Generative A.I., Growth, and a Book Recommendation
"Immortality costs plenty but how much is it worth?"
There is a lot going on in the realm of generative AI these days. A lot of people are concerned about where things might be going, with good reason.
I was listening to a podcast this morning from The Ezra Klein Show called
🤖 "What if Dario Amodei is Right about A.I.?"
Klein interviews Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, about a wide range of topics, including anticipated breakthroughs, potential struggles, and where the current rate of change in the field might take us.
I found the podcast to be entertaining and informative, as Klein's interviews always are, but also asked real questions. The content brought two thoughts to mind that I'd like to share.
First, I'd like to recommend the novel Norstrilia written by Cordwainer Smith (American writer Paul Linebarger) and published in 1975. The plot turns on the misuse by the protagonist of an artificial intelligence originally built for military purposes.
The protagonist uses the military A.I. to exploit financial loopholes in a market and become the richest person in the universe, a topic that fits right in with concerns discussed in the podcast.
Second, I found it interesting how frequently Amodei mentions the exponential growth curve of generative A.I. He refers to measurements of capacity (parameter count) and capability collected over recent years going back to his time at OpenAI.Â
Exponential growth curves can mislead people because humans are bad at understanding the long term consequences of the math. That confusion is the basis for the brain teaser question:
🤯 "Would you rather have a penny that doubles each day for a month, or $1,000,000?"
I haven't seen the data for the measured exponential growth, but whether that growth is real or only taken on faith by the community, it helps explain the urgency we see in all the players in the field.
That said, nothing grows forever because there are always limits. There is only so much data for training, and only so many GPU's to burn electricity.Â
The question is then, what will limit the growth of generative A.I., and when?
Whatever the answer, there are things to be learned from, and a lot of entertainment to be found in, the mountains of science fiction that include artificial intelligence tropes. 🙂 (You can google those!)
Happy Friday!