How can the full application of AI realize a futuristic lifestyle?

By Haohua Zheng

Published: March 15, 2023

 

 

First, I would divide the full application of AI into three stages: virtual interaction, real-world interaction, and system integration. Currently, whether it's ChatGPT, Notion AI, or other AI, they are only at the first stage of virtual interaction, not even halfway through. Despite this, the current ChatGPT has profoundly changed our lives. we can imagine how deeply our lives will be impacted when AI completes these three stages. Therefore, I hope you can spend about 10 minutes patiently reading through all the stages, and I believe it will definitely overturn many of your ideas, and even your worldview. To better explore various aspects of AI, the content of the article will lean towards flexibility and openness, and will not be overly academic in its writing.

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"I believe that artificial intelligence represents the future of computer science." — Alan Turing, computer scientist, founding figure in the field of artificial intelligence.

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Stage 1: Virtual Interaction

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Milestone 1: Full Training

Currently, ChatGPT has mastered a large amount of knowledge and precise results through over 10,000 GB databases and billions of training iterations. However, there is still some distance from the first milestone of "full training."

 

Full training is defined as not only mastering knowledge in all domains but also reaching a considerable depth, nearly an "expert" level. At present, AI cannot answer questions about very deep and specific knowledge in certain fields. For example, when I ask AI how to play a certain technique in a specific game, it cannot answer. The reason is simple: AI has not been trained with this precise information, and even the current GPT-4 cannot reach that level.

 

However, with the open sourcing and API opening of AI, experts and stakeholders in all fields will train their AI such as Fine-Tuning, which will eventually lead to an exaggerated and unprecedented state of AI knowledge storage, possibly achieved within the next 3-5 years. At that time, the update of AI's knowledge storage will be rapid, as hundreds of millions of people worldwide will train their AI every day.

 

This also raises a crucial topic: how much impact will AI have on our lives after fully trained? The most direct impact of full training is on the education sector. The education method we have followed since childhood is to go to school and learn from teachers because our technology in the past was not sufficient to support and allow us to interactively transmit knowledge in other ways; we had to rely on human interaction to transmit knowledge. However, in the era of fully trained AI, the education system maintained by human labor will be subverted, and human labor will no longer be the only medium for knowledge transmission.

 

Therefore, future educational institutions such as schools may become optional, and they may even slowly disappear as time goes on. This is just the most intuitive impact, but the underlying effects are more far-reaching. For example, changes in the education system will inevitably break the monopoly of education, and breaking the monopoly of education will inevitably change the social structure and environment, like a butterfly effect. This is also the content I will elaborate on in later stages.

 

However, there are still many problems with fully trained AI that we need to consider and prevent. For example, how to screen those information to ensure the correctness and effectiveness of the training results? This requires close cooperation among many stakeholders and companies to solve.

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What opportunities that we can seize based on this milestone?

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"In the future, artificial intelligence will become an indispensable part of our lives." — Stephen Hawking, physicist, cosmologist.

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Milestone 2: Authorized Interaction

Currently, AI only provides one-way feedback and does not have real interactive functionality. With the widespread application of AI, human society will gradually empower AI to complete some daily chores. For example, allowing AI to help make reservations on certain websites or even make phone calls for appointments.

 

In this stage, many things in human society will become increasingly convenient, effectively saving our time and freeing us from trivial daily tasks.Imagine AI becoming your personal assistant, helping you pay insurance, book hotels, etc., just like Tony Stark's AI in Iron Man. The difference is that, at that time, everyone in human society will have such an AI assistant. Only then will human society truly realize virtual interaction on a meaningful level.

 

However, the implementation of authorized interaction requires the cooperation of governments, enterprises, and individuals, as only in this way can we better aware and solve hidden problems. Therefore, the key lies in how we can balance all aspects, trying to keep everything under control, even though the process will take a long time and face numerous challenges. This is also what I hope to achieve in my entrepreneurial journey within 5-10 years.

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"The goal of technology should not be to replace humans but to liberate them, allowing us to do more creative things." — Yoky Matsuoka, neuroscientist, former vice president at Google.

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Stage 2: Real-world Interaction

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Milestone 1: Intelligent Ecosystem

At certain stages in AI development, it is inevitable for the technology to extend from the virtual to the real world, and the most likely medium for this would be smart products. By smart products, I'm not only referring to smartphones and computers, but also all other products we use in our daily lives, such as smart tables and smart lamps. AI will act as a medium to help us directly control and manage these products.

