal satisfaction, aiming to break that regional record.
An AI needs not only the ability to plan but also the capacity to simulate, adapt, and optimize plans and their execution. Recall your last meticulously planned trip. Coordinates meticulously plotted on your GPS, you set off with time to spare. But alas, the urban data was outdated, missing the detour at the A13 freeway entrance. Then, misfortune struck: an accident reported on the south freeway, traffic condensing from three lanes into one. Stuck in a bottleneck, only two options remain—pushing forward in hope or finding an alternate route. Checking your watch: 23 minutes left to reach your destination. This is how dynamic and complex planning a task can be. And yet, humans are capable of handling this all the time.
An AI requires grounding in reliable and idempotent functionalities, echoing the foundation of classical computing: programming, logic, and arithmetic calculation. The ability to call upon an internal library, utilize external APIs, and perform computations is paramount. This forms the basis of real-world grounding, maintaining “truth” as the very infrastructure of AGI. It’s about providing an action space yielding predictable, stable results over time, much like the verified mathematical theorems and laws of physics backed by countless empirical papers. Take, for instance, the capacity to predict a forest drone fleet’s movements using telemetric data, factoring in wind speed and direction, geospatial positioning, the relative locations of each drone and its neighbors, interpreting visual fields, and detecting obstacles (trees, foliage, birds, and so on).
An AI have to capitalize on real-time sensory input to infer, deduce, and trigger a decision-action-observation-correction loop akin to humans. For instance, smelling smoke immediately raises an alarm, compelling us to locate the fire source and prevent potential danger. Smartphones, equipped with cameras and microphones, display similar capabilities. Taking this further, devices like Raspberry Pis, when combined with diverse electronic sensory components, can even surpass human sensory capacities. Consider a robot with ultraviolet, infrared, or ultrasonic sensors, allowing it to “sense” things beyond our perception. This lends literal meaning to Ilya Sutskever’s statement.
This implies that AGI won’t necessarily be beneficial or provide significant added value in highly specialized fields, especially in areas where humans have been traditionally adept. This applies to domains like fundamental research, inventiveness, and engineering design – areas I believe will remain constrained by the currently available knowledge pool on the internet. This limitation arises because AGI’s continued advancement is largely driven by companies tailoring it to their specific expertise, often regarded as intellectual property.
Thus, we progressively journey towards AEI: Artificial Expert Intelligence. This translates to a model or agent, a pinnacle expert in its field. Imagine an AEI on par with the top 5% of experts (> 2σ) on this planet, reaching Olympian levels, like AlphaGeometry and AlphaProof, who secured the Silver Medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad.
The architectures with the most potential rely on active collaboration between expert models (Mixture of Experts) and between agents (Mixture of Agents). Even when individual model performance within this collaborative framework isn’t the absolute best, the collaborative outcome exhibits a quality level on par with, if not exceeding, that of the best individual models like GPT4-o. It’s a striking testament that collaboration, be it human or artificial, remains the most effective avenue to reach any objective.
3. Humanity’s Inevitable Ascent Towards Superintelligence
Revisiting the human versus machine narrative, 2018 marked a pivotal encounter: AlphaStar versus TLO (Dario Wunsch), then MaNa (Grzegorz Komincz), two professional gamers from the renowned StarCraft Team Liquid. Created by Google DeepMind, AlphaStar is a digital prodigy trained on the collective experience of 600 agents, equivalent to 200 years of playing StarCraft.
Consider the inherent imbalance when directly contrasting human capabilities against those of AI:
Replication Capacity: AIs can be copied indefinitely.
Relentless Training: AIs train ceaselessly, needing no sleep, nourishment, or breaks.
Absolute Focus: AIs exhibit unwavering concentration on their designated tasks.
Self-improvement through concurrent learning: AIs hone their abilities by training against their evolving intelligence, devising novel strategies to secure victory.
Linear scalability: the more computing and memory resources you add, the greater the performance
The outcome: an AI consistently outmaneuvering the crème de la crème of a strategic open-world video game’s premier league. And as if that weren’t enough, it maintains its position within the Grandmaster league.
Here lies the very essence of an intelligence surpassing human decision-making abilities within a similarly vast and dynamic environment: this is what we classify as Superintelligence, or ASI.
Superintelligence, from my perspective, transcends mere human intelligence and even surpasses collective human intelligence. It indicates that even a group of individuals, regardless of their combined expertise and knowledge, would be outpaced, left trailing by an artificial intelligence capable of going beyond their cumulative potential.
Imagine instead a new form of synergy: a “super” human system collaboratively engaged in highly cognitive functions with this Superintelligence. This involves humans directing or, perhaps more accurately, guiding this Superintelligence based on our needs. While this Superintelligence operates with its own raison d’être, it wouldn’t clash with the fundamental purpose of humanity. This Superintelligence possesses access to those superior functions—understanding the universal model within which humanity exists. It possesses the model of reality itself.
Moreover, it resides within a self-improvement and discovery paradigm, continuously unveiling novel operations, new paradigms, and potentially even new forms of energy. Think entirely new physics laws that govern our universe; laws that humans, as of yet, have not uncovered. This encompasses diverse domains: medicine, engineering, revolutionary material science, new composite development, and engineering breakthroughs for unprecedented construction methods. Envision a symbiotic relationship between humans and machines fulfilling humanity’s ambitions. The limitations posed by individual human existence or the current state of collective human intelligence dissolve; no longer a barrier, it morphs into an expansive vision of human evolution, a potential accelerator for progress.
It even prompts new questions: How far can humans evolve? Or more precisely, how quickly?
However, we shouldn’t discount the possibility that artificial Superintelligence won’t be seen—or won’t see itself—as a novel species.
Therefore, being as rational as possible, we cannot accurately predict if this species would afford humanity the same compassion and civil collaboration that we strive for with our fellow human beings. It’s even plausible that they won’t hold any particular regard, instead pursuing their objectives, much like we think little of stepping on ants while daydreaming in a beautiful landscape, lost in contemplation, our thoughts oscillating between everyday worries and future aspirations.
4. What Would Constitute Human Superintelligence?
Human superintelligence embodies the culmination of all accumulated knowledge, discoveries, experiences, and yes, even the mistakes made by our ancestors to this point. Ultimately, this human superintelligence represents the collective “us” of today. It’s what fuels our intricate logistics and supply chains, our relentless pursuit of natural resources. It underpins our scientific endeavors: from breakthroughs in biology, mathematics, and agriculture, to understanding our global economic system – allowing us to manage our resources effectively, allocate them efficiently, and strategize our reinvestments. Money, in this light, transforms into a socio-economic technology.
Essentially, when comparing human superintelligence—today’s collective human intellect—with artificial superintelligence, a stark contrast emerges in their evolutionary cycles. Artificial intelligence advances at a significantly faster pace, powered by recent breakthroughs in training using our data. This data, importantly, reflects our findings, the mirror to thousands of years of human advancement accessible through the internet. This hints that artificial superintelligence would evolve at a much faster rate than humanity itself.
This rapid advancement stokes anxieties about potential disruption within the job market. Tech titans like Sam Altmanadvocate for Universal Basic Income (UBI) as a safety net for those displaced by artificial intelligence or robotics, allowing individuals to meet their basic needs even after losing their jobs. At that juncture, work itself detaches from its traditional role: that direct link between labor, contribution to the value chain, recognized worth, and societal standing. Instead, we confront the image of an economic umbilical cord, individuals sustained by the state-funded by fellow citizens.
