What the world needs now is a way to build a thriving economy and society around artificial intelligence that works for everyone. America can and should lead the new way forward.
For over 20 years I wrote such reports for the c-suite of an f100 company. Due to my experience in strategy, innovation, competitive intelligence, and foresight I appreciate the thought and effort required to fashion such an essay. Gotta decide when to use soft or passive language, picking thoughts that are defensible, trying to avoid crossing over from credible to incredible, how much detail, setting context, phew…
While reading, many thoughts came to mind. perhaps overly critical, but here you go:
1.) nothing created by humans works for "everyone". am i being hyper-critical, maybe, but words matter. "everyone" is an extreme word...
2.) innovations propagate across the world in waves. they typically emerge from multiple places (US, Europe, China, etc.). they often conflict when they come into contact with each other.
3.) you don't say the E word, but it seems implied when you use phrases like "work for everybody". there has never been a time in recorded history when humans were equal or had equity. the closest we have been to equity in a society has always required suppressing some people and/or favoring others... both imposed by a police force...
4.) i can support your opinion that AI will be a fast, maybe the fastest, spreading innovation ever. but it will still take decades to reach the majority of people, and when it does reach the majority, the various AI capabilities will vary in function and quality. additionally, people will not use AI with equal effectiveness.
5.) as you note, the US has been "unmoored" many times. Many/most geopolitical analysts say the US became unmoored when the USSR collapsed - circa 1990. But many credible analysts and historians also note other cycle durations.
6.) many look back and declare that the US created and used globalization to keep the USSR at bay. The USSR fell and now Russia has one thing left that keeps them in the game - nukes. Russia is a “has been” empire. Meanwhile globalization enabled the rise of China. So, now it is time to realign US political and commercial relationships accordingly. The disruption we see would be occurring with or without AI due to the change in empires. The new alignment includes developing “manufacturing” in places that cannot be leveraged against the US. Obvious locations include the US, Canada, and Northern Mexico. Regardless, manufacturing location needs to change. Why not bring it back to North America?
7.) AI is going to be “invented” in at least two places (US and China) and maybe three or four (EU, India).
8.) You note some advantages of AI, “…facts in all fields and spot patterns in vast amounts of data…” You and i know that “facts” are often subjective, and at the very least are contextual… the training engineers have the power…
9.) “The truth is that what comes out of this transformation in the coming decades is going to be a different kind of civilization. As crazy as it sounds, that’s the level of invention we are heading into.” An interesting statement. It is an attention getter but only tells us “the future will be different”…
10.) I agree with you that I don’t want the AI that is eventually used in the US to be designed, implemented, or operated by China or Europe
11.) This is a scary statement to me: “If you want to understand where America is going in the future, shift your gaze to the West Coast and focus on what’s happening in San Francisco.” I’m not very pleased about the thought that the future of AI will come out of SF. Sure, there are brilliant people. Sure, the SF area and its people have some great ideas and values. They also have some ideas and values that many find unappealing… ever been to Gonzales, TX, Pittsburg, KS, Ocean Springs, MS, Las Vegas, NM, or Monticello, IL? There are other places with other ways to live…
12.) the idea of “sharing wealth” through the ranks is an interesting statement. How about “earning wealth” through the ranks instead? I cannot think of a job that can’t be augmented with the use of AI, even if it is used to optimize the fastest, easiest, cheapest way to perform minimum wage work. But, it is psychologically better for people to “earn” something than to have it “shared” with them - among other things, they quickly develop the mentality that what is “shared” with them is “owed” to them... or as some pols might say, “it is your right”…
Sorry I am only getting to respond to this now. The summer always layers in other things going on in my life, including vacation breaks. But this is a very thorough comment and so needs a bit more time.
One thing I would stress is that the beauty of writing essays in Substack is that you can just focus on one idea or one angle per essay rather than dealing with them all like you can in a book. So some of your comments are prompting questions that would need to be explored in other whole essays, or will be done in a 300 page book - which is now definitely coming via HarperCollins.
These essays are partly "political" in that they are talking through the implications of AI to broader audiences. So when I use the concept "work for everyone" that is more aspirational and meant to be inclusive to all. We need to start from the value that this transformational technology and the systems around it should not be designed to work for an elite, or a portion of society, but try to figure out how over time they could work for all. Of course the actual attainment of that goal might take decades, or even generations in a global sense, but that is the horizon we should aim for from the beginning.
I have been reluctant to jump on the universal basic income bandwagon for some of the reasons that you point out - including that people need to have meaningful work in their lives, at least people born into our era. But there will be incredible wealth generated by these technologies and under the current system that could engorge a small handful of people. That could jack up wealth inequality and distort all the other social systems that we have now even worse than they currently are. That seems unwise.
So I have been thinking are there mechanisms that could be used earlier in the wealth creation process that could drive a sizable portion of that wealth towards rebuilding societal infrastructure that would be "shared" by all. Even the tech titans have been mulling whether we might have to tax tokens or something like that before it becomes the personal wealth of a trillionaire. Much more to be said and I hope to do that in an upcoming essay.