 

Imagine having your AI assistant open the garage door and prepare a hot bath for you before you arrive home. This is just one simple and routine application in our future lives. There will certainly be more robots produced and controlled by your AI assistant to help you with daily tasks such as laundry and cooking, freeing people from mundane chores and allowing them to spend more time on the valuable things. As for cultivating such an AI assistant, I mentioned in the first stage that everyone can train their own AI, which may even understand you better than your partner. Of course, forming such an intelligent ecosystem requires not only the efforts of all enterprises and governments but also the acceptance and recognition of people. This is also what I aim to achieve in my entrepreneurial journey within the next 10-20 years.

 

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"We are at the beginning of a technological revolution, and artificial intelligence will redefine how we live, how we work, and how we interact with the world." — Masayoshi Son, founder and CEO of SoftBank Group.

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Milestone 2: World Revolution

A necessary consequence of real-world interaction is that AI will completely disrupt industries, which will definitely surpass the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries. This disruption not only refers to the overturning of traditional industrial models but also the transformation of human social systems.

 

As individuals possess their own intelligent ecosystems, so businesses and factories will also have their own intelligent ecosystems. Factories will be fully automated by AI-controlled machines, and even internet companies will be managed by AI. Imagine a future where a mobile app will no longer require a physical company to operate it and only needs a virtual AI to run; physical companies will no longer be necessary.

 

Therefore, the inevitable outcome of this revolution is that AI will completely replace human intellectual and physical labor, and the concept of people needing to find jobs will no longer exist in society. This may sound terrifying, as massive unemployment could lead to social chaos. However, there's no need to worry, as these things will not happen overnight, but rather as a very gradual process. During this transition, governments and businesses will slowly adjust and help those who become unemployed.

 

Nonetheless, the result will be unchanged: more and more people will become unemployed until everyone no longer needs to work. With the development of sustainable energy and nuclear fusion energy, the production and marginal costs of AI-driven industries will continue to decrease until they approach zero. This also means that people in the future may no longer need to obtain essential resources through currency, which will further ensure everyone's livelihood.

 

However, many issues may arise, such as how businesses will profit, how governments will operate, and how people will live. These are all worth considering and addressing in advance. In my personal view, the currency and government systems will face severe challenges and even be overturned under this inevitable trend.

 

The currency system, a necessary product of human society, primarily serves to maintain the current social circulation system. The so-called circulation system involves employees serving companies, companies serving consumers, and consumers serving other companies as employees in a continuous loop. The currency system exists to stabilize this structure. However, when AI replaces all work and becomes self-sufficient through sustainable energy, the existing social structure will be disrupted, and the significance of the currency system will be upended.

 

I personally look forward to this day, as its implications for individuals are immense. When we no longer need to work for money, we will engage in more activities we genuinely enjoy. For example, more people will enter the scientific field, and with the efficient assistance of AI, they will effectively and rapidly advance society and the world.

 

I believe that everyone has the potential to be a genius, but they are often held back by life's constraints. In my country, China, there is a humorous yet sad joke that if Einstein, Musk, or some historical great people were born in China, they might have worked on factory assembly lines until retirement. The truth is that many people have the potential to become outstanding scientists like Einstein, but they are trapped by the existing social structure.

 

Therefore, when this day finally arrives, I believe humanity will become better.

 

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"Our future is a co-created future, authored by both humans and intelligent machines." — Daniel H. Wilson, author, and roboticist.

 

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Stage 3: AI System

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The so-called system is like the operating system of a computer, where everything must function under the fundamental rules of the operating system. In real life, the operating system represents laws, rules, and civilization, all aimed at paving the path towards a world filled with love, fairness, and equality.

 

After completing the first two stages, human society will enter a completely different era. When the interaction between the virtual and the real world reaches its peak, a system will emerge to integrate all resources and manage the entire human society. At this time, the human governmental system will face serious challenges. The government, as a public authority institution, essentially maintains social order, allocates resources, regulates the economy, and ensures social justice and welfare. However, the current government system is dominated by power and is not entirely people-centric. One crucial reason is that the government system is run by humans, who are complex and possess subjective thoughts, leading to the inevitable and persistent abuse of power. In contrast, the AI system, consisting of countless codes and algorithms, will adhere to the basic principles of fairness, justice, and equality when handling all matters.