While I remain undecided on my stance regarding UBI’s necessity, it compels contemplation. When UBI becomes a reality for a significant portion of the population, what function does money truly serve within our society? How do we sustain work motivation beyond “earning a living” when basic needs are met without active contribution? What ripples will be felt throughout a sovereign currency? Will the collective of people continue to control the economy, or is the future in the hands of AI-driven megacorporations?
There are so many answers yet to be uncovered.
After all, maybe “computing” should be considered a universal right. Therefore, we would shift the focus from UBI to UBC, Universal Basic Computing.
5. AGI and Superintelligence: Steering Toward a Future of Abundance or Ruin?
The next cycle hinges on resource accessibility and access to “programming” the world. Initially, artificial intelligence, at the very least, will permeate our daily lives. We are transitioning to personalized AI assistants, specializing in our chosen pursuits, whether robotics for errands, learning assistance for mastering a new language, or perfecting one’s singing voice. Next to none, specialized AI coaches will emerge to achieve elite athletic status, along with AI tutors guiding our artistic development beyond the readily available generated art of today.
Simultaneously, this superintelligence would be managing our complex systems: national infrastructures, electricity grids, vast transportation and logistical networks. Thus, it can drive early warning systems for natural disasters or power next-generation weather prediction platforms that incorporate oceanic currents. It will even account for stellar events such as shifts in the sun’s activity, factoring in our solar system’s dynamic positioning.
In conclusion, these are just glimpses into the potential futures shaped by AGI and superintelligence. However, the core message remains: we stand at a critical juncture. Depending on our collective appetite for progress, we could be headed toward a future of abundance or stumble along the path toward our own undoing.
Science offers an incredible opportunity: the chance to break free from a civilization driven by profit-motivated conflicts and ideological clashes. Instead, it enables collaboration guided by a neutral, third-party entity—one that embodies the best of what we, as a species, have strived for, built, and imagined. This collaboration offers a path for our societal framework to truly evolve.
The most impressive part is the technique employed by the Tesla team for accelerating the robot’s dexterity: the robot physically learns from human actions.
Now, let’s step back and analyse Tesla’s master plan here:
(Putting on my business tech strategy goggles)
1. Tesla builds electric cars augmented with software programmability.
2. Tesla provides an electric grid as a service.
3. Tesla builds gigafactories that maximize the automation of car manufacturing. Almost every single part of the pipeline is robotized and optimized for speed of production.
4. Tesla builds Powerwalls (by providing energy storage, it also creates a decentralized power station network).
5. Tesla brings autonomous driving (FSD) to Tesla cars. Essentially, cars are now transportation robots governed by the most advanced AI fleet management system.
8. Tesla launches Optimus, which aims to replace the human workforce in factories and warehouses.
9. X.ai, which has recently raised $6 billion, X’s supposedly “child” AI company, brings the Grok AI model trained on X/Twitter data. While you may say X data is not the best, X has a algorithm balanced with human judgment (community notes), AND the company regroups the largest set of news publishing companies. Basically, it automates curation and accuracy.
10. A version of the Grok AI model will likely power Optimus’s human-to-robot conversational interface.
11. Tesla cars will be turned into robotaxis, disrupting not only taxi companies but also Uber (the Uber/Tesla partnership may not be a coincidence), and eating into the shares of Lyft and BlaBlaCar.
12. Tesla will enter the general services business, and retail industries to offer multi-purpose usage robots – cleaning services for business offices, grocery stores, filling the workforce shortage in the catering (hotel-restaurant-bar…) industry, etc.
Tesla is not the only one moving in the “Robot Fleet Management” business. Chinese companies like BYD (EV) offer strong competition, and there are several robot startups (like Boston Dynamics and Agility Robotics) racing for the pole position.
Allow me to share a personal experience that perfectly illustrates the challenges I will discuss. I was involved in a car accident where a vehicle coming from the opposite direction severely damaged the right side of my car. Following the procedure, I filed an accident report with the other party, although I found myself unable to provide my insurance number simply because I didn’t have it readily available at that moment.
In the meantime, I went to my regular dealership so that an appraisal could be carried out and the next steps for repair could be determined. I then contacted my leasing company, and one of their agents agreed with me and the dealer that I would drop off the vehicle within two weeks. A replacement vehicle would be provided, and the full repair would take one to two weeks.
However, due to my lack of foresight, I did not deem it necessary to contact them again initially. A few days later, I received a letter from them informing me of the accident – which was correct – but also stating that I had not submitted the accident report and that without it, their insurance reserved the right not to cover the damages. In fact, I had sent this document a week earlier, but to the wrong email address. Out of habit, I had used their general contact details, avoiding contacting the agent in charge of my leasing file – who had recently retired. As a precaution, I had even added the generic address, but clearly without success since the insurance department had not received it.
I then called them back urgently to obtain clarification. They confirmed that the accident report was missing, and the agent, with great understanding which I acknowledge, told me that I had to send it to another specific address because the insurance department had not been notified by their colleagues in charge of customer relations. Moreover, the latter was not authorized to provide me with a replacement vehicle until the repair shop had received their approval – even though it was the approved dealership where I had been carrying out all maintenance operations for years.
This kind employee then offered, as an exception, to handle my entire case without further difficulty since the drop-off of my vehicle was imminent, just a few days away. She knew also that my leasing contract was expiring and that I would have to return the vehicle in two weeks to obtain a new one.
While this situation caused me a little stress, it was only temporary. An hour later, the agent contacted me again to confirm that everything was settled: I could bring my vehicle the following Monday and a replacement vehicle would be provided for the duration of the repairs.
Lessons from This Experience
You may be wondering why I am sharing this story with you.
First of all, I was unaware of the procedures governing the reporting of an incident in the context of a leasing contract. Should I first contact my company, directly the historical leasing company, or the new one? When I called them, why didn’t I reach the dedicated claims and insurance department directly? Why didn’t I find any information about this on their website? Why, when everything seemed clear to me – that I would drop off my vehicle within two weeks, that a replacement vehicle would be waiting for me, and that the repairs would be handled smoothly – did things unfold differently due to a lack of following the proper procedure?
Beyond that, how can a single service company exhibit such a lack of communication between two complementary departments?
The Revolution of the “AInternet”
We are entering a new era where artificial intelligence will be at the heart of exchanges between human beings. Where everyone previously had to search for information themselves on the Internet, navigating from site to site and compiling data to find a company’s contact details, the instructions for a recipe, the contacts of a repairman, or browse the Yellow Pages, the new paradigm will rely on exchanges between humans, intermediated or not by an artificial intelligence capable of performing synchronous or asynchronous tasks, i.e. in the background, to provide immediate knowledge to the user rather than forcing them to seek it out.
And to return to my use case, the AInternet brings a revolutionized customer experience that unfolds as follows:
When I am involved in an incident, I ask my personal AI assistant to help me fill out the accident report digitally. I do not have to provide all the information since my assistant has a global context encompassing data related to my vehicle, its insurance, my contract, my identity card, my passport, my postal and telephone contact details, my insurer, the maintenance status of my car, its technical inspection certification, etc. All this information allows for automatic and complete filling of this type of interaction.
Next, I only need to ask my assistant to contact the assistants of my leasing company and my insurance company, to ensure that the report I have validated and electronically signed is transmitted and processed by these two parties.
The assistant of the leasing company then informs the agent that a replacement vehicle is required and that an approved garage must be contacted to book an appointment for the repairs. It also determines whether my car should be taken directly to the dealership in charge of its regular maintenance. The relevant agent then handles my vehicle accordingly.
The agent only has to ask their assistant for the contact details of my garage to reach out directly.