Anyhow, I appreciate your thoughts in the comments of these essays as long as it does not shut down some of the other readers who venture to comment. Some are not as sure of their ideas as you clearly are, and so we want to make space for everyone to be able to lay out their nascent ideas or unformed questions.
thanks for clarification! once again, i understand and agree with your views. i've also seen them from other big thinkers... THE SECOND MACHINE AGE touches on some of these topics.
i also agree about my over-confidence in my views (not how you wrote it, how i see myself), and that others need space. i have attempted to avoid personal attacks and instead focus on history, human nature, logic, and data/facts/etc. when i say i don't like something, i try to explain why...
i'm not good at turning the other cheek when comments are directed at me instead of the ideas i share...
> We need to fundamentally rethink how the incredible wealth that will be generated by AI can be shared through all the ranks of workers in the companies making this transition, as well as throughout society so that everyone can benefit.
100% agreed. Who's working on this problem? Where is the discussion happening?
Always interesting Peter. Clean (free) energy is our destiny. The Trump administration is not looking backwards to a carbon based society. Carbon will enable the future. The corrupt waste, fraud & abuse accelerated in pursuit of solutions to climate change will, by design, bring societies to their knees resulting in very dark and greedy global governance.
Imagine what we could accomplish by coming together to rid ourselves of Corruption.
Dawn, I've been grappling for some time with your question about "Where is the discussion happening?" Or, could happen, in my optimistic view. I think we need to develop the appropriate institutions and venues for meaningful dialog at warp speed. I write about three promising venues in my recent PoliticsAndGov Substack.
My book "Data IS You" takes you through the mindset shift with philosophical roadmap to first-person datasets and Persons Asset Class to understand the importance of Ownership and Autonomy.
*A quick back of the napkin numbers on personal income for adult's in USA $30/day for data transactions is $2.8 Trillion or GDP 8% Y-o-Y
Not selling a book, I'm working on the problem to solve for human-centered economy.
like i challenged mr leyden, i will challenge you. should the wealth be "shared" or should we have an environment that allows the people that want to engage in wealth creation to have a fair opportunity to "earn" wealth in the coming age of AI?
i dislike the descriptor "sharing". it sounds like passive language for "welfare". i'm all for welfare - for the people who, due to misfortune, are unable to "earn" wealth.
i'm against "sharing" wealth with people that make a series of bad choices or simply do nothing to "earn" wealth.
for example, as manufacturing moved offshore, millions of americans lost their jobs. in the past 3 or 4 decades, how many of them re-educated themselves? the percentage that opted to "reskill" themselves is small. most opted to languish. i see little reason to support this behavior with unemployment and welfare when our society offers so many ways to educate oneself ranging from subsidized community colleges, to free online sources like kahn academy, etc. then there the many immigrants that come here with nothing and manage to raise their families, work, and attain an education all at the same time... enabling "helplessness" is one of the aspects i would eliminate in the future US society...
I am also in favor of people learning and upskilling themselves. At the age of 39 I am applying to a community college to learn math, toward an eventual master's degree in AI or robotics. ChatGPT and Khan Academy have been invaluable in this regard.
That said, I don't want our policies to over-rely on this, because the future is deeply uncertain. We really don't know what direction this technology is going to go. What does the future of work look like? CGP Grey made a highly prescient YouTube video back in 2014 called "Humans Need Not Apply" (recommended watch), where he argues that a very large proportion of human labor can and will be done more economically by robots. Most jobs in the US are unglamorous ones like cashier, barista, truck driver, etc. If those jobs go away, it's not clear what to do with those people. Telling them to upskill to a different industry, when *every* industry is being disrupted, isn't a solution. It could happen that a large majority of humans will be not just unemployed but unemployable.
This is not a foregone conclusion. Previous technological shifts have created enough new jobs; maybe this one will too. We don't know. We need to be prepared for either possibility.
I agree that we should try to eliminate helplessness. I would like to see a clearer path forward for displaced workers. Universities are struggling right now and I'm not sure they're up to the challenge. Learning is one thing; turning that into a job is a separate skill that universities don't teach very well at the best of times, and these are not the best of times.
The Gates Foundation and a few others recently announced NextLadder Ventures, "focused on fostering technology and tools to expand economic opportunity for low-income Americans." That sounds good to me. I want to see more well-paved paths for people into the future so everyone can be prosperous. I'm not particularly picky about what form those paths take.
some free education advice i gave my daughters (almost your age). since we don't know what the future holds, hedge your education bets. split your studies into two spheres: discipline and creative. one daughter majored in art and minored in business. The other majored in biology and minored in art.
all jobs fall somewhere on a "<discipline ...................creative>" spectrum
if seeking a job, having education on both ends of the spectrum qualifies you
if starting a firm, having education on both ends helps you operate your business
oh yeah, as the former "futurist" for my employer, i can say with high confidence that the speed of innovation adoption is determined by society, not scientists... working people and politicians will slow down the pace of adoption. meaning, a person can keep up if they are adaptable and motivated...
i'm aware that i'm far from "normal" with a bachelor's degree, 3 masters degrees, and professional certifications. however, i paid for the degrees and many of the certs, while holding down a job, raising a family, with my wife taking a 15 year work hiatus to be an at home parent.
i have lived a life of delayed gratification and have little sympathy for those that don't.
the reason i pursued so much education is because of uncertainty (as you note), combined with looking to the future for opportunity.
