Accelerated Learning Machines..

Another subject which will, in the future, be of interest to mainly academics; though by no means less interesting because of that; is how quickly the human population learns to master its new AI tools. The reason (no one reads this, so your PhD is safe. ish) is motivation.

Take me, for example.

I really want to see an image of my near-neighbour, with his head squeezed so far up the exhaust pipes of his sickeningly SUV-like vehicle that his arse explodes. Only for a minute, but still; it only takes a second to produce such an image on good hardware, in vivid detail and HDR colours, even animated. Once you are up-to-speed1.

Which we so fucking quickly will be. Well, the ones not displaced / bombed / migrating / and so on; usual stuff-that-fucks-with-net-access. Basically, unless there is a damned good reason not to3, most of the connected human population will be, in some way, spending large chunks of their day interacting with Artificial Intelligence, which is to say, a big heap of code that only looks intelligent but does such groovy shit we don't care.

It's like getting a blow-job on a dark night and only realising near-climax that your gifted fellatio-artist is the same-sex as you, or more than one sex, but fuck it, too late to care now. Okay, it's not entirely like that, but the need to get there is strong. Motivation; it's a great motivator.

Converse with someone who really knows you. Check.

Create your own porn direct from your imagination with only spoken/written words. Check.

Get tasks that would take creative-you hours done instantly. Check. ( Clients won't notice: a) they be fuckwits, and b) your filters rock).

MOTIVATION.

Cut to me decades ago at the dole, meeting my usual man. He looked like he'd had two hours sleep at most. I said, "late night, eh?"

"Can you notice?", he say, aghast. Previous week he's telling me about a promotion coming up. These were in the days before state support relied upon utter compliance with the script.

[translation: he's up for a promotion RIGHT NOW, and by normal reasoning should be "putting in the hours" and "doing his utmost" and all that, but is instead, for some reason, staying up until 5am in the morning.]

"A shave would have helped", I laughed. Too loud, they're onto us again. We lower heads and voices, to share.

"I'm collaborating on a game. Online! There's just a few of us, but it's really turning into something! ... ". He has no idea that I'm me, only that I'm "him".

He was willing to risk his entire career for this fun side-gig because it felt good. He was connecting, he was learning, mastering shit, contributing. All the things his government "position" was denying him. And more.

We will pick up these new tools; and develop; and this supersonic feed-back loop will, so soon, create things that literally make me swoon with possibility. If you haven't already, imagine it for a moment.

Years ago I imagined having a digital assistant that could help me fulfill the dreams I didn't get the time or a chance to do, like make movies. I'm stone soup 100% certain that I could make the best films ever made. I simply lack the staff and equipment / resources. Also, I was never a team player.

Sure, I could voice all the dialog, and top-tier you better believe it! (AI-altered to the characters, of course) and compose all the great songs, but soon I won't have to; simply feed my assistant the AI-Generated dialog to be generated with with ((emotional intention - train from 2weeks family-dialogue/arguments)), and thousands of songs I already have kicking around, and boom! I can make great movies.

Except that now when I think about it; I don't want to.

The idea was better.

So now we train our AI to train itself on data. And everything is data. Switch on the audio, the video, the IoT cloud that grows around me, learning and consuming until I am replicated, in thought and deed.

Humans becoming Gods. It will be fun to watch.

And worth a few more PhD's, I'd wager.

;o)