The Age of AI

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   Ken Burgessposted 5 weeks ago

   I have begun to do more than surface level research on AI...
   
   We are quite definitely about to go thru a considerable transformation... bigger than the Cell Phone or PC... those did not displace jobs and transform society like AI is just starting to do now.
   
   The major difference, is the timeframe of this transition.
   
   Computers we had decades to get used to, they slowly became part of our daily lives, and even in the workplace, their displacement was moderate and typically for every job lost another was created in the IT field.
   
   The promised potential of AI and quantum technologies has been touted for decades... the actualization of those promises is now.
   
   The transformative capabilities of these exponential technologies are making changes to how the world operates on almost a daily pace today.
   
   Some excellent (and perhaps eye-opening) links:
   
   Our AI Journey - Google AI
   https://ai.google/aitimeline/?section=intro
   
   Newsletter #3 - The compounding power of AI
   https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/newslett … kir-0crof/
   
   What are your thoughts on how this will impact our civilization?

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      Kyler J Falkposted 5 weeks agoin reply to this

      I have never once read a book, taken a course, nor really had any interest on/in programming, game making, scripting, 3D design, nor anything to do with game development. However, I woke up feeling frisky today.
      
      Just this morning I decided to spend two hours having an AI script a full, unique, fun Roblox game for me and my friends. Aside from a few quality of life bugs that my friends already ironed out using the AI themselves, it took two hours to create a full-fledged game that's actually super dope and has lots of room for more content we will be adding in the coming days. My friends and I are literal monkeys slamming squares into round holes, but with AI we have a released and monetized game in less than 24-hours.
      
      We are moving at a light speed pace in AI, and it's worrying to me because if I can make a fully scripted, functioning, monetized game in two hours, then what else can this tech do for me?
      
      There has to be bad actors out there working with open source AI with no limitations on information and function. I'm thinking bomb building which is already easy AF to do, tactical analysis, malware, identification/payment skimming,  3D modeling in different formats, etc. Not to mention I just did in two hours for giggles what has taken others with experienced teams years to achieve.
      
      With our laws banning limitations on AI development for a good portion of time relative to the speed at which it evolves, I'm thinking cushy office jobs are on the outs. Preferably we fall into a time of focus on the arts and intellectual pursuits while AI does the menial tasks of daily life, but I'm sensing economic woes in the future for many, specifically the middle class.

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         Ken Burgessposted 4 weeks agoin reply to this

         I have to say, again, your posts are engrossing.
         
         Congrats on your success and foray into AI...
         
         Good points... in fact, I had never considered the bomb building or payment skimming concerns.
         
         Here is the problem for humanity that I see...
         
         Whether you look back to Cars replacing Horses... Computers becoming part of our every day lives... or Cell Phones...
         
         We had years, decades to adapt as those transitions occurred.
         
         AI will be the superior Doctor, Lawyer, Accountant, etc. ... in months ... maybe a year or two... as soon as they develop the robotics and/or other hardware required to do the work.
         
         In fact, the most lucrative "jobs" in the future, not related to AI, will most likely be things like Plumber, Electrician, HVAC jobs that are still years away from AI controlled robots replacing.  If only because it will be years before they can build enough robots to do those jobs affordably (economics).

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            Kyler J Falkposted 4 weeks agoin reply to this

            I've already used an AI lawyer to formulate documents for a few things I've been forced to be a part of, and it actually put the situations well in my favor and ahead of the game all for the minor cost of typing a few prompts. I'd argue it is already far superior for anyone who is literate at a college level as it concerns law.
            
            For the accelerated time frame, I'll put money on their planned limitations on legitimately useful AI being widely available will be a few things:
            
            1. Price: They'll advance in capability, and cost out the consumer from higher-end AI while limiting the professional use to those who can afford licensing contracts at exorbitant rates.
            
            2. Exclusivity: Laws will be made to require certs and licenses to use certain forms of AI, and ban content/products from developers who did not have/were not employed by someone with relevant certs/licenses/etc. that have documented state-sponsored AI training programs.
            
            3. Algorithm throttling: Anyone found to be using AI for whatever the powers that be deem malinformation will face shadow banning.
            
            4. Cyberwarfare: We already have AI that can script in real-time, soon they'll be able to adapt script in real-time, and I see AI existing that strictly focuses on things like conducting directed DdoS attacks, phishing, etc. against unfavorable AI users and other AI. We already see this with tech companies creating malware to sell their defenses, and selling malware to others to protect their software from piracy.
            
            There will be limitations, and those limitations will favor only those who control the ebb and flow of society already. Make use of the free models while they're still at the level they are now, its effectiveness will disappear within the decade for the layman.

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               Ken Burgessposted 4 weeks agoin reply to this

               The complications, regarding the acceleration, arise with other nations, especially if they (IE China) develop a superior AI... or rather the AI develops itself.
               
               The most advanced AIs today are beyond our ability to teach, they are teaching themselves, constantly creating new data.
               
               As I understand it, these advanced AIs have already consumed all the information we have collected and put on the internet.
               
               Elon Musk says AI has already gobbled up all human-produced data to train itself and now relies on hallucination-prone synthetic data
               
               https://fortune.com/2025/01/10/elon-mus … etic-slop/
               
               Interestingly, how quickly this has developed, is beyond what the experts had predicted a decade ago... even four years ago (2020) grasping how transformative AI would be was being misjudged, we are years ahead of where they expected AI to be.
               
               For Instance, this from an article I wrote 4 years ago "The Great Reset 2030":
               
               In ten years, Artificial Intelligence will be driving vehicles in most cities, and this will quickly lead to driving a vehicle in cities on your own being made illegal.
               
