Dario's future and more

Intro #

Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic wrote a wonderful blog post about his prediction and vision for the future of AI and its impacts on society here.

In one sense the vision laid out here is extremely radical … But at the same time there is something blindingly obvious—something overdetermined—about it…

As Dario says, although his predictions were bold and optimistic, most of them seem to be extrapolating over a trend of technological progress and shrinking the timeline. These predictions are bold in the acceleration of human progress but are less ambitious and creative in viewing the new ways societies, governments and individuals will operate.

His predictions include:

• prevention of different diseases, cancer and extension of lifespan
• progress in understanding the brain
• improved food security, reduction of poverty

His predictions for the future are strongly connected to his world model and the effect AI can have on humanity. The lense and perspective he is looking at the future is primarily through the lense of scientific and technological advancements, with AI being an accelerator of this. There are a lot of insightful things in his essay but I would like to take a differernt perspective, looking closer at how the individual will be affected.

His post is interesting and insightful but I think it lacks some creativity in the different ways AI will impact humanity and in this post I would like to dive deeper, looking specifically at the individual.

All these predictions feel like more of an extrapolation of the current progress of science and technology with a shortened horizon due to AI (shrinking 100 years of progress into 10). Instead I would like to take a different approach and think more in terms of AI’s impact on humanity and more specifically, the individual.

The Individual #

AI’s progress, at least in the next 10 years will bring the most power to the individual. At least while the access to frontier models is relatively accessible to the individual for a small subscription fee, almost everyone in the world will have access to agents. As these agents become more capable and more equipped with “tools” such as the ability to use a computer, browse the internet, communicate with other agents etc, agents will become more useful for individuals in every regard. This will have a large impact on “levelling the playing field”. The oft quoted “The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed” can be applied in this sense to see where the future leads us. In this case, the uneven distribution comes from the ultra-rich and famous. If you haven’t noticed, famous celebrities have a “person” for every part of their life: a stylist, a life coach, a personal assistant, a hairstylist, a nutritionist/chef, a lawyer, an interior designer, a business coach, a private tutor.

A case study we can analyse is celebrity’s stylists. Certain people have stylists who help create their wardrobe that best meets their body type, skin tone, and personal preference. Some can argue that this can remove the autonomy from the individual to make choices on what they wear, while others say that the discussion and conversation with the stylists can help you better express yourself. As most things, it is somewhere in between. With the AI future, we can also take this a step further by creating even more personalised ways of expressing yourself through custom clothes and jewellery.

Taking this in an even broader sense, AI can help design our life. Just like fashion, AI can help facilitate our self-creation, self-discovery and self-expression. We can use AI to help us self-actualise and understand ourselves better while not dictating our lives. Applications for helping self-actualisation using AI can be more in the form of discovery of useful sources and information (if you are creating a new business idea, finding sources for similar ideas), being able to link and see how different ideas you have relate (“you’ve written about the importance of personal connections and your love of martial arts, there is a boxing gym close to your place”), being able to find inconsistencies in your thinking (“you recently wrote about this idea which seems to conflict with this other idea, how do you reconcile these two conflicting ideas”). AI can also help you find clarity in who you are, what your beliefs and values are, rather than a therapist, think of it as a mirror to help see yourself more clearly.

AI has the potential to dramatically expand individual agency by providing us with unprecedented access to resources, tools, and insights. Think of it as a universal translator between your vision and its execution - not by doing things for you, but by empowering you to do them yourself.

With AI agents as collaborators, we can extend our reach across multiple domains simultaneously. Imagine being able to seamlessly move between creating a business plan, creating an app, building a house, and composing music - all while maintaining creative control. These agents don’t replace our decision-making; they amplify our ability to execute on our ideas.

Perhaps most transformatively, AI can democratise access to expertise that was once reserved for the elite. You no longer need to be wealthy to work with a world-class architect on your dream home, collaborate with an experienced producer on your music, or get guidance on how to make your coffee shop profitable.

Empowering vs Relying #

There are also many downsides and risks in this future where everyone has AI that is an expert in various fields. The main risk is in how people will use this technology and which parts of people’s lives it will play in. I believe that everything is a muscle. The more you use it and use it for harder things, the more you strengthen it. We must be careful with how AI integrates into our lives, we must strike a balance between which dimensions it accentuates and empowers us and which dimensions it weakens certain muscles.

Just as the machine and steam engine allowed people to “move up” in agency, doing less menial tasks, AI can help empower people to “move up” to more creative, strategic, and deeply human endeavours. Instead of spending time on routine analysis, basic research, or repetitive problem-solving, individuals can focus on more creative and higher-order activities.

But a trap that is easy to fall into will be AI being a tool that atrophies our muscles of judgement, critical thinking and ability to understand and create complex things. A very clear example of this is students relying on AI for coding tools like chatgpt and co-pilot when learning to code. By over-relying on these tools, especially early in your learning journey, it creates a reliance on the tool and creates a superficial and shallow understanding on how something works. When working on more complex scenarios, having that deep, first-principles understanding of how something works is extremely important. In this regard, it can be something that weakens student’s coding abilities. On the other hand, these tools can also be used to get an even deeper understanding of a topic through various creative ways.

If AI is going to be pervasive in every day life, it will be playing a large role in the fundamentals of who you are, how you interact with the world around you and how you express yourself. Not only this, it will be helping create and design your life, including making decisions. This has the potential to rob us of quintessential aspects of the human experience, making us a pet to our AI overlord. How can we interact with AI to ensure that it is not robbing us of our decision making, how we interact with people and how we express ourselves? The key lies in establishing the right relationship with AI - not as a master or servant, but as a creative collaborator. Think of great creative partnerships: a musician working with a producer, a director working with the crew, a writer working with an editor. In each case, the supporting partner amplifies and refines the creator’s vision rather than supplanting it. We need to ensure AI can become a tool that will amplify our output to the world.

Conclusion #

I too share Dario’s great optimism for the future of humanity. I see AI as being a a tool that complements civilisation and greatly empowers the individual. Making us understand ourselves better, connect with others deeper and empower us in our endeavours.