> bba in computer science was obvious in 1974.
> ms in data analytics at age 62 in case i needed to work until 70 or longer.
> ms in national intelligence at age 64 to qualify for associated federal jobs.
> certifications in project management (still useful), TQM, and process engineering (LSS black belt - still useful) to shift out of IT.
> certifications in strategy and competitive intelligence (career shift).
> certification in foresight/futures to augment strategy and CI.
> certifications in facilitation, and adult education to augment strategy and CI.
> certifications in venture capital, and innovation (career shift).
> certifications in design to augment vc and innovation.
> certification in machine learning to augment ms da.
not bragging. trying to point out that a person with normal intelligence, personal discipline, and some desire can keep pace with change...
then there is the lazy aspect of life.
just returned from a backpacking trip in the sawtooths of Idaho. hiked 20+ miles, with a 25# pack, at 7,000' to 9,400'. saw 90+ hikers ranging from age 15 to 30, another 10 or so age 50+. none my age. awesome. but, at the airport on the way home we saw hundreds (potentially thousands) of people younger than me that couldn't keep up with me for 2 miles. a damn shame when a 20 something can't keep up with an old man. far too many take care of their health the same way they take care of their minds...
i simply do not understand it. and i sure won't subsidize it by choice.
Thanks for giving more of your background. I have been reading your various comments in many pieces in this series and have been curious of your background. So here you lay it out.
i don't like sharing it because it sounds like a brag, but i get tired of people saying "poor me. life isn't fair. people like arthur smith had it so easy, and had so many advantages, blahh blahhh blahh". i detest a lack of agency...
I see your grandiose future plans and I raise you a couple thoughts
1) Almost every major AI system in existence is built, run, fed and influenced by extremely successful, very rich, very Machiavellian corporations, worldwide. I could name names.
Very few AI systems are made for pure research purposes. Most are being funded by big name companies, and venture capitalists. They want a "healthy return on their investment". From what I have heard, they don't play well with others, and their sharing the wealth goes mainly to those
who invested enough money in shares. MSFT, Apple, Alphabeth, Meta, Tesla, a few others. If you have the cash to buy one share each and the patience to wait 25 years, you might have a bit
more then. But predictions are tough, especially about the future. Some people even have trouble with correctly reading the past.
2) Given that AI is created, programmed and influenced mainly by people who have a highly transactional relationship with their conscience, I cannot predict whether there will exist any Artificial Intelligence system that could be described as honorable, helpful and fair.
3) Overall, the hope for the future which Peter Leyden espouses, would depend more or less
on a great detoxification of the US system of laws, rules, justices, order, etc. More specifically, the US has not even been able to De-Nixonify, De-Reaganify, De-Bush1-ify, De-Bush2-ify and De-Trumpify the US past and current laws, the US legislature, the US Judiciary and the US-Executive Branch. (It's not just that, Russia and China are equally stuck with laws made with both angry and possibly nice intent and with its equally awful results.) About half the US population appears to be happy with horrendously unfair law-making, out of relatively unfounded fear and hate, and they are like that, even if it very specifically hurts their own lives, the lives of their loved ones,. and, should I mention it, the lives of those they hate so passionately.
The main problem for humanity is the freely shared inhumanity. So, I currently cannot see a trend where AI will be helpful in improving our lot. Actually, I experience quite a few situations where AI completely worsens human-to-business interactions, for example within customer service of any kind. On the other hand, making any positive change requires an superhuman quantity of patience, paired with great strength of purpose and angelic kindness. So it's not all bad, but a really difficult problem, that cannot be solved just with big money and la-di-da law-making.
What you say from your point of view points to how I think of this juncture as the next great American reinvention. I actually think AI will bring about a much more fundamental rebuild of America and its institutions than many think. We have gotten used to a system in the last 80 years (since the last reinvention) that keeps us constrained within boundaries that may no longer need to exist. And there is a chance that we will even see more fundamental civilizational changes that rework the rules set by a constitution designed 250 years ago too. Some of my essays touch on that, but more to come in the future.
i actually meant that for Maksim Raskolnikov. peter backs his opinions with facts and logic. you don't have to agree with them, but peter doesn't ignore data/facts that discount his viewpoint.
And your bias makes you more credible? Feel free to disagree, but I have yet to see a single reasonable argument from you. Certainly I am biased, as are you and everyone else. So, what are your solutions to any problem you might choose?
i'm not taking the position that we can manage what is coming. i'm following mr. leyden because he is taking the lead. he offers many logical and defensible thoughts about the future. i have yet to see solutions from mr. leyden and instead have seen simple projections of the forces at play (that he has backed with data, logic, and history) and the problems/opportunities/roadblocks (again, backed with data, logic, and historical views).
i have explained each of my disagreements with mr. leyden (shared my logic, data, and historical views). you don't have to agree with them, but your opining that the solution to our future challenges is undo everything the rnc has done since 1960, while letting the dnc off without any culpability in today's problems is pure tripe.
