#69-Artifical Intelligence - Introduction

This podcast will kick off a series of episodes on AI, and my personal view of it.

Transcript

Artificial Intelligence, Introduction.

A frequent topic of conversation, increasingly at PMI, is artificial intelligence. We all know that the technology behind AI is improving rapidly, perhaps at a logarithmic pace, and because of this many people have become concerned about their own personal professional futures.

I teach classes both face-to-face and virtually and will usually open the classroom half an hour or so prior to the start of the class… so that students can come in early, ask questions, or just chat about things that interest them. It's a little bit like “open office hours” for a college professor, if you are familiar with the concept. 

Increasingly over the past few years the topic of AI has been coming up in these sessions. I teach mostly software developers and so their reason for speaking to me is usually something along the lines of “what will my job be in 5 years?  Will I even have a job at all? “ They are obviously concerned that the ability of AI to generate code will replace them in the workforce. 

I think this concern is understandable, and is shared by a lot of people in various lines of work. We see examples of AI creating music, writing screenplays, providing customer support, and doing all manner of activities that in the past we would have considered to be limited to the realm of human endeavor. 

At the macro level we have to ask: what will it do to our economy if a large number of jobs are replaced by this kind of automation?

I want to start off by making it clear I do not consider myself in any way to be an expert on AI. But I have been involved in various forms of automation for over four decades, and I have seen a lot of things come and go over that time. I've also worked in a vast number of different Industries both as a consultant and mentor to other automation experts.

Whether my experience will apply to this issue is debatable, but if someone comes to me with a question, I assume they want to know what my answer is. 

Also, I must acknowledge that whatever we think of AI and its impact on our culture, our lives, and the world at large, there is no stopping it. Even if, say, the congress of the United States tried to put some limitations or restrictions on the development of AI, that would only mean that other countries would surpass us in this endeavor. You cannot, as they say, put the genie back into the bottle once you've let it out. 

So, for the next few episodes of this podcast, what I want to do is to address a number of insights that I think I can share with relative confidence that will at least be interesting, and hopefully informative and helpful. 

I am always open to comments and responses to the work that I do, but here I especially would like to encourage all of you listening to give me feedback on the points that I make. One of my main sources of learning is my students, and the people who watch and listen to the material that I make. As I say I do not consider myself to be an expert on AI and I am sure that I have things to learn from all of you. 

Also, I acknowledge that my view on this has changed somewhat over the past few years, and I expect it will continue to change as AI grows, and as I become exposed to more wisdom from those I collaborate with.  I’d like to invite you to be one of those people.

See you next week.