I was thinking this week about the printing press. Stop scoffing and read on. Can you imagine the fear created by a machine that could reprint handwritten or transcribed original works into a portable volume that any class of person could own?
Gutenberg may never have considered the impact his movable-type printing press would spark. He probably was tired of waiting for the scribes to “copy” the new best seller. He probably said there has got to be a better way. That question has sparked a ton of innovations. He may never have asked himself if he should create the press. The operative question is usually how can this be done easier? AI is a similarly situated innovation. It eliminates the plodding steps of what next? The powerful part of AI is that the machine starts to answer the next question without waiting for you to prompt AI with the next question. It is less a tool sitting idle and the technology acts independently of its creator.
As we sit on the edge of a new advancement, the questions surrounding the why of innovation becomes even more appropriate. AI technology is not a tool idle dependent on its creators like a printing press or a smartphone. Those are just machines that require us to bring it to life. AI prompts itself so the operators and creators seem less important. A new set of questions must be asked. The questions should be less concerned with the how and more concerned with the what is using AI. We should be concerned about what AI is applied to and if it can it be relied upon? Should consumers be told if AI was employed in the work product produced? Who gets to decide the parameters of AI? How does AI get regulated? This regulation question becomes the most valuable because whoever regulates something controls that thing.
Gutenberg never thought about why? He needed a better machine not better thoughts. We are facing better thoughts with AI, “so what” becomes more important than “why.”
Albert R. Hartley
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