TP: What about in the decade ahead, what is a best- and worse-case scenario for how the world might look with gen AI?
EB: The pessimistic scenario is not so much about stagnation. It’s more that the nefarious uses of it will catch us off guard, whether that is weaponising them or through information warfare and abuse. The unknown unknowns. We are into uncharted territory where we have technologies that are much more powerful than before, and history suggests that often the biggest effects are ones that no one anticipated. On the optimistic side, we could start seeing significant productivity growth in the 2020s. We will see new kinds of creative work, scientific progress, industrial designs and new products and services being invented.
TP: A key determinant of which of those two paths we will be closer to are the laws, norms and institutions we develop around gen AI. How optimistic are you that we can get that right?
EB: I would not assume that everything is automatically going to work out fine. I think these are super-powerful technologies and we should have our eyes open, and be quite careful about how we use them. If they’re used right, this could be the best decade in human history. If they’re used badly, it could be one of the worst. So there’s a real premium on smart governance, managers and policymakers really paying attention to this technology. We should not fly blind.
Excellent stimulating exchange on gen-AI's potential, between @erikbryn and @tejparikh90: ‘On the productivity side, I think 2024 is going to be a year of harvesting a lot of the capabilities’ https://t.co/UJlksthtFo via @ft
— Andrew Hill (@andrewtghill) January 31, 2024