Reading notes: The Inevitable - Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future

Author: Kevin Kelly

Publication date: 06 June 2017

Publication: United States

ISBN10: 0143110373

ISBN13: 9780143110378

1. Becoming

The fear of missing out in the race of constant upgrades to which will lead those who chose and just so happens to not partake in to be left behind.

“When everything around you is upgrading, this puts pressure on your digital system and necessitates maintenance. You may not want to upgrade, but you must because everyone else is. It’s an upgrade arms race.” — p.10

The author’s view on utopias: “A world without discomfort is utopia. But it is also stagnant. A world perfectly fair in some dimensions would be horribly unfair in others. A utopia has no problems to solve, but therefore no opportunities either.” — p.12

The author’s disapproval of the terms and pursuit of utopia and dystopias, but rather a technology equivalent known as ‘protopia’, an epoch to which we are currently living in.

“Protopia is a state of becoming, rather than a destination. It is a process. In the protopian mode, things are better today than they were yesterday, although only a little better. It is incremental improvement or mild progress.” — p.13

In the age of constant upgrades and improvements, humanity would always be a newbie. With an ever increasing need to learn and upgrade ourselves and the equipment grow dependant on.

“…endless upgrades make you into a newbie — the new user often seen as clueless. In this era of “becoming”, everyone one becomes a newbie. Worse, we will be newbies forever…(and thus, being an)…Endless Newbie is the new default for everyone…” — p.12–13

Summary of this chapter: “Today truly is a wide-open frontier. We are all becoming. It is the best time ever in human history to begin. … You are not late.” — p.27

Additional notes from this chapter.

“One study a few years ago found that only 40 per cent of the web is commercially manufactured. The rest is fueled by duty or passion.” — p.22

2. Cognifying

Technology has reached the pinnacle point in time which resembles the days of the industrial revolution where the pioneers of electronics are able to identify opportunities to integrate early forms of electricity into everyday objects, to “electrify it”. Now, humanity can apply the same methodology to the elements around them, by applying AIs and cognification technology.

“The AI on the horizon looks more like Amazon Web Services — cheap, reliable, industrial -grade digital smartness running behind everything, and almost invisible except when it blinks off. This common utility will serve you as much IQ as you want but no more than you need. You’ll simply plug into the gtid and get AI as if it was electricity. It will enlive inert objects, much as electricity did more than a century past. Three generations ago, many a tinkerer struck it rich by taking a tool and making an electric version. Take a manual pump; electrify it. Fina a hand-wringer washer; electrify it…Take X and add AI. Find something that can be made better by adding online smartness to it.” — p.33

A “Centaur”, a human/AI cyborg will become more common as AI technology develops, allowing humanity to tap on to this new frontier changing the fundamentals of the way they think, work and interact. In turn, creating new unfound opportunities.

“…a centaur…will listen to the moves suggested by the AI but will occasionally override them — much the way we use the GPS navigation intelligence in our cars…AI can help humans become better chess players, it stands to reason that it can help us become better pilots, better doctors, better judges, better teachers.” — p.41–42

The development of AIs will give rise to a wide range of possible minds to which humanity are unaware of or thought as impossible:

• A mind like a human mind, just faster in answering (the easiest AI mind to imagine).
• A very slow mind composed primarily of vast storage and memory.
• A global supermind composed of millions of indicifual dumb minds in concert.
• A hive mind made of many smart minds, but unaware it/they are a hive.
• A org super mind composed of many smart minds that are very aware they form a unity.
• A mind trained dedicated to enhancing your personal mind, but useless to anyone else.
• A mind capable of imagining a greater mind, but incapable of making it.
• A mind capable of creating a greater mind, but not self-aware enough to imagine it.
• A mind capable of successfully making a greater mind, once.
• A mind capable of creating a greater mind that can create a yet greater mind, etc.
• A mind with operational access to its source code, so it can routinely mess with its own processes.
• A superlogic mind without emotion
• A general problem solving mind, but without any self-awareness.
• A self-aware mind, nut without general problem solving.
• A mind that takes a long time to develop and requires a protector mind unit it matures
• An untraslow mind spread over large physical distance that appears “invisible” to fast minds.
• A mind capable of cloning itself exactly many times quickly.
• A mind capable of immortality by migrating from platform to platform.
• A rapid, dynamic mind capable of changing the process and character of its cognition.
• A nanomind that is the smallest possible (size and energy profile) self-aware mind.
• A mind that specializes in scenario and prediction making.
• A mind that never erases or forgets anything, including incorrect or false information.
• A half-machine, half-animal symbiont mind.
• A half-machine, half-human cyborg mind.
• A mind using quantum computing whose logic is not understandable to us.

Over the next few decades as the rise and wider adoption of AI become more widespread and common around us, we will start to become self-conscious, and at times questioning our abilities and existence. However, it might not be the case, or to be seen this way. AI adoption may take away the things we are familiar in doing, but at the same time it will open up opportunities for us to question ourselves and seek higher meaning to our very existence.: “In the grandest irony of all, the greatest benefit of an everyday, utilitarian AI will not be increased productivity or an economics of abundance or a new way of doing science — although all those will happen. The greatest benefit of the arrival of artificial intelligence is AIs will help define humanity. We need AIs to tell us who we are.” — p.49

1. Jobs humans can do but robots can do even better,
2. Jobs humans can’t do but robots can,
3. Jobs we didn’t know we wanted done, and
4. Jobs only humans can do — at first.

Some humans at the current day and age are still unfamiliar and reluctant to handover their jobs to the AIs and whilst doing so, they would find themselves feeling this way, the feeling of denial. The “Seven stages of robot replacement” are as such:

1. The robot/computer…”cannot possibly do the tasks…”
2. The robot/computer…”can do a lot of those tasks, but it can’t do everything…”
3. The robot/computer…”can do everything…except it needs” human intervention when it breaks down.
4. The robot/computer…”operates flawlessly on routine stuff…”, however it needs to be trained for new tasks.
5. The robot/computer can have the job as it was obvious that it “…was not a not that humans were meant to do.”
6. The robot/computer is doing the old job, humans can have a new job as it is “more interesting and pays more.”
7. The robot/computer…cannot do what humans do now, and thus elated. (Repeat) — p.59

Humans of our current day and age might think that they are competing against the machines over jobs and roles that they are used to. However, the winners of this arbitrary competition are often the ones who decide to race with them, to work with them. To better understand and find new ways to progress and transit into the future which is now.

“This is not a race against the machines. If we race against them, we lose. This is a race with the machines. You’ll be paid in the future based on how well you work with robots. Ninety percent of your coworkers will be unseen machines. Most of what you do will not be possible without them.” — p.60

Summary of this chapter: “We need to let robots take over…It is inevitable. Let the robots take our jobs, and let them help us dream up new work that matters.” — p.60

Additional notes from this chapter.

“As AI develops, we might have to engineer ways to prevent consciousness in them. Our most premium AI services will likely be advertised as consciousness-free.” — p.42