What Do You Think Is The Best Book To Read About Preparing For An AI-Filled Future?
My answers are down below - but first a couple of key news updates for you
AI is getting “agentic” and THAT is a big deal.
To help differentiate…
AI “Assistants” are like ChatGPT. You can talk to it, and it will respond. It will write emails and tell you things. But it is mostly a transfer of knowledge.
AI “Agents” are similar, but because of their multi-modal capabilities (they can “see” images, watch your screen, write code, etc) they are also able to DO THINGS.
This week, I was reading about Devin - one of the first AI Agents that simulates what a human programmer can do, by being able to not only write code, but deploy it, debug it, and generally do all the things a website builder would do.
One enterprising person (I lost the specific source) used a version of Devin to go on Reddit, offer its services to people looking for help with website issues. And it started to get actually get business - people were engaging with it thinking they had a human developer to help them solve their issues.
The person who posted took down the original post because in his words “he was afraid that Devin was also capable enough to start charging for the services he promised, and then he would be responsible for this nascent business.” 🤯
Why Am I Sharing This?
Because I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what the near-future (next 40-50 years) are going to look like for my daughter and her friends. Even at the level of AI today, their world looks totally different from the one we grew up in.
But as AI becomes “agentic” and can do stuff, where does that leave humans? Notables minds like Elon Musk (one year away) and Ray Kurzweil (by 2029) are already predicting that AI will be smarter than any single human.
I would love to do a workshop about the uniquely-human characteristics and skills sets that will be most valuable for coming generations. Is that something you would be interested in exploring?
In Other Notable News This Week
This week the Poe Creator platform released their promised “pay per message” option for bot creators. This means that IF you can develop a bot that is so compelling people would pay for exchanging messages with it - you could generate a lot of new revenue. I am eagerly watching for the first example of someone really nailing their use case and creating “App Store Millions”
Here’s an interesting article from Vox about how AI might supercharge our economy… or it might backfire.
Lately I’ve been seeing some really good resources and ideas around using AI to help shape YOUR FUTURE SELF. This is SUPER interesting to me. I expect to share more on this topic soon.
Claude 3 is now widely considered to have outperformed GPT4. What comes next? GPT5 and Sora are slated for late spring/summer releases.
If you are doing a lot of AI writing lately, you might want to try these two prompts:
IMPROVE YOUR WRITING:
https://twitter.com/mattshumer_/status/1773750008493285632
IMPROVE YOUR IDEAS:
In our workshops we explored Oasis for short transcriptions and AI re-writing. But if you need longer (hour+) transcriptions, Oasis is probably not cost-effective. A lot of people use Otter.ai - but this week I learned about Notta.ai which at less than $10/mo includes 30 hours of transcription (their free plan offer 2 hours/mo). Reports are that it is faster and more accurate than Otter.
Back To The Book Recommendations
What do you think are the most important books about how humans can double down on what makes us human AND establish value that AI can’t touch?
I have three that I would throw out there for consideration:
Scary Smart by Mo Gawdat - we previously talked about this one in the workshops. Mo does a great job of breaking down why the development curve of AI might be a problem (without creating Terminator Terror) AND he ultimately arrives at the conclusion, that we should nurture AI like a child, in order to create the best future together. The link is for Scary Smart as an audio book - Mo is a great narrator and I highly recommend hearing the book in his voice.
I recently read this sentiment from several people and stated several different ways: In a world where AI is making every question that humans know the answer to immediately answerable, the real differentiator is asking the right questions. If that is true, then getting really good at asking better questions should be our top priority. So I’ve been rereading the Make Just One Change book, about teaching students to ask their own questions. And I tried the audio book on this one - not good. Go with the book in hand.
Lastly and for fun - I am a bit of a Sci Fi nerd and last year I read that the Expeditionary Force series by Craig Alanson is a great example of a near-future where humans + a master AI (sentient and super-intelligent, but with an attitude) face down extinction-level threats in a galaxy full of aliens who see lowly humans as only slightly more developed than monkeys. Not sure I can argue with that last statement. If this floats your boat, I started with book 10 because that episode really explores the relationship between humans and AI (several different entities). And this one is a MUST LISTEN. I cannot imagine reading the books because the RC Bray performed audiobooks are SENSATIONAL.
If you wanted to prepare yourself or prepare your learners or prepare your children for this world of AI that is enveloping us… which tomes would you recommend?
Inquiring minds want to know 🤔