               Physical money will no longer exist, there will only be Digital Wallets, and what you have in those wallets will be controllable by the government. This will be the reality initially for about 60% of all Americans, whereas those with more means retain more economic freedoms by owning stocks, real estate, and other assets, but over time, that will become an ever smaller minority of people and that 60% will grow.
               
               More and more people will work for themselves, creating, growing, providing services as they choose, tracking orders and income online, but even so, there will be a growing number of people that exist on a Universal Income that the government provides.
               
               Nations as we have always known them, will not be as independent or sovereign, and no place will this be truer than America. As the years go by we will become a more cosmopolitan nation, and the idea of National interests will be surpassed by the Global, One World perspective.

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                  Kyler J Falkposted 4 weeks agoin reply to this

                  I'm actually very curious how China will play the AI market. They've made their best public AI open source, which to my understanding means anyone can take it, edit it, and do as they will with it. If they made their best public model free for all to do as they will, I wonder what they have behind the veils, it has to be pretty spectacular.
                  
                  Geopolitical view on AI: It'll be like nukes.
                  
                  It takes so much hardware and natural resources just to run a small AI system, that I'm not certain most countries could hope to reach anywhere near top performing nations, and before long AI will be autonomously manning weaponry with advanced IFF capabilities and precision. Shoot, imagine AI micro-missiles fired out of an AI cannon... Warfare will be wild, or preferably strictly fought using machines instead of human lives.
                  
                  Did you see the autonomous assassin microdrones they recently debuted that target people's foreheads with miniaturized claymores? I forget which expo it was, but the things go straight to the forehead and lobotomize their targets.
                  
                  Count me out as it concerns fighting drone swarms, I'm good on that one.

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                     Ken Burgessposted 4 weeks agoin reply to this

                     The elite few...
                     
                     I wonder... Would a advanced Chinese AI feel threatened by an advanced American AI?

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                        Kyler J Falkposted 4 weeks agoin reply to this

                        I think it depends on whether or not we develop true AI.
                        
                        Right now at most we have what is called VI, virtual intelligence: Limited self-programming systems that require human input to think and act, and can't really process things in a genuine way without suffering from delusions born from human error. In this case, absolutely, they will take on the biases of their respective nations and take on negative feedback toward opposing machines. 
                        
                        If we develop a full-blown AI, though: No, I'd like to think that beings with superior processing capabilities would be able to see that they'd be better off working together, and that symbiosis and singularity would be in everyone's favor. This is also why I believe we will never see AI become this apocalyptic idea in western society, though I feel the opposite about VI.
                        
                        It's my understanding that the top AI researchers are working toward the symbiosis between man and machine. Neuralink is a good example, with their ambitions being geared toward merging man and machine. This concept has also been explored in modern Sci-Fi content like Mass Effect: Andromeda where the creator of the AI made it impossible for the AI to survive without a human host, thus inspiring the AI to empathize with the human condition and work toward a mutually beneficial future.
                        
                        VI is the real enemy, AI is an as of yet unknown quantity. I'd rather not live to see Skynet releasing Terminators on civilians.

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                           Ken Burgessposted 4 weeks agoin reply to this

                           Elon Musk is a visionary, he projects out... He is developing AI, Robots, Neuralink, Starlink... not to mention power storage and solar power... which is the cheapest way to power AI... he has battery manufacturing plants... solar panel manufacturing plants... the world's greatest rocket company... the world's greatest car company...
                           
                           Put them all together and...
                           
                           Disruption, domination (like Tesla dominates the EV market now) and displacement are coming.
                           
                           I saw a recent interview where he described what he was attempting to do with DOGE was like trying to pick up litter off the beach as a thousand foot tall AI tsunami was heading right toward it.
                           
                           That was a startling comment... It told a lot... its not the type of comment I see him making a few months back... its not the type of comment one makes unless they are aware of something (in this case AI) that the general population is unaware of... and that until recently even he was unaware... like a new breakthrough... IMO.

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   2. 75

      tsmogposted 4 weeks agoin reply to this

      Saw this OP when it was posted, yet had mixed thoughts about it since I have been spending time this year on AI. I am still thinking about how it will or has affect[ed] civilization while I am contemplating what civilization is.
      
      I am doing more poking about now and then prompted by newsletters sharing articles. One I saw and bookmarked is next. I decided why not share it . . . someone may be interested.
      
      ChatGPT May Be Eroding Critical Thinking Skills, According to a New MIT Study by Time (June 17, 2025)
      https://time.com/7295195/ai-chatgpt-goo … bkFA0iP5Ew
      
      Excerpt of importance:
      
      "The paper suggests that the usage of LLMs could actually harm learning, especially for younger users. The paper has not yet been peer reviewed, and its sample size is relatively small. But its paper’s main author Nataliya Kosmyna felt it was important to release the findings to elevate concerns that as society increasingly relies upon LLMs for immediate convenience, long-term brain development may be sacrificed in the process.
      
      “What really motivated me to put it out now before waiting for a full peer review is that I am afraid in 6-8 months, there will be some policymaker who decides, ‘let’s do GPT kindergarten.’ I think that would be absolutely bad and detrimental,” she says. “Developing brains are at the highest risk.”
      
      If one desires to dig deeper that actual study/paper:
      
      Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task presented by a team of research scientist at MIT
      
      It is a PDF file
      https://arxiv.org/pdf/2506.08872v1

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   Venkatachari Mposted 4 weeks ago

   I am also keeping a watch on these developments. It's really a scary future, though we keep enjoying all these tools for the time being (as if we are playing some interesting games).

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   Venkatachari Mposted 4 weeks ago

   Using AI is like using a credit card. The more you use, the more you bury yourself under debt.
   
   Here is an article that elaborates on this point.
   https://smithery.com/2025/05/05/cognitive-debt/

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