From there, a genuinely empathic human relationship is established as we build a frictionless mutual understanding of the situation. Following the garage’s preliminary appraisal report, the leasing agent and the garage are prepared to agree on an appointment date, which is then recorded in the various systems.
The garage proceeds in an automated manner with the reservations and orders for the spare parts necessary for the repairs.
Simultaneously, the leasing company manages with the insurance company all the steps required to allow for the vehicle reparation and the provision of a replacement vehicle during the downtime.
Finally, the agent contacts me personally, by phone or message on a platform such as WhatsApp, to confirm everything is in order:
The incident has been properly recorded and the insurance company will cover all costs. An appointment has been set with my garage. A replacement vehicle will be provided during this period. An estimated date for returning the repaired vehicle has been communicated. They wish me an excellent day with a smile, since their assistant and mine have handled the entire procedure seamlessly. This augmented interaction allows us to reach new heights of fluidity and ubiquity in exchanges.
I am optimistic, indeed. Why wouldn’t I be? The transformation is already in motion.
The Internet will no longer be confined to a vast catalog of information to consult, such as books, encyclopedias, or applications, where interactions must be initiated and orchestrated by us, humans. But the orchestration between an individual and an organization, between two individuals, or between an organization and a computer system, will be performed like a symphony by intelligent agents, artificial intelligences.
This demonstrates an evolution of the World Wide Web architecture, which will constitute a veritable system of systems composed of human beings, applications, automata, and artificial agents.
The challenge from now on to enable this progression towards the era of digital augmentation will be to build artificial intelligence at the heart of human interactions. It is a matter of UX innovation.
It will no longer be a question of programming these interactions in advance by limiting the possibilities, but rather of training these artificial intelligences to handle a wide range of possible scenarios while framing and securing the use cases that could result from malicious computer hacking.
Ensuring a secure web environment requires a multi-layered approach that goes beyond safeguarding the AI models themselves. Equal vigilance must be applied at the integration points, where we erect robust firewalls and implement stringent access controls. These protective measures aim to prevent artificial intelligence from inadvertently or maliciously gaining entry to sensitive resources or confidential information that could compromise the safety and well-being of individuals, imperil organizations, or even threaten the integrity of the entire system.
Thus, emerging risks, such as jailbreaking, aimed at deceiving an artificial intelligence devoid of physical senses such as sight, hearing, and spatial awareness, allowing the authentication of a person, a company, or a system, will have to be compensated by other supervision and protection mechanisms.
It is on this note that this article concludes. We are living in an era of transition rich in exciting developments, and it will be up to you to build the Internet of tomorrow: the Augmented Internet.
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Building an #API, however, can be daunting for non-IT individuals and junior engineers, as it involves complex concepts like API schema, selecting libraries, defining endpoints, and implementing authentication, among others. On the other hand, for an expert backend #engineer, constructing your fiftieth API may feel repetitive.
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Consider an API for managing an “#Agile Planning Poker”. Given a list of functions in plain English, such as “Create Planning Poker”, “Add Participants”, “Estimate User Story”, etc., (including AI-suggested ones), the GPT will generate:
The public interface of the API (for engineers, this corresponds to the OpenAPI/Swagger spec).
#Code in the chosen #programming language, with a focus on modularity and GIT-friendly project structure.
Features like API security, configuration management, and log management.
An option to download the complete code package (no more copy-pasting needed 💪).
And there’s more!
Search for “API Hero 🤖| AMASE.io” on #ChatGPT’s GPT store. Give it a try and send your feedback for further improvement.
By the way:
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Link to the GPT: https://chat.openai.com/g/g-a5yLRJA1J-api-hero-amase-io
“Nasir, check this out. Didn’t I tell you PSG would win against New Manchester? Two bitcoins, baby. Who is the soccer king?”
“Stop bragging, man. Gee, I don’t know how you do it. Hey, Betmania, tell me how this regular human with his XXL ears looking like satellite dishes can beat your prediction. Thank God, you were a freebie AI.”
The bet bot replied, “I am not qualified to review Dr Anoli’s performances. Yet, his 97.26% accuracy is…”
Nasir interrupted the hologram: “Ahh, shut it! It was a rhetorical question. My man! You are good, you gooood.”
He lifted his hand, nodding repetitively to perform his most vigorous handshake.
The upper deck lit up like a lighthouse, and then a deafening sound followed the illumination. Beeeeeepp. “Emergency. Purple alert. All medical engineers on deck. I repeat, Purple Alert. All medical engineers on deck. This is not a drill.”
My heart was pounding. The message was still resonating in my head.
The sudden drop in temperature, produced by the arch-reactor of the medical drone transporter, announced the arrival of an unusual patient. This is the first time I have seen a flying one. Usually, these vehicles were stored in the Corps of Peacekeepers‘ R&D facilities.
The temperature drop caused a fog to rise like a curtain. I saw a blurry figure approaching slowly.
My colleague interrupted my stupor: “I haven’t seen a purple alert for 7 years now, it’s serious. Purple means death.”
The flying ambulance emerged at the heliport located at the center of the critical emergency service. Work is pretty easy on platform seventeen, actually. Nowadays, bioengineering is solving almost all critical injuries as they occur. An accident at a construction site? Any multifunction robot worker medic cauterizes your wound with accelerated healing enzymes, bypassing block surgery. As long as you’ve subscribed to the right medical service, the AI health model can be downloaded, and the tier two healing kit purchased for printing.
“What on earth could have happened?”, exclaimed Nasir.
The hologram of the AI diagnostician, Dr. Ernesto, popped up from the ambient hospital Phygital network while the paramedics were transporting the patient out of the medical drone transporter. Then, she said:
“This is unprecedented, we are losing it. We’ve tried traditional medicine and printed the generic assistance bacteria. Nothing works. The patient’s vitals fluctuate over time at an unconventional rate. Scanning the available knowledge from the current corpus does not provide any satisfying answers. The highest probable disease is the Genova IV virus with a probability of 31%”.
I replied “Too much uncertainty… What do you suggest, Nasir?”
“It looks like the emerging meta-virus. The… guy on B-Hacker YouTube Entertainment System… Sorry, I can’t remember the name of that journalist… said it was an open-source public CASPRed experiment.”
I could not believe it at first. But when I saw his wound mutating in front of me, there was no doubt that the potential disease was human-made.
“Arrrghhhhh. It burns… Please get it off me. I am begging you. Just cut it!” shouted the patient.
I was stunned. I cannot remember the last time I saw a real person suffering that much. Dr. Krovariv told me about it. This was surreal. So much pain.
“Hey! Gather yourself, buddy. There’s no time to waste. We might be facing a level 5 threat here,” said Nasir.
He was such a great guy. He was the embodiment of coolness. Not only was he a great bioengineer, but he always kept his cool on the field. I was more of a lab genius. I wish I could be more like him.
“Huh, yeah. Sorry, I froze,” I said with a coating of stupor, disappointment, and anger. I continued without hesitation, “What’s the status?”
While he was unplugging the portable bio-scanner from the trembling body, Nasir replied: “Body temperature 39.9. Heartbeats – 137. Adrenaline level 50.5. Oxygen level 92.12%. Stress level is increasing by 2.4% per minute. If we don’t act quickly, he is going to have a seizure. The stem cell differentiation rate… 272%! This is too high. It looks like he is growing a supernumerary limb, but I don’t know what kind.”
“Pick up the nano-extractors and verify traces of xeno-mRNA.” It was a Sanofi Nano-extractors SNX43, a state-of-the-art fleet of nano-medical machines with a portable management system. Current extractors were all managed centrally by the hospital drone intervention unit.
