Title: Society is not ready for AI

From the time of the first printing press, knowledge observably increased at an exponential rate. For instance, from the first two in 1665, the number of scientific journals doubled every 15 years right into the 20th century. By the 1970s we 'knew' that this growth would have to end, because there wouldn't be enough trees to print that many pages. Then the internet happened, and the information growth continued even faster.

If we go back 150 years, there were only really two technologies in use that could be considered in any way 'modern': photography, and trains. Both of these had been 'paradigm shifts': things that happened that completely changed how you thought about or dealt with the world. In the intervening years paradigm shifts have apparently happened at an accelerating rate: cars, electricity, film, radio, television, flight, computers, space travel, electronic money, internet, and on and on. 

Research has shown that paradigm shifts have indeed been accelerating, and in fact you can go back tens of thousands of years and discover an alarming pattern: they too are accelerating at an exponential rate. If they were once happening every 100 years, then after 100 years, they were happening every 50 years, and then every 25 years. If you follow this line, you see that it converges on a time, apparently not too far in the future, where paradigm shifts are happening daily.

How can this be? One suggestion is that that is the point where computers become smarter than us, and it is the computers doing the design, not us. By then, the whole world will be interconnected by the internet of things; will we be ready for a world where we are no longer the smartest? Will computers remain at our service?

And can we prepare in time? There were already warnings in the 60s about the impending climate crisis, and we are still not really doing anything. We are fundamentally slow-moving. What are the chances we can prepare for the AI crisis in time?

Steven Pemberton