dnc leaders have talked about undoing significant aspects of the US government (i.e. electoral college, stacking the SCOTUS), have been attacking the 2A my whole life (though they have lost that political battle), have sought to increase central government rights at the deterioration of states rights, changed senate rules to pass obama care and turn back banking regulation to jimmy carter era rules (then cried like babies when the rnc used the same methods for their purposes), knowingly participated in the fbi filing false fisa warrant requests, and the very long list of dnc abuses goes on (including gerrymandering which was not invented by or used exclusively by the rnc)...
the current welfare state (with 40% of US households paying zero income tax) accounts for much of america's problems today including huge debt, a pathetic public education system that pleases teachers unions but leaves our young citizens lacking in the knowledge needed for future economic success, breakdown of families, and destruction of inner cities. the dnc also went along with defense spending (started and escalated the vietnam war, continued and escalated the gwot after letting al qaeda slip away in the late 90's, and provided many billions to the ukraine), let the eu nations get away with not paying their share of nato expenses for decades, and supported globalization (while going along with the associated US investment in china).
that is bias i'm talking about. you have ignored all the negative impact the dnc has had on the current state of the nation. the bias is indefensible.
I am trying to talk about the developments that are coming in terms of a new majority of Americans that will emerge out of the current camps of Red and Blue America, Republican and Democrat. That majority will draw from both camps but not be constrained by the strict rules on both side that keep them locked to the ideas of the past. A couple of my next essays will elaborate on this concept. The bulk of the energy of that forward motion will come out of Blue America and the urban centers, I think, but those people leading that next path forward will not be defined by the old ideas that have almost become a caricature now. We have to leave our old ideologies behind and move forward with our values, American shared values, applied to what probably will be a dramatically different world.
A successful lawyer once told me, “if you have 5 witnesses to an event, you get 5 different versions of what happened”. Point, at some point history is subjective.
it doesn't seem so difficult. people interpret the truth 24x7 on all the social platforms. then you have all the people in the news profession that do it non-stop... so it might not be hard to do.
my favorite is in re the stock markets. each day, after the markets have risen or fallen the financial analysts, economists, and investors tell us, "Today, the markets responded to blah blah blah...". Mind you, they had no idea what the market was going to do when the day began, but after the fact, they KNOW what caused the market to change, and it is typically only ONE FACTOR... "The markets responded to a surprising change in unemployment." or "Unexpected growth in the 3Q industrial sector lifted the..." or "NVIDA's surprising P&L..."
it is also very common to hear people with all levels of expertise (mostly low expertise) explain the motives of others, "...the reason the president did it was to..."
God, no! AI will have to work out a way for them to tolerate it. Most likely no one will like it not even me. By now, I’m pretty sure you figured out that I am extremely optimistic 🤪.
AI isn't going to be the architect of our future. I'm very optimistic about that. It might be able to offer observations or suggestions, but the results will be driven by the data used to train the AI, the values of the trainers, and decision authorities of the moment.
one of my work responsibilities was to bring in guest speakers to engage with and share outside perspectives my employer's c-suite. big company. f100.
i brought in one, eric haseltine, that was a neuroscientist (among other things) to discuss why leaders don't take the actions they know they should take. he spent significant time explaining how limbic system "scripts" influence our conscious thinking. it was fun, but it was a waste of time. decision authorities make emotional decisions (like the rest of us). point? the leaders will have much larger impact architecting the future than AI.
Futurism is exciting to some, confusing to many, and met with indifference to most who are comforted by tradition and become agitated by change. I hope we transition to the Future in the most peaceful and positive way. Thank you for your optimism and as Captain Picard would say,
Leading the way means Ownership and Autonomy - Privatization of Personal Data.
Opens new markets and America leading the way in generational wealth creation.
Peter, I sent you the book "Data IS You" back in May - please see the dynamic interplay between First-Person Datasets and Persons Asset Class in building a human-centered economy.
When you talk about 'creating wealth' and 'sharing wealth', what are you talking about specifically? The valuations of these companies? Something else?
I love seeing this kind of forward thinking optimistic viewpoints about where we land after all this upheaval. The one aspect that is curious to me is your assumption about a geographical center (SF or USA etc) on what appears to be a futuristic technology that defies being geographically centered other than the data centers themselves.
I feel like part of the fundamental changes we have coming are going to be rethinking borders altogether since a future I could see coming to fruition includes the trillion dollar corporations rising in power above the governments attempting to regulate them. If the corps move operations across the web via diversified physical locations of data centers and equipment, along with satellites/wireless connectivity, I'm not sure we vote for presidents of countries as much as corporations.
At any rate, I hope we get to the UBI-ish portion where we divest the meaning from the requirements to live sooner than later. This in between part is for the birds.
Arguably your most controversial essay.
For over 20 years I wrote such reports for the c-suite of an f100 company. Due to my experience in strategy, innovation, competitive intelligence, and foresight I appreciate the thought and effort required to fashion such an essay. Gotta decide when to use soft or passive language, picking thoughts that are defensible, trying to avoid crossing over from credible to incredible, how much detail, setting context, phew…
While reading, many thoughts came to mind. perhaps overly critical, but here you go:
1.) nothing created by humans works for "everyone". am i being hyper-critical, maybe, but words matter. "everyone" is an extreme word...