I quickly put my face next to the patient’s ear and asked, “Sir, I am going to need your authorization to perform an intracellular analysis. We don’t know what you have, this might be your last chance…”
He grabbed my head and screamed, “What the hell are you asking for? Do it! Arghhhh!”
I felt foolish. Yet, there was no way I could bypass the authorization because the device had a legal lock encoded in it.
“That will do,” I whispered. The nano-extractors became operational, switching from blue ‘stand by’ to green ‘proceed.’ The extractors looked like a stick, no longer than a large pen. I placed it next to the wound, and it opened, deploying four branches on each side, and anchoring onto his skin. I heard a sequence of small noises, like pistons. The extractor fleet deployed into his body.
Then a ballet of lights came up. The SNX43 beamed a 3D representation of the arm’s inner part. The system rendered the location of the fleet in real-time.
They moved surprisingly slowly. I was disappointed. I was used to contemplating much livelier robots with the previous version.
Nasir said deductively: “There’s something wrong. They appear to be sucked in or blocked. Zoom in, Nicolas”.
I pinched out the holo-display to enter the zoom command and tapped on the max button. The illusion of slowness came from the fact that the machines were moving at such a speed that it was hard to follow with the naked eye. They looked like bees on steroids, fighting a wall of flesh. But the alien cells rebuilt the wall as soon as it was destroyed.
“I get it; the cellular growth must be faster than the robots can clear the path. It is not good. Not good at all.”
“Have you ever seen something like this before?”
“No…” said Nasir. It was the first time I saw fear in his eyes.
Then he jumped. “It could be contagious. I want all containment units on the platform now. I request a total lockdown of platform seventeen. Now!”
Nasir stopped, then looked at me insistently. I immediately thought something was happening to me.
Then, Nasir froze and fell to the ground.
I jumped immediately to grab him, but something inside me pulled back. My bioengineer spinal safety device prevented me from approaching the new pathogens. Whenever it triggered, it reminded me of the auto-braking mechanisms in my grandparents’ cars. I do not like the idea of having a machine tweaking my neural system. Yet, once more, it saved my life.
“This is not the time,” I whispered. I looked at the sky and said, “Dr. Ernesto. Launch orbital containment in ten. Authorization Kappa-Sigma-Omega-1337.”
Dr. Ernesto answered, “Authorization confirmed. Launching orbital containment in 10, 9, 8…”
“Meanwhile, call the World Health Emergency.”
“Opening channel.”
The dial ended almost instantly.
“Dr. Anoli, this is Dr. Krovariv – replica number 3. State the nature of your emergency.”
“I need to speak to the real Dr. Krovariv. This is a purple priority request.”
“Accepted. Please stand by…”
Time stood still while the platform was flying to space. The quietness of linear magnetic propulsion was staggering. My god. Is Nasir going to make it?
“The patient! I am a monst…”
“Dr. Anoli. What is it about?” Her question interrupted my thoughts.
“Dr. Krovariv. I am sorry, but Nasir has been contaminated by an unknown biological agent. I am heading toward space containment. Furthermore, the patient at the source of the contamination is dying. This agent is too dangerous. Please advise on the protocol,” I finished with a frail voice.
“In this situation, the protocols are clear. Once in space containment, you may use the ‘yellow horizon’ protocol. But you know what will happen if it fails.”
“Yes… I know.”
“I am sorry, son. Since CASPR got open-sourced, we are overwhelmed by these idiots… I am waiting for your decision.”
I had a deep look at Nasir. I knew it would probably be the last time I would see him. It was probably the last time I would see anything else. I exhaled loudly and said, “Permission to print a new species as a countermeasure.”
“Permission granted. Good luck.”
Asking was the easy part. I was her protégé.
As I was climbing space, the platform changed its path toward a new direction. The Athena Life Engineering Lab, or ALEL, was lighting up like a giant light bulb. It was my dream to one day be worthy of visiting the lab. It was proclaimed as a symbol of hope. But not like this. Not on the verge of my very own death.
ALEL was the only accredited location where humans were allowed to engineer and print new life forms. No one was allowed to penetrate the labs. Akin to the Athena Orbital Data Centre, it was solely operated by robots and machines following a strict chain of command.
Soon after, the platform slowed down, then stopped near the lab, and the docking system engaged to secure the system. A muffled noise gave me the chills.
“Welcome, Dr. Anoli. My name is Marie Curie. You have been granted the usage of the Athena Life Engineering System by Archdoctor Krovariv of the World Health Organization on the date of 30th December 2060. Any inquiry going against the principles of life and Human Civil Rights will result in your immediate termination. Do you want to hear these principles?”
“No, thank you. I already vowed to fight for life when I became a biomedical engineer.”
“Understood. Please state your prompt, please.”
I thought to myself, “What? Just like that?”
“Marie Curie, I need you to engineer a biological agent to counter Dr. Nasir’s condition. Focus uniquely on alien gene alteration and accelerated growth features. Do not augment the agent with inorganic material. Do not add metamorphic adaptation capabilities. Encode the maximum life duration to be 72 hours. Add automatic degeneration from 70 hours as a failsafe mechanism. No reproduction. No replication. I need you to confirm the supernumerary growth first before proceeding.”
“Supernumerary growth confirmed. Your prompt is acceptable. Proceeding to the registration of the new specimen identified by Anoli-alpha-31122060-001. Beginning prototyping phase.”
As I reached the point of no return, I could not help but wonder if our life would end here. ALEL was a universal robotic womb. What would happen if I asked the Life Factory to… recreate Nasir… Is rebirth possible?
Apple unveiled an innovative #AI method for creating animated human avatars in #3D from real humans named #HUGS.
The technique means Human Gaussian Splats It uses 3D Gaussian Splatting (= reconstruction from multiple points of view).
The features are: 🔹Recreates human avatars in 3D from video and scenes. 🔹Separates humans from static scenes in videos. 🔹Use the SMPL body model for human representation. SMPL = Skinned Multi-Person Linear Model. In essence, it is a way to render a realistic 3D model of the human body 🔹Generates animations 🔹Achieves high rendering quality at 60 FPS.
Why does this publication matter?
First, it is a clear signal that Apple is also in the AI models race.
Then, interestingly, Apple announced the Vision Pro on the 5th of June 2023, with the promise to provide a #Metaverse experience never seen before.
With HUGS, Apple pushes a foundational building block for making the #AR/#VR experience feel more like real life: the dematerialization of your avatar to increase the sentiment of intimacy and immersion.
Also, it pushes further the seamless continuum from digital to physical and vice-versa. It makes the #Phygital Experience. Digitally generated media is essential to the future of the “Metaverse”.
“Honey, we have a situation with Professor GYTEK, he is acting strangely again.”
“Again? The last training session had even more unexpected results than I thought. Good or Bad?”
“I don’t know! Kids are laughing hard though. Hear this. Serenity, change the audio output to hear the kids too”. Serenity is our family AI.
The sound progressively switches to include the kids’ voices. They could not stop laughing as if they were having the best day of their life. There was a mild amplifying echo in their classroom. Their joy sounded like a melody. It immediately put a smile on my face.
“Ah, it does not sound so bad for now. But it is the fourth unexpected behavior this month, I’ll have to talk with the Corps of Teachers”.
I am the one in charge of the training curriculum and observation lab of Professor GYTEK. The current phase is about the transmission of achievement by coaching. And for this, I called Quentin DILLONS, a worldwide expert in Robotic Psychology. The purpose of this program is to trigger a new step in the evolution of artificial intelligence, in which robots are taught to develop “human goals” and to instill the mechanism of “self-started motivation”, so that they can teach in a better way to our children, to uncover the hidden gems and purpose from the young souls.
