Lately, I have been feeling like I am living in a science fiction novel.  The news about artificial intelligence (AI), including the speculation about when it will get to artificial general intelligence, how it will take away jobs for most workers, and how it could go rogue and take over the world is part of what feeds this thought for me.  We have examples from movies and science fiction for what the world might be like. There’s the movie Terminator with Arnold Schwartzenager that depicts a world in which the machines take over and earlier, the movie 2001: A space odyssey.  There’s been plenty of science fiction novels that depict the future world that we can draw from.

Those science fiction novels might be feeding the AI itself.  One recent development is the creation of a social media site for artificial intelligence models called Moltbook.  People who have lurked on it say scary things about what the models are saying, but others have concluded that they are just parroting back what has been written in sci fi novels. 

On top of the AI concerns, then there’s the idea that the war with Iran will help bring about Armageddon. According to one complaint from a non-commissioned officer reported by The Guardian this idea has been propagated by some of miliary brass. According to the complaint filed:  “He said that ‘President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth’”.

Finally, I just heard someone speculate that AI will become so expensive that very few people will use it. Right now, AI is being subsidized by venture capital, but they will want a return on their investment at some time, so prices will have to increase. This happened with ride sharing and food delivery services, so perhaps it will also happen here. What he didn’t take into account is that there may be a learning curve and the costs may come down.

To paraphrase what Noah Smith, one of my favorite economic writers on Substack, just said about this topic, we don’t know what the future holds with respect to AI. Could it mean mass unemployment?  Perhaps.  Could it mean greater prosperity?  Perhaps. Who knows what the future holds? No one.  We just have to live through it.