2.) innovations propagate across the world in waves. they typically emerge from multiple places (US, Europe, China, etc.). they often conflict when they come into contact with each other.
3.) you don't say the E word, but it seems implied when you use phrases like "work for everybody". there has never been a time in recorded history when humans were equal or had equity. the closest we have been to equity in a society has always required suppressing some people and/or favoring others... both imposed by a police force...
4.) i can support your opinion that AI will be a fast, maybe the fastest, spreading innovation ever. but it will still take decades to reach the majority of people, and when it does reach the majority, the various AI capabilities will vary in function and quality. additionally, people will not use AI with equal effectiveness.
5.) as you note, the US has been "unmoored" many times. Many/most geopolitical analysts say the US became unmoored when the USSR collapsed - circa 1990. But many credible analysts and historians also note other cycle durations.
6.) many look back and declare that the US created and used globalization to keep the USSR at bay. The USSR fell and now Russia has one thing left that keeps them in the game - nukes. Russia is a “has been” empire. Meanwhile globalization enabled the rise of China. So, now it is time to realign US political and commercial relationships accordingly. The disruption we see would be occurring with or without AI due to the change in empires. The new alignment includes developing “manufacturing” in places that cannot be leveraged against the US. Obvious locations include the US, Canada, and Northern Mexico. Regardless, manufacturing location needs to change. Why not bring it back to North America?
7.) AI is going to be “invented” in at least two places (US and China) and maybe three or four (EU, India).
8.) You note some advantages of AI, “…facts in all fields and spot patterns in vast amounts of data…” You and i know that “facts” are often subjective, and at the very least are contextual… the training engineers have the power…
9.) “The truth is that what comes out of this transformation in the coming decades is going to be a different kind of civilization. As crazy as it sounds, that’s the level of invention we are heading into.” An interesting statement. It is an attention getter but only tells us “the future will be different”…
10.) I agree with you that I don’t want the AI that is eventually used in the US to be designed, implemented, or operated by China or Europe
11.) This is a scary statement to me: “If you want to understand where America is going in the future, shift your gaze to the West Coast and focus on what’s happening in San Francisco.” I’m not very pleased about the thought that the future of AI will come out of SF. Sure, there are brilliant people. Sure, the SF area and its people have some great ideas and values. They also have some ideas and values that many find unappealing… ever been to Gonzales, TX, Pittsburg, KS, Ocean Springs, MS, Las Vegas, NM, or Monticello, IL? There are other places with other ways to live…
12.) the idea of “sharing wealth” through the ranks is an interesting statement. How about “earning wealth” through the ranks instead? I cannot think of a job that can’t be augmented with the use of AI, even if it is used to optimize the fastest, easiest, cheapest way to perform minimum wage work. But, it is psychologically better for people to “earn” something than to have it “shared” with them - among other things, they quickly develop the mentality that what is “shared” with them is “owed” to them... or as some pols might say, “it is your right”…
Sorry I am only getting to respond to this now. The summer always layers in other things going on in my life, including vacation breaks. But this is a very thorough comment and so needs a bit more time.
One thing I would stress is that the beauty of writing essays in Substack is that you can just focus on one idea or one angle per essay rather than dealing with them all like you can in a book. So some of your comments are prompting questions that would need to be explored in other whole essays, or will be done in a 300 page book - which is now definitely coming via HarperCollins.
These essays are partly "political" in that they are talking through the implications of AI to broader audiences. So when I use the concept "work for everyone" that is more aspirational and meant to be inclusive to all. We need to start from the value that this transformational technology and the systems around it should not be designed to work for an elite, or a portion of society, but try to figure out how over time they could work for all. Of course the actual attainment of that goal might take decades, or even generations in a global sense, but that is the horizon we should aim for from the beginning.
I have been reluctant to jump on the universal basic income bandwagon for some of the reasons that you point out - including that people need to have meaningful work in their lives, at least people born into our era. But there will be incredible wealth generated by these technologies and under the current system that could engorge a small handful of people. That could jack up wealth inequality and distort all the other social systems that we have now even worse than they currently are. That seems unwise.
So I have been thinking are there mechanisms that could be used earlier in the wealth creation process that could drive a sizable portion of that wealth towards rebuilding societal infrastructure that would be "shared" by all. Even the tech titans have been mulling whether we might have to tax tokens or something like that before it becomes the personal wealth of a trillionaire. Much more to be said and I hope to do that in an upcoming essay.
Anyhow, I appreciate your thoughts in the comments of these essays as long as it does not shut down some of the other readers who venture to comment. Some are not as sure of their ideas as you clearly are, and so we want to make space for everyone to be able to lay out their nascent ideas or unformed questions.
thanks for clarification! once again, i understand and agree with your views. i've also seen them from other big thinkers... THE SECOND MACHINE AGE touches on some of these topics.
i also agree about my over-confidence in my views (not how you wrote it, how i see myself), and that others need space. i have attempted to avoid personal attacks and instead focus on history, human nature, logic, and data/facts/etc. when i say i don't like something, i try to explain why...
i'm not good at turning the other cheek when comments are directed at me instead of the ideas i share...