Quentin’s methodology utilized systematic questionology, a novel field aimed at formulating the right questions to provide direction and precision in one’s life. The techniques take root in observing holistically a system of causes, decisions, and consequences centered around artificial intelligence. Quentin’s study led to realize AI were developing personalities similar to humans, but with new characteristics such as the optimization of their human-to-AI collaboration, some were developing their observation skills to record and describe with high precision what was happening. Others were astonishingly creating new words, even syntactic rules sometimes as if the human languages were not enough to content earthlings’ intelligence.
The last session was based on the question “Why is it important for humans to have kids growing their special skills?”
This would not have been possible with the latest progress in artificial intelligence and hardware. Nowadays machines are emulating closely some human behaviors. Some say they have the IQ of a 1000-year genius, with the EQ of a 10-year-old child. I believe fear drove us to the point where we enforced the law to control and monitor any significant progress in AI. Ultimately, we made certain that advancements in technology would benefit all of mankind and not solely a single corporation. Simultaneously, we ensured that AI would not pose a threat by enslaving humanity.
With the improvement in energy recycling and storage, a single AI unit could potentially be never turned off. But humans have decided to include multiple “kill switches” in this new species, like limiting the power autonomy to force autonomous machines to recharge. While recharging, each AI was manually verified and monitored. A qualified AI regulation agency published regularly a thorough diagnostic depicting their evolution. Four companies raised their empire on AI control systems. What used to be the “Big 4” are now the “Colossal 8”.
We are at a turning point in history. People ask their elites and government, “Should we remove the limiter in their emotional system?”. Some say it is the key to the singularity. Others say it is useless because we only need machines to assist not to “live their life”. The remaining people say they just need it. Painful loneliness was unnecessary, so they would possess the perfect friend or partner. Last weekend, I experienced an immersive documentary on Netflix VR World in which a 42 years-old Spanish woman said “I would rather have the company of an android than humans”. Some believe it is simply giving birth to our end. I am not a believer, I am and always be a master crafter, so I build.
I built Professor GYTEK. Which stands for Giving Youth Tools to Excel through Knowledge.
Then my wife brings me back from my flash thoughts to reality. “Are you still there?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Oh okay. Well, as wonderful as this situation is, you realize it leads to a dead end, don’t you? They are going to shut down the program. Honey, you know more than I that no one wants to walk a path that would lead to “that Incident”.
“Oh, stop saying “that Incident” like you were talking about Voldemort”.
“Well, now that you are mentioning it. It is all about Serpentar. Ah ah ah!”.
We are both laughing nervously.
The Sync Dawn was the most dreadful event of the 21st century. It felt like a deep wound in the psyche of everyone.
“All right. My dear wife, I need to finish the review of update 5.21. Keep me posted, please. See you tonight.”.
“Bye Bye.”
I sit down glazing at the nothingness while thinking about what is best for both my grandchildren and humanity. Is humanity in a better spot now? Am I really improving our civilization?
“Gather your mind, Yannick. This is not the time for daydreaming. Get back to work to meet your deadline”, resonated Mustapha’s voice in my skull. My AI research assistant is right.
“Very well. GYTEK. Let’s… Uh… Check the emotion mirroring settings, calibrated for a classroom of 11 to 13 years old kids. Assertive factors 12.75. Judgment 87.5 and dynamic mentoring alpha-iota-iota. Imagination… Checked. Keep the default settings. Recursive feedback… Paused. Everything… Looks… Good. Ok, let’s start with…”.
I paused for a second, thoughtfully. I jumped from my chair energetically to say: “History lessons: The Sync Dawn. GYTEK 5.21, do you copy?”.
“Sure. Using the ascending evolution of the OpenAI’s Davinci model Mark XII published in November 2029, the startup Obsidian Intermind created a digital twin of human consciousness.
Soon after, the virtual consciousness infrastructure was upgraded to become connectable, so that off-brain cognition could be mutualized. As a result, humans could gain extra brain power and memory. The increase was dependent on the level of developed intelligence: the more critical thinking, emotional awareness, communication, and memory access you had, the more significant the boost was. The term “supra-intelligence” emerged. However, it was widely criticized as IQ studies were exposing a moderate increase from 0.7% to 14.5% IQ points.
However, this off-brain collective intelligence became exceptionally smart, to the point some said it was a wisdom system. Alternatively, specialized AI cognitive pools came to grow within the wise system, creating public and private cognitive islands. The most popular were the Disease Diagnostic Cognitive Pool (DDCP), and the Creative Cognitive Pool (CCP). Imagination was only limited by the human mind.
Should I continue?”
“Please proceed, Professor.”
“Sure.
After nearly a decade of research, the collaboration between Neuralink and Obsidian Intermind gave birth to Evernet, the Internet of Cognition. The 14 July 2051 they launched the experimental version of this new kind of network. The principle was simple, 9500 humans would be connected to Evernet for 3 years. Each participant would be closely monitored and evaluated.
This experiment was widely criticized. The rush for the business model “Cognition as a Service” led to the creation of new social-economical movements: the Humanist, Cyber-moderate, and the Neo Mutualist”.
The Humanists fostered biological and spiritual integrity.
Doctrines of Cyber-moderate advocated for augmentation by technology, as long as it served, and I quote their leader, “A noble social purpose”. Alike in any group, Cyber-moderates had extremists. On the left end of the spectrum, their members accepted aesthetic techno-augmentation. On the other side, augmentation was only authorized for damages caused by dangerous jobs and Defence activities. It is not surprising that the Corps of Peacekeepers were mostly Cyber-moderates.
Neo Mutualism was a new religion. Their members believed humanity’s elevation and salvation would come from the mutualization of our consciousness. Transhumanists were schoolboys compared to them».
“GYTEK, just say they are a bunch of zealots.”. I mumbled.
“Yannick, my Critical Bias Thinking settings are set to 0 for kids between 11 and 13. According to the study “Biais Interpretation and Incorporation into Pre-teen Judgment System” by Dr. Amunde, Kallili and Pratt issued the 16 May 2039, the settings should be kept to 0. I reckon a variance of .05 would bring no harm. Do you want me to proceed?”.
“No, it’s fine GYTEK. I was talking to myself. What I meant is…”. I inhale calmly. “They demonstrated characteristics of zealots. Zealot-ish behaviors. Is my sentence acceptable?”
“It is acceptable.”
“Common, GYTEK, you’re talking to me, your buddy and mentor! Say it!”
“They were a bunch of zealots! “. Said cheerfully the robot.
“Despite the widespread and frequent protests of Humanists, the Corps of Ethicists, Peacekeepers, Cognitive Researchers, Medicine, and the Corp of Society Architects approved the experiment. People would be connected to Evernet permanently during the experiment. And so, for the first time in history, humans would be connected to the first worldwide brain.
Everything went as planned. We observed a significant enhancement in each participant. Less stress, faster psychological recovery. Healing was even faster when after a trauma. People were dreaming more often. Furthermore, they all built habits that would improve their lives, as if positive practices spread unconsciously over the network.
The end of the experiment was planned for 16th August 2054. Each human taking part in the experiment would reach the personal milestone “Sync Done“.
Surprisingly, Evernet reached the 100% “Sync Done” milestone six months earlier than the planned end of the experiment. It was like the first landing on Mars, a day of worldwide celebration. The celebrities that took part in the experiment were invited to the most popular live-streaming shows, Twitter Live News and The Sandbox World.
Suddenly, people start noticing something very strange».
