Reading Wyatt Emmerich in the Northside Sun is usually one of the highlights of my week. Erudite and insightful, Wyatt delves into various topics with wit and wisdom. His recent editorial on AI (artificial intelligence), however, seems overly pessimistic.
Wyatt suggested that AI will make us a “nation of morons producing silly fake video memes with huge power bills.”
There certainly is, as Wyatt says, a problem with AI’s current model. AI platforms do indeed “scrape” (steal?) content from those that produce it. For newspapers, like the Northside Sun, this just is not fair. AI cannot continue forever to benefit from what other people produce, without compensating them.
Benefiting from what other people produce without paying them was once what the website Napster did in the music industry. But then along came Spotify and others with a way to remunerate those that actually made the music.
I suspect that sooner or later we will see something similar with AI platforms making payments, as Wyatt proposes. The sooner this happens, the better.
Interestingly, X has already started to pay users who produce content. It may only be a matter of time before such payments are made to those that provide the information X depends upon in the first place.
Wyatt goes on to suggest that AI is the “biggest power hog” in history because the new tech will cause demand for electricity to surge as we all spend our time making funny videos to post online.
I’m sure plenty of funny videos will be produced, but the true significance of AI is that it allows those who adapt to it to become vastly more productive.
Ever since the start of the industrial revolution, people have feared that new technology will make them redundant. Instead, what it has meant is that they could use the new technology to achieve more for less.
Rather than replace good writers or lawyers or actors, for instance, I suspect AI will allow those that use it to be even better.
Running a small, highly productive think tank in Mississippi, I find new benefits of AI every day. Mundane, time consuming tasks can now be done in an instant. Output has soared. AI allows us to punch above our weight and have an even bigger impact. I suspect something similar will be happening in businesses across America. The big and the bloated will lose out. The nimble will thrive.
As for the fact that AI is going to require an enormous increase in electricity output, surely the same could have once been said about air conditioning or automobiles? No one (apart from a few radical environmentalists) seriously suggests we should not have ac or cars because we need to find the energy to power them.
An energy company in our state will be investing $3 billion in new power generation, but why should anyone see that as a negative? I came to America from a country, Britain, which failed to invest in new energy production capacity. Living standards there are in decline as a consequence. Not generating more electricity is the real negative.
We should celebrate that fact that Mississippi is going to be generating lots more electricity to allow us to use this amazing new AI technology to do more, faster and for less. Cheap energy and new technology is helping fuel our future growth.
Far from making us a nation of morons, AI will allow us to be more informed, entertained and amused (with or without funny video memes) than ever before.
Douglas Carswell, President & CEO, Mississippi Center for Public Policy.