W t s a p ?
i h n i w y m !
(i have no idea what you mean)
I was responding to Leyden, he left a message on this thread that had some contact info for someone and I didn’t use the info quickly enough
ooops bygones.
Love this vision Pete. Sign me up.
> We need to fundamentally rethink how the incredible wealth that will be generated by AI can be shared through all the ranks of workers in the companies making this transition, as well as throughout society so that everyone can benefit.
100% agreed. Who's working on this problem? Where is the discussion happening?
Always interesting Peter. Clean (free) energy is our destiny. The Trump administration is not looking backwards to a carbon based society. Carbon will enable the future. The corrupt waste, fraud & abuse accelerated in pursuit of solutions to climate change will, by design, bring societies to their knees resulting in very dark and greedy global governance.
Imagine what we could accomplish by coming together to rid ourselves of Corruption.
Dawn, I've been grappling for some time with your question about "Where is the discussion happening?" Or, could happen, in my optimistic view. I think we need to develop the appropriate institutions and venues for meaningful dialog at warp speed. I write about three promising venues in my recent PoliticsAndGov Substack.
My book "Data IS You" takes you through the mindset shift with philosophical roadmap to first-person datasets and Persons Asset Class to understand the importance of Ownership and Autonomy.
*A quick back of the napkin numbers on personal income for adult's in USA $30/day for data transactions is $2.8 Trillion or GDP 8% Y-o-Y
Not selling a book, I'm working on the problem to solve for human-centered economy.
https://dataisyou.com/
like i challenged mr leyden, i will challenge you. should the wealth be "shared" or should we have an environment that allows the people that want to engage in wealth creation to have a fair opportunity to "earn" wealth in the coming age of AI?
i dislike the descriptor "sharing". it sounds like passive language for "welfare". i'm all for welfare - for the people who, due to misfortune, are unable to "earn" wealth.
i'm against "sharing" wealth with people that make a series of bad choices or simply do nothing to "earn" wealth.
for example, as manufacturing moved offshore, millions of americans lost their jobs. in the past 3 or 4 decades, how many of them re-educated themselves? the percentage that opted to "reskill" themselves is small. most opted to languish. i see little reason to support this behavior with unemployment and welfare when our society offers so many ways to educate oneself ranging from subsidized community colleges, to free online sources like kahn academy, etc. then there the many immigrants that come here with nothing and manage to raise their families, work, and attain an education all at the same time... enabling "helplessness" is one of the aspects i would eliminate in the future US society...
I am also in favor of people learning and upskilling themselves. At the age of 39 I am applying to a community college to learn math, toward an eventual master's degree in AI or robotics. ChatGPT and Khan Academy have been invaluable in this regard.
That said, I don't want our policies to over-rely on this, because the future is deeply uncertain. We really don't know what direction this technology is going to go. What does the future of work look like? CGP Grey made a highly prescient YouTube video back in 2014 called "Humans Need Not Apply" (recommended watch), where he argues that a very large proportion of human labor can and will be done more economically by robots. Most jobs in the US are unglamorous ones like cashier, barista, truck driver, etc. If those jobs go away, it's not clear what to do with those people. Telling them to upskill to a different industry, when *every* industry is being disrupted, isn't a solution. It could happen that a large majority of humans will be not just unemployed but unemployable.
This is not a foregone conclusion. Previous technological shifts have created enough new jobs; maybe this one will too. We don't know. We need to be prepared for either possibility.
I agree that we should try to eliminate helplessness. I would like to see a clearer path forward for displaced workers. Universities are struggling right now and I'm not sure they're up to the challenge. Learning is one thing; turning that into a job is a separate skill that universities don't teach very well at the best of times, and these are not the best of times.
The Gates Foundation and a few others recently announced NextLadder Ventures, "focused on fostering technology and tools to expand economic opportunity for low-income Americans." That sounds good to me. I want to see more well-paved paths for people into the future so everyone can be prosperous. I'm not particularly picky about what form those paths take.
some free education advice i gave my daughters (almost your age). since we don't know what the future holds, hedge your education bets. split your studies into two spheres: discipline and creative. one daughter majored in art and minored in business. The other majored in biology and minored in art.
all jobs fall somewhere on a "<discipline ...................creative>" spectrum
if seeking a job, having education on both ends of the spectrum qualifies you
if starting a firm, having education on both ends helps you operate your business
oh yeah, as the former "futurist" for my employer, i can say with high confidence that the speed of innovation adoption is determined by society, not scientists... working people and politicians will slow down the pace of adoption. meaning, a person can keep up if they are adaptable and motivated...
i can agree with all you wrote here.
i'm aware that i'm far from "normal" with a bachelor's degree, 3 masters degrees, and professional certifications. however, i paid for the degrees and many of the certs, while holding down a job, raising a family, with my wife taking a 15 year work hiatus to be an at home parent.
i have lived a life of delayed gratification and have little sympathy for those that don't.
the reason i pursued so much education is because of uncertainty (as you note), combined with looking to the future for opportunity.
> bba in computer science was obvious in 1974.
> ms in data analytics at age 62 in case i needed to work until 70 or longer.