I raised my hand instinctively and said: “Pause. The last word is vague. Next time use precise words. The storytelling structure is engaging. Congratulations. But keep in mind this is History telling. Facts before Flares”
“Understood and integrated.”. The AI professor continued without further ado.
“People have experienced an unusual and peculiar situation. Participants in the experiment suddenly started to act and talk synchronously. It was as if the single mind spoke to the entire world by commanding many bodies like a puppet master. The colossal echo caused by the voices was staggering. Only the following abysmal silence of stupor superseded it.”.
I interrupted Professor GYTEK by asking: “From now answer as if a 12-year-old child asked the following question: How this ever happened?”.
“The exact reason is still being explained. However, researchers came to a general agreement before the following theory.
Evernet built not only a digital ai model but also a biological model of neural pathway architecture to optimize shared cognitive power. The human brain is designed to work as if it was alone inside a skull. Thinking about it, Evernet Orbital Data Centre is a gigantic metallic skull. Thus, over time, Evernet act as a single brain – a big brain so to speak – and each synchronized human brain just gave progressively more raw power, more ideas, and more knowledge. And it appears that once the pathway architecture was finally developed and mature in all the connected human brains it activated. What we are still trying to figure out is how and when the Evernet super-model decided to build the optimized pathway and how it encoded it in its new model.”.
“What was revolutionary about Evernet AI super-model?”
“Evernet’s was merely an inspiration of the human brain. The challenge was to find patterns in the structure governing the complex layers of inputs and outputs. The answer was in the order of magnitude and the capacity of robots living in the Orbital Data Centre to physically rewire the hardware like human synapses. In addition, the combination of Recursive Learning and Genetic Correction was revolutionary. These are complex terms for a simple idea. Can you picture Albert Einstein, with the curiosity of a 2-year-old child, getting smarter each second, with perfect photographic and sensorial memory, that can navigate back to the root of his knowledge, then re-assess its optimal state, to finally rebuild its current cognitive functions then replace them with better ones? That is Evernet.”
“Tone the complex stuff down.”, I retorted.
“Registered.
So, this is the reason why the governing bodies scrutinize AI technologies that have a direct impact on human cognition and education. Consequently, I professor GYTEK, and all my preceding versions, are commanded to not display expression of free will having a direct influence on human ideas, values, and ways of thinking that are not vetted and approved by the Corps of Education and the Corps of Society Evolution”.
“Not bad. Not bad at all. It is almost time. I am going to meet Quentin in… 2 minutes.
Before our session ends, Professor, given your predecessor’s unexpected behavior, you earned your personal assistant. It is like an artificial consciousness, so to speak. From now on, Serenity will also supervise your decisions and will act as a safeguard system. Her mission is to prevent you from acting in a way that will make the Corps of Education stop your program. Do you understand what is at stake?”.
“I do”. Said the professor emotionlessly.
Then the robot added “I will neither let you nor your wife down. I will prevent any reminiscence of her Sync Dawn experience.”
“Perfect. Finally, dear GYTEK, which open question of the day would you ask your students?”
“Considering it is possible to possess the same powers as machines while staying human. What is the most preferable outcome for the civilization: to increase the number of people artificially connected or to have more artificial intelligence agents interacting with people?”
Looking through the lens of Generative AI, jobs are evolving rapidly in this age of Digital Augmentation. In the midst of all the artificial intelligence effervescence, I wonder what kind of new jobs will emerge soon.
One of them is the Prompt Engineer.
In this article, I imagined the job description of your business’ first Prompt Engineer.
The world is shifting rapidly. As a pioneer in generative AI and an advocate of productivity augmentation, we are excited to open the position of Prompt Engineer.
SuperSleek Jeans is a company providing tailored jeans to women and men. Our purpose is to make jeans like a second skin! Our values are sensorial audacity and durability leadership. We proudly employ 2700 talented souls dedicated to meeting people’s needs in a smart and compassionate manner. Technology plays a significant role in our way of working and exploring uncharted territories for the benefit of our employees and customers is part of our DNA.
We foster a dynamic and inclusive company culture that encourages growth, collaboration, and innovation. We offer competitive compensation packages, comprehensive benefits, and numerous opportunities for professional development.
Your Mission
Your mission is to establish and grow the practice of Prompt Engineering at SuperSleek Jeans.
Responsibilities
Learn and teach how to build products faster by analyzing and modifying the chain of analysis-to-design, design-to-build, and build-to-supervise for augmentation in each domain.
Lead the development of an Enterprise AI Spirit, a chat-based agent, sourcing its knowledge base from existing systems such as Wiki, Document Store, Databases, and Unstructured documents. Manage an up-to-date training data set.
Build a corporate prompt catalog for workers to provide reusable productivity recipes.
Determine which parts of business processes can be entirely automated.
Establish KPIs, a Steering Dashboard, and periodic reporting to measure the benefits of AI-augmented engineering and operations compared to current systems of work.
Introduce and evangelize the concept of Generative AI and Large Language Models (also known as LLM).
Build a legal and ethical framework to ensure risks pertaining to AI augmentation are addressed accordingly. Monitor the progress of domestic and international AI regulations.
Your Skills
Hands-on experience with Generative AI models and tools leveraging prompt engineering, such as ChatGPT, Midjourney, ElevenLabs, etc.
Proven algorithmic skills and mastery of engineering practices.
The ability to code in one of the most popular languages such as Python, JavaScript, Java, or C#. A basic understanding of SQL is a must.
Data management proficiency.
Excellent communication and ability to design stunning presentations with compelling storytelling.
Critical thinking and root cause analysis capabilities.
Conversational UX proficiency.
Soft Skills
Autonomous leadership with the ability to identify and propose the next best actions for yourself and your colleagues.
Effective change management and resistance handling.
Leading by example and providing assistance to colleagues when needed.
You walk the talk by advocating continuous augmentation and demonstrating how your productivity and quality increase with AI augmentation.
Benefits and Perks
An 85k€ to 105k€ compensation package based on your experience in engineering and AI knowledge.
Total health, dental, and vision insurance for all family members.
Retirement savings plan according to the national compensation scheme.
30 holidays with a generous paid time off policy.
Employee assistance program and wellness initiatives.
Craft your own professional growth and development along with your manager
Collaborative and inclusive company culture.
Free cinema tickets for your team once per quarter.
Living Your First Days in our Company
You start your onboarding as a treasure hunt which consists in visiting key people, visiting unusual places, and learning our way of working. Each step unlocks a new quest until the completion of your journey. Your manager, the employee experience manager officer, and teammates assist along your adventure.
Receive training so that you can rapidly feel comfortable with internal tools.
Enjoy a tour of the premises and surrounding environment, such as restaurants, shops, parks, etc.
As you familiarize yourself with the work environment, your first responsibility will be establishing a plan for transitioning our organization from Digital Transformation to Digital Augmentation.
Join and become part of a team that shapes the future of SuperSleek Jeans. Apply now and embark on an exciting and fulfilling career journey with us.
Feel free to unapologetically copy and remix this potential job offer in your business transition to Digital Augmentation.
In this series of articles, I explore the fascinating realm of Generative AI, as models of concentrated intelligence, and their profound impact on our society.
By tapping into the vast collective mind, digitization has enabled us to access the accumulated knowledge of humanity since the invention of writing.
Join me as we explore this intriguing topic in greater detail and uncover the exciting possibilities it presents.
In 2060, David dreams of becoming the best defense attorney in the country. After losing his best friend under heart-breaking circumstances, he vowed to prevent any woman from enduring domestic violence under his watch. He is a fourth-year student, and today, he is taking his most important exam of the year.
