Issue#16: What can AI look like 20 years?
A fictional tale of what the world could be like in future.
“Hooah! Hooah! Time to wake up weakling”, blasted Arkantos.
With surprise I wake up from the fantasy land of magical warriors. My mind was there. Slowly I forget the spells I learnt in my fantasy land.
“Get up and do 10 pushups now”, Arkantos screamed like a drill instructor. I have had enough of his crap.
“Arkantos, shut up and go back to your butler mode”, I annoyingly said.
“Okay sir”, Arkantos replied. With no hint of emotion. It walked away and came back with a glass of water and an apple.
“Thank you very much. Now go and do the chores. Don’t disturb me”, I ordered my slave.
Arktantos is a robot. I named him from a character of a game I used to play. Age of Mythology if you are curious.
I haven’t confirmed why his behavior changed to a drill instructor, but I am guessing it’s my wife playing prank on me.
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20 years passed since the release of the revolutionary tech “Chat GPT”. It started a revolution. Its affect was everywhere. If you didn’t use this AI in your lives, you were the odd one out. Like a person without phone.
I eat my apple and drink water. I do 10 push ups afterwards. Because that’s what heroes do. Then I ask Arkantos if I have any update on emails.
“Not one sir”, replied Arkantos. And this Arkantos is not the robot. Its a system integrated everywhere in the house. There is one common “brain” and rest are its parts stretching out in reality. The robot and the microphone in the room for example.
You might wonder if mic is everywhere, where is the privacy? It’s similar to Alexa, i.e the football like speaker from Amazon. It activates only after you say its name “Arkantos”. Rest of the time its mute. You can mute it with a master button after which saying Arkantos won’t work as well.
After checking my emails and other work related stuff, I realise that I have free time today. So I decide to continue the magical warrior fantasy I had in my dreams.
“Arkantos, ready my gaming room and start the game ‘The ring of water’. See if any of my friends are online. If not, send them a message that I am waiting for them. If they are, invite them to last raid we played”.
Now I asked a number of things to Arkantos. Gave it conditions “if online or not”. And it understands its perfectly.
So I hop over to my gaming room and see few of my friends are already online.
“Let’s go kill the dragon today”, I say and begin playing.
There was an important story which had hints on how to kill the dragon. Its weak spots. But I forgot. But I have Arkantos now.
“Arkantos, can you tell me the weak spots of dragon? It is there in the character journal”.
“Of course I can”, replied Arkantos. And immediately tells me its weak points.
It’s an assistant in the game as well.
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“Sir, its time to get your son from the school.”
Arkantos reminded me. In morning my wife takes them to the school. But I have the task of picking them up.
School has changed a lot. Every student has a box given to them. It is like Arkantos but specialized in student’s syllabus.
This box can be used by students in exam, classrooms or anywhere in school. Box provides hints. Explains questions and gives references. But it doesn’t think for them.
The main work a student now does is connect the dots. Between different fields of study like physics and biology.
The box is a fancy book which reduces the friction of finding the relevant items.
Its also a TV which can project videos. Only thing is that those videos are generated at that time based on the student’s doubt. Same with images.
The work of teacher has reduced. Their main work is to evaluate where the student is falling behind. Sports? Academics? Communication?
And of course emotional support. Students want a person to recognize and appreciate their efforts. Robots just don’t cut it.
“Hey buddy, get in. Time to go home”, I tell my kid in my car. Of course Arkantos can drive and get him back from school. But where is the life in that?
I reach home and see my wife preparing some dish. Of course Arkantos, the robot is fully capable of preparing dishes. But it cannot innovate. Its the same taste every time. If we ask him to add some twist, he will use onion sauce instead of mustard. Add white bread instead of brown bread. It just doesn’t have the knack to understand human taste.
“What are you making today”, I ask her unable to contain my curiosity.
“Oh its a combo of Indian and Chinese. Noodles with palak paneer”, she says proudly. Maybe some dishes should remain as they are, I think to myself.
The robot cuts the vegetable and arranges all the ingredients. My wife is like the chef whose job is to say “we are preparing this, get these things ready”. And once they are ready she will mix them. The robot is the unfortunate intern with peanuts for salary.
But robot was a game changing invention. It can help in every task you can think of. Cooking, dishes, laundry, house cleaning, car cleaning, dusting. It made our lives easy. And cheap. These labors cost have reduced by 100 times. They work 24/7. They find work if we miss to see it. But you may have a doubt.
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What happened to people who used to do these things? Well first it was a difficult challenge.
Many people lost their jobs. And new jobs take time to be created. So in the meantime Govt was forced to introduce minimum basic income. It came after 6 years of ChatGPT release.
Most of the jobs in retail, fast food, coffee shops, manufacturing are replaced by robots. Only few luxury or important places have jobs for people in such roles.
Many people are in creator economy. Robots cannot create something new. And we crave things which are not abundant. Which is art of some sort. Be it courses, games, movies, stories, paintings many people created what they wanted to.
Some people left all hope and relied heavily on minimum basic income.
Some people couldn’t stop building businesses so they continued building it.
Some people liked playing sports or climbing mountains.
Some people took up politics. Thats one job that robot will never take.
Some became professional gamers. In fact its a big industry now. Movies and series are dwarfs in front of gaming industry.
This is all because human necessity to produce essential goods like food, house, appliances are reduced. If 100 people did that before, only 5 people do it now. And they only supervise the robots. I suspect after few years, even supervision wouldn’t be required.
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“Yes! Food is ready”, my wife screams with joy. Its time for me to be the first one to taste. In times of fear we can be brave. I think to myself. I eat it. Its not bad surprisingly.
And these experiences are what robots will never have. Atleast in our lifetimes. To have experiences, we need to understand consciousness. The infinite universe that lies within us. And I think we are far away.
So there can’t be a robot which can taste food. Experience the rhythms of music. Imagine a story like you are now while reading.
That is exclusive to us. And that is what matters. Raising our awareness. Our experiences. Exploring our self. And in first time in history, the whole world might agree with it.
That’s it folks. See you next time.