AI is coming

04/07/2021 | carlosgoga | cambio, clase creativa, IA, nuevas tecnologías, otra economía | 1 Comentario

Two years ago, I felt the need to update my own understanding regarding digital technology and the IT industry. I keep offering my 25-years point of view to businesspeople in a masterclass and it was maybe lacking some key points regarding “AI” (by “AI” I mean Artificial Intelligence).

I guess this sense of vacuum was watered by the reading of Yuval Noah Harari’s trilogy and his obsessive signaling of AI as the number one threat that we humanity face. At that time, the seeds of curiosity where already planted by two important movies that I enjoyed in 2014: Her and Transcendence.

Of course, my curiosity is not an easy one. I started in the digital industry in 1993 and I do not have much time neither patience for vaporware neither technology flashes, that orchestra of people overselling technology and its thousand naïve, isolated pitches. This maybe because I fully recognize that Amara’s Law is one of the particularly important rules of the industry: “We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run”. Last times that I made some similar efforts were with the arrival of smartphones and social networks in 2008, which I fully understood as a big inflection point; and with the irruption of sales pitches around blockchain and bitcoin in 2016, which I felt annoying and confusing.

So, this 2019, somehow, two opposite industry forces got my attention. On one hand, YouTube released a series of documentaries by the name of The Age of AI which fully opened my eyes and helped separating the wheat from the chaff. On the other hand, I found about Tristan Harris and his Center for Humane Technology, which I felt as nicely embodying my own journey and my own worries. One year later, the documentary The Social Dilemma was released. Both happenings feed up my curiosity and kicked off my will to better understand the state of the art of the industry as a whole and that of AI in specific. By the way, I strongly recommended these documentaries to you.

Following my rule of three, I chose three books. Finally, they resulted in three plus one. I felt to start by reading again a novel that would help to reframe the situation with some sweetness and magic. So, these were my choices. In total, four books, more than 1.500 pages with hundreds of margin notes and underlines, and lots of side reading and watching to deepen in those concepts, people and companies that were flowing in front of me: (más…)

Etiquetas: apple, cambio, crisis, emprendedor, empresario, facebook, google, innovación, microsoft, nuevo trabajo, oportunidad, peligro, RBU, renta básica, SiliconValley, SillaSofáZapatilla, tecnología, tsunami