I was born in the early 80s. There are only 2 other techno-socio moments in my life that have hit as hard: (1) the web around 1994, and (2) the smartphone. The appearance of the current iteration of generative AI for public consumption in the last few months dwarfs both.
My own daily working patterns, expectations for my future, for my children's desirable skillsets have been entirely shifted. The entire value of generating information has been totally upended. If it can be created by AI -- and it's looking like most information-based things can/will be soon -- then humans now have a very different position in the world. Why I need to list any specifics at this point is beyond me.
This is going to spread through the world like a fire.
It’s incredibly obvious how AI tools can be applied to many different problems.
So even if it’s the same people “pushing” both, that doesn’t mean they are the same. These people are tech enthusiasts who want to make money, and they will be excited by any promising new tech.
Getting your life savings out of a warzone
This type of use mostly seems like a crypto bro fantasy to me, but I’d definitely be interested to see some reporting on this actually working.
ChatGPT is, IMO, about the same value as a freshly graduated programmer — it would be a mistake to let it loose unsupervised, but on the other hand, what do junior devs cost to hire these days?
I don't think your comparisons to civilization butressing inventions like fire and writing and language (the last, to be fair, is an evolutionary invention, not a cultural one) are unfair or exagerrated. Things are about to get very strange in short order.
The level of bullshit will be unparalleled. Because of AI.