> ms in national intelligence at age 64 to qualify for associated federal jobs.
> certifications in project management (still useful), TQM, and process engineering (LSS black belt - still useful) to shift out of IT.
> certifications in strategy and competitive intelligence (career shift).
> certification in foresight/futures to augment strategy and CI.
> certifications in facilitation, and adult education to augment strategy and CI.
> certifications in venture capital, and innovation (career shift).
> certifications in design to augment vc and innovation.
> certification in machine learning to augment ms da.
not bragging. trying to point out that a person with normal intelligence, personal discipline, and some desire can keep pace with change...
then there is the lazy aspect of life.
just returned from a backpacking trip in the sawtooths of Idaho. hiked 20+ miles, with a 25# pack, at 7,000' to 9,400'. saw 90+ hikers ranging from age 15 to 30, another 10 or so age 50+. none my age. awesome. but, at the airport on the way home we saw hundreds (potentially thousands) of people younger than me that couldn't keep up with me for 2 miles. a damn shame when a 20 something can't keep up with an old man. far too many take care of their health the same way they take care of their minds...
i simply do not understand it. and i sure won't subsidize it by choice.
Thanks for giving more of your background. I have been reading your various comments in many pieces in this series and have been curious of your background. So here you lay it out.
i don't like sharing it because it sounds like a brag, but i get tired of people saying "poor me. life isn't fair. people like arthur smith had it so easy, and had so many advantages, blahh blahhh blahh". i detest a lack of agency...
does AI generate wealth, or just make businesses more efficient so they can be more profitable?
Autonomy matters allot
I see your grandiose future plans and I raise you a couple thoughts
1) Almost every major AI system in existence is built, run, fed and influenced by extremely successful, very rich, very Machiavellian corporations, worldwide. I could name names.
Very few AI systems are made for pure research purposes. Most are being funded by big name companies, and venture capitalists. They want a "healthy return on their investment". From what I have heard, they don't play well with others, and their sharing the wealth goes mainly to those
who invested enough money in shares. MSFT, Apple, Alphabeth, Meta, Tesla, a few others. If you have the cash to buy one share each and the patience to wait 25 years, you might have a bit
more then. But predictions are tough, especially about the future. Some people even have trouble with correctly reading the past.
2) Given that AI is created, programmed and influenced mainly by people who have a highly transactional relationship with their conscience, I cannot predict whether there will exist any Artificial Intelligence system that could be described as honorable, helpful and fair.
3) Overall, the hope for the future which Peter Leyden espouses, would depend more or less
on a great detoxification of the US system of laws, rules, justices, order, etc. More specifically, the US has not even been able to De-Nixonify, De-Reaganify, De-Bush1-ify, De-Bush2-ify and De-Trumpify the US past and current laws, the US legislature, the US Judiciary and the US-Executive Branch. (It's not just that, Russia and China are equally stuck with laws made with both angry and possibly nice intent and with its equally awful results.) About half the US population appears to be happy with horrendously unfair law-making, out of relatively unfounded fear and hate, and they are like that, even if it very specifically hurts their own lives, the lives of their loved ones,. and, should I mention it, the lives of those they hate so passionately.
The main problem for humanity is the freely shared inhumanity. So, I currently cannot see a trend where AI will be helpful in improving our lot. Actually, I experience quite a few situations where AI completely worsens human-to-business interactions, for example within customer service of any kind. On the other hand, making any positive change requires an superhuman quantity of patience, paired with great strength of purpose and angelic kindness. So it's not all bad, but a really difficult problem, that cannot be solved just with big money and la-di-da law-making.
What you say from your point of view points to how I think of this juncture as the next great American reinvention. I actually think AI will bring about a much more fundamental rebuild of America and its institutions than many think. We have gotten used to a system in the last 80 years (since the last reinvention) that keeps us constrained within boundaries that may no longer need to exist. And there is a chance that we will even see more fundamental civilizational changes that rework the rules set by a constitution designed 250 years ago too. Some of my essays touch on that, but more to come in the future.
Your one-sided political bias undoes your credibility.
Very true. I went to HS with Peter. He is very intelligent. I can’t understand why he continues with this bias.
i actually meant that for Maksim Raskolnikov. peter backs his opinions with facts and logic. you don't have to agree with them, but peter doesn't ignore data/facts that discount his viewpoint.
And your bias makes you more credible? Feel free to disagree, but I have yet to see a single reasonable argument from you. Certainly I am biased, as are you and everyone else. So, what are your solutions to any problem you might choose?
i'm not taking the position that we can manage what is coming. i'm following mr. leyden because he is taking the lead. he offers many logical and defensible thoughts about the future. i have yet to see solutions from mr. leyden and instead have seen simple projections of the forces at play (that he has backed with data, logic, and history) and the problems/opportunities/roadblocks (again, backed with data, logic, and historical views).
i have explained each of my disagreements with mr. leyden (shared my logic, data, and historical views). you don't have to agree with them, but your opining that the solution to our future challenges is undo everything the rnc has done since 1960, while letting the dnc off without any culpability in today's problems is pure tripe.