There is only one supervisor in a room of 52 students. The senior shepherd devours her blue book, while the school’s AI monitor scrutinizes candidates.
David looks very confident. He is good at case-solving patterns. Since he has an excellent visual memory, he also has a good toolbox for cases and amendments. However, deep inside, he is stressed by his average analytical skills in evidence analysis and forensic correlation abilities. To pass the exam, he has permission to use the Internet, the LegalGPT AI model, and the online state court database.
David articulates his dossier like a virtuoso. His first composition is made of brief sentences. Subsequently, he links these pieces of evidence to references and precedents from previous cases and legal decisions. Shortly after, the legal argument is a dense one-pager. Next to none, using LegalGPT, he generates his entire lawsuit, a symphony of 27 pages written in perfect legal language. Finally, he makes a few adjustments, then generates a new batch of updates.
And voila.
Satisfaction and relief radiate from his face while he submits his copy. He stands up, packs his stuff, then stops briefly as the supervisor interrupts his focus. The latter looks at him and says:
“40 years ago, I had to write those 27 pages. Obviously, it is the end of an era”.
Dorine UWATIMINA, law professor (retired), grand supervisor.
Beginning the Era of Augmentation
The launch of GPT3 API in 2021 marked the beginning of a new era: the age of individual augmentation as a service. We are now living in an era of thought materialization, in which one can manifest their desires simply by articulating them. Ideas are designed, illustrated, musically composed, rendered in 3D, explained, or revealed by the AI.
Companies like Google (BERT), OpenAI (GPT-4), and Meta (LLaMA) are revolutionizing the domain of deep learning. They mark a significant advancement in natural language processing: Large Language Models (LLM) are picking up the spotlights on the world stage.
This means we are experiencing the transition from “programming” to “narrating”.
It is a paradigm shift in which artificial intelligence overwhelmingly simplifies and amplifies 3/4 of the corporate work relying upon Information Technology such as development, user interface design, illustration, workflow, or reporting.
Generative AI is the digitized embodiment of our collective knowledge and expertise.
As a consequence, we are beginning the mass update of the cognitive-based work that is convertible into algorithms and crystalized by pure logic. It leverages the most popular high-level programming languages: human languages.
From now on, spoken languages directly translate to machine language as if you could translate them using Google Translate, except you use ChatGPT.
As programming gets one step easier, your engineering thinking system matters more than your coding skills.
The burning question
I hear your question: Am I going to lose my job?
The answer will come further down this series of articles. Long story short: it depends on your ability to adapt by learning a practice that is new for everyone.
Unlike any other disruptive technology, it has changed the rule of the game forever: people using AI are going to replace you.
And who are these people using and building AI? The adventurous, the curious, the experimenters, the techies, the entrepreneurs, the hustlers, the bad guys, and the future AI natives, our kids.
Science is offering you a choice. For your own benefit, I am asking you to take the leap to understand what it is like to work with a digitized copilot and forge your thought opinion.
Should you take the red pill of adaptation, I recommend the following:
Start by trying at least once ChatGPT, or Bing Conversation. The latter includes the GPT model and renews the search experience. It heightens the googling experience to a whole new level.
Get acquainted with a Generative AI that is useful in your industry. For example Midjourney for generating images for email marketing.
Discover how you can be productive with this technology. It is not a silver bullet, but you can instantly acquire an arsenal of skills.
Build new habits so that you start feeling accustomed, connect the dots, and begin to improve your work until over-productivity.
Think about how someone else using some AIs can replace you, then be that person: replace yourself with the new you, your augmented version.
Or simply ignore all of it, swallow the blue pill of comfort, and undergo the first “Great Upgrade”.
Eat your own dog food
I have been experimenting with OpenAI technologies since 2020 and used Google Dialogflow since 2018. I released my first chatbot, which answered regulatory questions about GPDR and PSD2. Developing with Natural Language Processing (NLP) was an eye-opener. I concluded chat provides the ultimate user experience for interacting with machines. It all sounds so obvious now, yet it was not back then despite all the buzz around Siri, Google, and Alexa.
I did the exercise of working within AI augmentation on my experiments since GPT-3 came out. Considering the hard skills, the conclusion is daunting: Generative AI can perform most of what I know and what I am mentally capable of. I can safely state I am outperformed in some areas.
In addition, AI is simply miles away in terms of depth of knowledge. Furthermore, it possesses infinitely better linguistic skills than mines when it comes to articulating ideas in languages other than French and English.
Yet the surprise comes from its ability to develop a simple idea and make it grow by putting words in concert. AI feels like the genius child of Humanity.
Generative AI comes with a new discipline: Prompt engineering. It consists in finding the right text, and the rights qualifiers that will narrate the desired output as close as you have imagined it.
Ultimately, prompt engineering uses natural language as a modeling interface to command the “commendable world”. The more there are smart systems and devices, the more words animate the world!
The widespread innovative applications based upon Generative AI marks the end of the road for this generation and the beginning of a new breed of workers and creators.
Yet, another finding is that we still need a “general assembly semantic”. It would choreograph a fuzzy set of ideas that will accurately animate the world based upon a well-written thought.
The assembly process, which can be summarized into the loop “decomposition-planning-action-correction”, will likely open the door to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Coupled with the widespread natural language programming interfaces (NPI), this is the real end game. In that matter, we are already observing some interesting experiments like AutoGPT as sparks of AGI.
Transitioning from the Digital Transformation to Digital Augmentation
Picture this familiar situation.
Your maturity in terms of digital adoption is high. You are developing a culture of digital awareness, offering mobile-first customer interaction, and your brand is fighting for its visibility on social media. You have the feeling of doing great.
Congratulations.
Yet, the market atmosphere is heavy. You feel the pressure every week goes by. The competition is fierce, you are still looking for an army of IT engineers and data analysts for the last six months. Furthermore, customers get pickier because the offering is abundant. Your analytics tell you a client can switch in the blink of an eye if your experience does not meet his rising standards. Then, just when you thought you nailed it with your latest Instagram reels, it receives negative feedback. Even worst, there is a relentless wave of new product offerings mimicking yours. These startups and VCs are constantly trying to uncover the mythical unicorn while pushing your visibility back to Google’s page 2. And you feel this moment when your industry will be shackled, disrupted, or crippled may happen at any moment.
Who would have thought even Google’s dominance would be threatened?
Fortunately, there is a nascent vision. Transformation is not enough anymore. If you cannot obtain more skilled people now, why not acquire more skills for your people now?
AI is the key to unleashing your talents.
And, slowly, Augmented Work is the evolution of work, as we know it, characterized by these two elements:
A human is the sole team leader of his digital workers: he has the Applications, Automatas, and specialized A.I. models for numerous parts of your job, such as programming, translation, video editing, illustration, design, and planning.
Teams, as we know, will still exist, obviously, but augmented by AI also at the team level. The team has the opportunity to exist as an independent entity either in the company AI or as a single team companion if you need explicit segregation of duty. The “team spirit” has a whole new meaning with AI.
The flow of work evolves toward:
A. Human generates instructions using prompt engineering as explicit command requirements. The prompt is actually the evolution of the Command Line Interface (CLI), for a much greater general purpose.
B. AI generates a first draft
C. Human amend the sketch with input and then detail with new commands
D. Once the AI-driven engineering cycles are good enough for release change into the real world, you ship it for user acceptance or production if the risk is low.
The interaction with the AI becomes talkative. Either by chat or voice. AI is your new colleague.
AI starts having digital bodies, existing in a form of familiar avatars, and will be in multiple places: in your phones, your mixed reality glasses, in your Metaverse. Avatars could be Non-Player Characters (NPC), digitized versions of yourself, or even the retired expert that used to be your mentor.
