The intellectual revolution: part one
Adoption of AI is advancing exponentially, faster than any recent technology, positioning it as the next great revolution, but what could that revolution entail and, for all the talk of transforming humanity, why is discussion about AI applications dominated by familiar productivity hacks?
To imagine a new future we need to look into the past, to discern what to do differently and why it’s important.
Starting with the truth of AI: nobody knows.
Seeing this emergence “AI experts” and “Gen AI” profiles have also emerged, like cicadas from the deep internet, with their insistent chorusing. Fear of missing out is driving a majority of investment decisions into AI, according to ABBY research.
Aside from obvious tools that accelerate what we already do, most people do not yet know what Artificial Intelligence will lead to.
Last week’s market freak-out about Deepseek underscores that the markets do not understand the AI industry. The AI industry - from researchers to developers - do not agree on emergent abilities in AI.
Geoffrey Hinton the “Godfather of AI” would undoubtedly admit that he is inexpert about a future with Artificial Intelligence.
“Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.”
How do we distinguish a different future that works better for us?
Learning from the industrial revolution.
Agriculture, from the Latin “ager” and “cultura”, was the first major cultural revolution in human history, literally rooted in field and growing.
Industry is derived from the Latin “industria”, meaning "diligence, hard work," and is what industry or industriousness means today. Since the 1700s, industrial culture, capitalism and urbanisation replaced the previous agriculture.
There have been three industrial revolutions. Artificial Intelligence is being described as the fourth industrial revolution - it cannot be the fourth industrial revolution.
A problem in today’s world is that our society and culture is still built on diligence and hard work. The reward for diligent hard work is convenience and leisure. The reward for making things is buying other things, or even romanctic reward. Progress is perceived as the ability to delegate and outsource lower order tasks to ‘lower order’ people, or machines, to win more productive or leisure time.
These factors are a narrow lens for people to imagine or express the future. Many AI products reflect this narrowness. An agent may be your personal assistant or even become your friend, but there is no question who is in control of the relationship (for now at least).
The scars of industrial culture.
As the industrial revolution evolved and expanded globally, the benefits might have been felt by the majority of people, but whilst one group flourished another group invariably suffered. This is because industriaisation demands specialisation.
The greater the level of specialisation, the greater the risk of extinction.
A 2017 study of 400,000 personality tests by the University of Cambridge found that people living in the former industrial heartlands of England and Wales are more disposed to negative emotions, are more impulsive and more likely to struggle with planning.
If investment into AI and innovation carries on in the same way of industry to date, which favors growing, affluent and cost-competitive areas, then declining areas will continue to stagnate. The pattern of the “left behind” will continue. More new areas will fall into decline.
“The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
In 1840, the French critic, journalist, and novelist wrote “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” to express that despite progress of the industrial revolution, fundamental patterns in society remain unchanged. Conveying a sense of resignation about the cyclical nature of events, where promised changes don't address deeper issues.
Romanticism developed in the wake of, and in some measure as a response to, the industrial revolution. Even romanticism has been co-opted by industry, becoming hyperromantic or “fatal to chances of long-term happiness in modern relationships” (Alain De Booton).
A new gilded age? Beware political entrepreneurs.
The Gilded Age happened in late 1800s America, a period of technological innovation and opulent wealth characterised by industrialists like Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, James J. Hill, Andrew Mellon, Charles Schwab, and the Scranton family.
Their immense success and apparent excesses led to the title “Robber Barons”. Many in academia now draw parallels with this age and our modern age, with the likes of Musk, Zuckerberg, Gates, Pichai, Buffet, Bezos, Page and Brin.
We should be very wary and resistant to immense power in the hands of so few people. Much has been written about Robber Barons. The most insightful investigation I have seen was written by Burton Folsom, a history professor and senior historian.
Fulsom divides the entrepreneurs into two groups, market entrepreneurs and political entrepreneurs. That didn’t make any of them ‘nice’. They are different.
He argues that the market entrepreneurs, such as Hill, Vanderbilt and Rockefeller, succeeded by producing an innovative, quality product at a competitive price.
The political entrepreneurs included Collins in steamships and Villard or Gould in railroads. These were men who used the power of government to succeed, to create total dependency on their infrastructure. They lobbied to gain subsidies and acted to stop competitors by any means necessary, including through government and tariffs.
Think about today’s industrialists and their companies. Which definition fits?
Are you OK with that?
Snake oil salesmen shed their skin,
they’re still rattling around.
In the late 1900s entrepreneurs got an idea from Chinese-immigrant railroad labourers, who distilled the the omega-3 fatty acids produced by the Chinese water snake, in the belief it soothed sore muscles and inflammation.
Clark Stanley, the self-proclaimed “Rattlesnake King” was the first to sell this so-called snake oil as a treatment in America.
Forget scientific efficacy of this snake oil treatment, it created a buyable story and mythos.
The industrial revolution created unparalleled opportunities for persuasive salespeople to beguile their audiences, often fraudulently, at a time of great change - people didn’t know better, and couldn’t think beyond the grind of each day’s toil.
We are in the midst of another great change. Another industrial revolution means another great chance for created mythos, exaggerated promises and exploited weaknesses.
We struggle to imagine a new future with new technologies like AI because of a global culture where meaning is built on 300 years of “industry”, diligence and hard work.
Politicians are lobbied to maintain this order by powerfully persuasive political entrepreneurs, making the line between big business, government and society indistinguishable.