As AI hype soars in the media, with dozens of new articles and blog posts pouring into everyone’s news feeds every day, it’s hard to parse what to take seriously and what gets a grain of salt. Many of them insist the world is about to change, and change big; that the genie is out of the bottle, we’re in for unprecedented disruption, and things will never be the same. And some of those voices belong to our most respected, sober-minded experts.
Then there are those who insist, just as firmly, that what we’re seeing with AI is business as usual; that the transition from agriculture to industry was just as disruptive, but that turned out okay; that the introduction of automation likewise turned production upside down, but that turned out okay. Those voices are insisting that the sky isn’t falling.
The question, then, looms: Is this time different?
AI philosopher Calum Chace says yes, it absolutely is. And he rallies a wide phalanx of other experts around his argument in his book Artificial Intelligence and the Two Singularities.
Roger Bootle, a London economist and advisor to the British House of Commons, likewise agrees, and musters not only elegant arguments but compelling data to support his case.
The rising chorus of voices singing, Yes, this time is different! present a range of reasons why, but the biggest of these rattles cages past to present, overturning even beloved Adam Smith. And that argument can be presented as follows.
In the beginning, the work of human beings was performed by human beings. And that was that. If something needed doing, human beings did it. There was no other source of labor, and the labor was self-directed.
Then human beings discovered that certain animals could be put to work: horses, oxen, et al. This changed the equation considerably: now there was a new source of labor, but it was one that couldn’t self-direct; it needed guidance.
Revolution: Agriculture!
Fields of grain no longer had to be hand-plowed by humans; they could be plowed by mules, and the humans took up a new role – pointing the mules in the right direction.
Management was born!
After endless centuries of this dynamic – animals doing the heavy lifting, humans managing the work – a new kind of production emerged: the making of things in vast quantities. This was work that couldn’t be done by animals, because it was too complex and required dexterity – not just muscle power. But keeping human beings coordinated in these processes required that the new factory floors include not just the workers, but managers to keep them pointed in the right direction.
Revolution: Industry!
The Master-and-Mule dynamic prevailed, but now it played out with human mules overseen by human masters.
This spilled out of the factory and into the broader business universe, where the rapidly advancing societies of humanity began concocting ever-more complicated and abstract ways of making money and spending time. Finance. Insurance. Lawyers. In all of them, Master-and-Mule prevailed.
And as technology proliferated, new machines were created that could do the work in the factories. It became cheaper to turn work over to a machine than to a human being.
Revolution: Automation!
By the hundreds of thousands, human beings were phased out and machines were phased in. Master-and-Mule prevailed – but now the Mule was a machine.
In all three of these revolutions, the same thing changed: the Mule. At first, the Mule was an actual mule (Agriculture); but then the Mule was a person (Industry), and then a machine (Automation). Still, the thing that changed was the same – the Mule.
This time is different.
As AI begins taking up cognitive tasks – routine decision-making, the generation of insights, engagement, and now even human interactions – the Master is beginning to change. The management of processes central to many businesses are now within the purview of AI.
Examples include back-end administration in banks, health insurance offices, and law firms, among others. And in almost every industry, processes that include interactions falling within a modest range – payroll processing, order processing, compliance checks – are increasingly automated.
And that’s just what conventional AI is doing. As generative AI overturns entire professions and begins weaving itself into almost every business role where information-gathering and human communication are involved, the percentage of time spent on tasks it can do will reduce the number of human beings needed to fill roles of all kinds, across the board.
In short, the advent of ubiquitous AI will change the Master-and-Mule equation forever. Machines are already the Mule; now machines are taking over for human beings as the Master.
Master-and-Mule will be, increasingly, machine-and-machine.
So, yes, this time is different...
Comments