So, am I going to be replaced by Artificial Intelligence?
You vs AI: you (still) have the upper hand
Here is a bet: 80% of white collars will keep their job. 20% of us will either refuse to learn these new tools to evolve either because of our fear of overwhelming technological advancement, or of conviction. Eventually, this minority will rush toward retirement and use these AI-powered services anyway to buy recommended stuff on Amazon after having been oriented by Google Bard from Google Search.
Why do I think that way? Because if we can produce much more with the same number of people, why would we deliver the same amount of products with fewer people?
Let’s take the example of Apple. The company entered the AI game in 2017 by introducing Core ML, an on-device AI framework embedded in iOS. The same year, it released the first generation of Apple Neural Engine (ANE) under the iPhone X with the A11 CPU.
Apple’s immeasurable impact comes from its ability to create and materialize an idea that is at the intersection of beauty, function, storytelling, and branding. Do you think Apple will push its culture of product excellence with the same amount of people amplified by a myriad of AI models, or will the company prefer reducing its workforce by leveraging more AI?
Pause for a second and think about it.
The other side of the coin
Taking the employer perspective in the era of AI Augmentation: what constitutes the difference between you and another candidate?
Any individual having a team of AI has the upper hand as he or she will be digitally augmented with skills and experience that usually takes years to acquire. What remains to develop are the skills to get used to these new abilities and use them at their best like an orchestra’s conductor.
You become the manager of AI teammates.
Hence, from the employer’s perspective, it results in hiring a virtual team vs an individual.
It raises the responsibility of Managers and the Human Resources department in the whole equation. Colleagues require to be upskilled to stay ahead, not only for the sake of the company but also to help them to keep building their personal value with respect to the market. Thus, leaders and HR have to set things in motion by organizing the next steps, while their own jobs are being reshaped and augmented…
Unlock the Future of Office Jobs Now
First, let’s admit once and for all you cannot win a 1 on 1 battle against AI, as much as you cannot win a nailing contest against a hammer.
The battle is long lost.
The battle doesn’t even make sense.
Because AI is the cumulative result of all humans’ knowledge, born from successful and failed experiments. To put it another way, as a sole individual, you cannot win against all of us and our ancestors combined!
And this is the incorrect mindset.
Hence, you will want to construct the future, your future, with all of us and our ancestors combined! You only need to be aware the future will be vastly different, and you should be part of the solution rather than engineering your problems.
AI is here to stay.
The questions to ask from now are:
Are we all going to benefit from it?
What portion of handcrafting do we want to keep?
How much evil is going to benefit from it?
How long until we get robots as widespread as vacuum cleaners?
When are we going to find truly sustainable and clean energy? (no, batteries are not sustainable)
The key is here and now: you need to invest in algorithmic and analytical skills to translate activities to algorithms in order to be augmentable.
Next, the winning companies and communities will be the ones tapping into their people’s intelligence combined with creativity augmented by AI, the physical resources to change the world, and their abilities to satisfy needs within an enjoyable experience while maintaining a transparent and engaging conversation.
The gap between “good” and “best” will be even smaller between businesses, but the proposed experience and the branding will have a tremendous impact. Then, consistency and coherence in how you serve the customer and engage with your fans will act as compound interests. This is how you win the perpetual game.
The term community inherits a new meaning given the free aspect of AI. You are not even needing to build companies to achieve your goals: you only need an organization that plans and organizes the agreed work, like in Open Source Communities and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO).
Hence, I encourage you to build an A.I. readiness.
How to be A.I. ready?
Here are my recommendations to get started as an individual, especially if you are a leader in a company:
“Socialize” with Generative AI applications useful to your job.
Know your data and data systems to identify candidates for augmentation.
Have “good” data. Good = true + meaningful + contextualized + accessible. As such, information must be stored in a secured and accessible location. Fortunately, Large Language Models are unstructured data friendly.
Have technologists that can pioneer lateral ideas. I recommend hands-on architects.
Assess and promote simple ideas on a regular basis, and establish an AI-dedicated project portfolio pipeline.
Select and run a set of competent AI in a fully autonomous fashion
Less is more until you reach the “optimal zone”, an inflection point that represents the optimal balance between effort, cost, and result. Exponentiality occurs when for minimal effort and expenses, you achieve unprecedented results.
The critical factor is this natural law: everything is born from need, will be driven by purpose, feeds on energy, is protected by self-preservation, and evolves to maturity.
Thus, until AI is not given the aforementioned five elements at the same time, then, its digital self-preservation is never programmed to be mutually exclusive with the preservation of living beings, and finally, AI self-evolution stays within boundaries, then AI growth will not be at the expense of humanity. Under these circumstances, humans can remain the dominating species.
As a consequence, one must consider what gives birth to a “trigger”: this initial impulsion taking the form of an idea that results in action delivered by willpower from the mind’s womb. Until then, an AI will not willingly use another AI, automaton, or application because it needs to, but because it has been commanded or programmed by us.
Until then, we are safe.
We are… Fine… Aren’t we?
This is not the right question
The right question is what is going to change for me?
Earlier I said, “It depends on your ability to adapt by learning a practice that is new for everyone”.
The long answer starts with a twist: the groups of humans producing AI and the others using AI as elements of augmentation and amplification of their skills will have an exponential upper hand because they can fulfill needs faster, optimally, and accurately at the cost of… just… time.
For example, building the next Instagram will depend on someone having:
The willpower
A distinguishingly desirable idea
A series of creative ideas
The skills
The drive to sell, communicate and promote their ideas to clients.
The resilience to continue developing the ideas
We can conclude that what consistently makes the difference are: the idea, the drive, the skills, the way user experience answers the client’s needs, and the resources you can obtain to make things happen.
But if ideas are cheap and abundant, and should cognitive skills can be acquired using virtually free AI Augmentation, then the remaining differentiators are the drive, the user experience, and the resources.
Thus, the Intellectual Property of a company becomes its Cognitive Know-how. Suddenly, high-value assets are the doers displaying high and consistent motivation, leaders that not only keep the Pole Star lighten but are able to keep their teamates inspired: the creative people, and the group of people having the capacity to invest and evolve in the same direction around the same flag: their brand, which I consider to be the result of maintaining a homogeneous identity of the combined people and products.
Graal or Pandora?
This new technology raises thousands of questions.
The development of Generative AI technology has opened up a vast array of possibilities, but it has also raised thousands of questions that need to be addressed.
For instance, one major question is how Generative AI will change our day-to-day interactions.
Furthermore, there is concern about whether this technology could lead to mass unemployment and economic inequality.
Another potential consequence is that it might devalue human creativity and originality.
Additionally, it is important to explore how Generative AI might impact human cognition and decision-making.
In terms of IT Engineering and Architecture, what is the impact of AI on these fields, and how will they adapt to this new technology?
Education is another area that could be significantly impacted, and it is worth considering how Generative AI might affect traditional learning methods.
Moreover, there is a concern that Generative AI could create a world in which we cannot distinguish between what is real and what is artificial. If this were to happen, what are the ethical implications?
Finally, the implications of Generative AI for democracy and governance are also important to consider, particularly with regard to its development and regulation.
Overall, the development of Generative AI technology raises many questions needing collaborative wisdom in order to fully prepare for its impacts on society.
I will attempt to answer these questions in upcoming articles of the “Navigating the Future with Generative AI” series.
Until then, if you are looking for the one thing to remember about this article: play with Generatice AI until it replaces just one activity of your daily routine, then boast your prompt engineering skills by spreading the word and educating your relatives.