dnc leaders have talked about undoing significant aspects of the US government (i.e. electoral college, stacking the SCOTUS), have been attacking the 2A my whole life (though they have lost that political battle), have sought to increase central government rights at the deterioration of states rights, changed senate rules to pass obama care and turn back banking regulation to jimmy carter era rules (then cried like babies when the rnc used the same methods for their purposes), knowingly participated in the fbi filing false fisa warrant requests, and the very long list of dnc abuses goes on (including gerrymandering which was not invented by or used exclusively by the rnc)...
the current welfare state (with 40% of US households paying zero income tax) accounts for much of america's problems today including huge debt, a pathetic public education system that pleases teachers unions but leaves our young citizens lacking in the knowledge needed for future economic success, breakdown of families, and destruction of inner cities. the dnc also went along with defense spending (started and escalated the vietnam war, continued and escalated the gwot after letting al qaeda slip away in the late 90's, and provided many billions to the ukraine), let the eu nations get away with not paying their share of nato expenses for decades, and supported globalization (while going along with the associated US investment in china).
that is bias i'm talking about. you have ignored all the negative impact the dnc has had on the current state of the nation. the bias is indefensible.
I am trying to talk about the developments that are coming in terms of a new majority of Americans that will emerge out of the current camps of Red and Blue America, Republican and Democrat. That majority will draw from both camps but not be constrained by the strict rules on both side that keep them locked to the ideas of the past. A couple of my next essays will elaborate on this concept. The bulk of the energy of that forward motion will come out of Blue America and the urban centers, I think, but those people leading that next path forward will not be defined by the old ideas that have almost become a caricature now. We have to leave our old ideologies behind and move forward with our values, American shared values, applied to what probably will be a dramatically different world.
perfectly written
A successful lawyer once told me, “if you have 5 witnesses to an event, you get 5 different versions of what happened”. Point, at some point history is subjective.
Every point in history is subjective but interpretation of truth is difficult
it doesn't seem so difficult. people interpret the truth 24x7 on all the social platforms. then you have all the people in the news profession that do it non-stop... so it might not be hard to do.
my favorite is in re the stock markets. each day, after the markets have risen or fallen the financial analysts, economists, and investors tell us, "Today, the markets responded to blah blah blah...". Mind you, they had no idea what the market was going to do when the day began, but after the fact, they KNOW what caused the market to change, and it is typically only ONE FACTOR... "The markets responded to a surprising change in unemployment." or "Unexpected growth in the 3Q industrial sector lifted the..." or "NVIDA's surprising P&L..."
it is also very common to hear people with all levels of expertise (mostly low expertise) explain the motives of others, "...the reason the president did it was to..."
Why can’t AI be used to map out the way to the future you have been describing? Are humans incapable of helping humans create a better future world?
So you think AI can come up with a social architecture that the DNC and RNC will both like? That is optimism…
God, no! AI will have to work out a way for them to tolerate it. Most likely no one will like it not even me. By now, I’m pretty sure you figured out that I am extremely optimistic 🤪.
AI isn't going to be the architect of our future. I'm very optimistic about that. It might be able to offer observations or suggestions, but the results will be driven by the data used to train the AI, the values of the trainers, and decision authorities of the moment.
one of my work responsibilities was to bring in guest speakers to engage with and share outside perspectives my employer's c-suite. big company. f100.
i brought in one, eric haseltine, that was a neuroscientist (among other things) to discuss why leaders don't take the actions they know they should take. he spent significant time explaining how limbic system "scripts" influence our conscious thinking. it was fun, but it was a waste of time. decision authorities make emotional decisions (like the rest of us). point? the leaders will have much larger impact architecting the future than AI.
Futurism is exciting to some, confusing to many, and met with indifference to most who are comforted by tradition and become agitated by change. I hope we transition to the Future in the most peaceful and positive way. Thank you for your optimism and as Captain Picard would say,
“Make it so”.
Leading the way means Ownership and Autonomy - Privatization of Personal Data.
Opens new markets and America leading the way in generational wealth creation.
Peter, I sent you the book "Data IS You" back in May - please see the dynamic interplay between First-Person Datasets and Persons Asset Class in building a human-centered economy.
Thanks for that book. I see how that might be related. And I see your comments on Linkedin too. Keep them up.
IF there is going to be a next election, that’s a big if
get real
When you talk about 'creating wealth' and 'sharing wealth', what are you talking about specifically? The valuations of these companies? Something else?
I love seeing this kind of forward thinking optimistic viewpoints about where we land after all this upheaval. The one aspect that is curious to me is your assumption about a geographical center (SF or USA etc) on what appears to be a futuristic technology that defies being geographically centered other than the data centers themselves.
I feel like part of the fundamental changes we have coming are going to be rethinking borders altogether since a future I could see coming to fruition includes the trillion dollar corporations rising in power above the governments attempting to regulate them. If the corps move operations across the web via diversified physical locations of data centers and equipment, along with satellites/wireless connectivity, I'm not sure we vote for presidents of countries as much as corporations.
At any rate, I hope we get to the UBI-ish portion where we divest the meaning from the requirements to live sooner than later. This in between part is for the birds.
It isn’t anymore. Everything is okay.
It is me