 

Meanwhile, I mentioned in the second milestone that the ultimate goal of AI reality interaction must be to replace all mental and physical work, because since the creation of human society, the operation of society has relied on manpower to complete mental and physical work due to the immature technology. Therefore, such a society is inevitably inefficient and error-prone. Including the majority of the current government system's work is also maintained by inefficient manpower. Therefore, the gradual replacement of the government system by AI systems seems to be an inevitable result, only a matter of time. However, there are still many issues that we need to consider and prevent in advance. For instance, how do we control the AI system without power? In my opinion, the algorithms of future AI systems will be extremely sophisticated, and we won't need to control or modify them. Instead, we will communicate with and provide suggestions to the AI system. Under the AI algorithm's judgment, effective suggestions will be retained and implemented. Even proposals not approved by the AI algorithm won't necessarily be abandoned. At that time, human society will be more democratic and flat, and as long as you can persuade more people to vote for your suggestion, the AI will retain and fulfill it. And at that time, the decision-making process of AI systems must also be interpretable and transparent, allowing people to intuitively see all the logic behind each decision made by the AI system. At the same time, the AI system will also have more sophisticated anti-discrimination and anti-bias detection programs to further ensure the fairness of the AI system.

 

Most importantly, the AI system will completely eradicate the abuse of power, creating a genuinely democratic, decentralized, and flat society. One inevitable result of living in such a society is the disappearance of wealth and class gaps. The most crucial reason for this is that AI's transformation of the educational environment will ensure everyone receives equal education. At that time, people's knowledge and cognitive levels will not have significant gaps, so the disparities in wealth and class will naturally lose their foundation, as they primarily stem from the monopoly on education. I do not intend to criticize modern society. In history, the monopoly on education had to exist at some point; otherwise, subsequent events might not have occurred. Just as humans had to experience despotism to realize the importance of democracy, and had to suffer the pain of war to understand the meaning of peace.

 

In the future, the new generation can learn everything through AI. Imagine our children being able to ask their AI assistant any question, anytime, anywhere. For example, what is the universe, what is the Milky Way, what is science, and so on. These are all things our parents couldn't teach us when we were young. Undeniably, the potential of our new generation far exceeds ours, even beyond our wildest imagination. More importantly, AI will flatten all aspects of life and break all monopolies. For instance, we just mentioned the monopoly on education, where high tuition fees and excessive barriers deprive many talented individuals of equal education opportunities. There are many other monopolies that I won't detail, but I believe we have encountered them in our lives.

 

At this point, some people may ask, since human nature is to pursue power and interests, why would wealth and class gaps disappear? The answer is not difficult. The pursuit of power and interests by humans is more a result of our current educational environment rather than solely determined by genes and heredity. It can be argued that genes and heredity are influenced by the environment, meaning that changes in the environment can gradually shape our genetics, steering future generations towards a more benevolent direction. This might be limited and dependent on the basic framework of genetics, but I still believe that we, as humans, have significant room for self-shaping. Speaking of the environment, our parents, friends, family, colleagues, and others make up this educational environment. Their unconscious expression of desire for money and power subtly influences us. Similarly, their pursuit of power and money is also because others have influenced them. Therefore, the emergence of AI not only disrupts the educational environment but also has profound and far-reaching impacts.

 

Speaking for myself, I do not have grand ambitions to change the existing educational environment, as it is a lengthy process that requires the efforts of many generations. Therefore, those of us in this era may find it difficult to witness that day. Nevertheless, I am still willing to take the first step to help more people see this vision.

 

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"Artificial intelligence will bring us a more efficient, sustainable, and equitable world." — Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google Inc.

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I recently learned about a fascinating yet terrifying phenomenon called the Overview Effect. This effect mainly describes a psychological change experienced by almost all astronauts when they enter space, which can even alter their worldview.

 

When astronauts see not only the beautiful Earth but also the vast and seemingly bottomless depths of the universe, a strong sense of insignificance and loneliness directly impacts their thoughts. Simultaneously, astronauts can directly see and imagine the contrasting scenes at opposite ends of the world. On one end, people suffer from war, disease, and poverty in remote corners, while on the other, people enjoy the revelry of parties on yachts. They are all human beings but live in two entirely different worlds. These are just the tip of the iceberg.

 

These experiences undoubtedly deepen astronauts' sense of insignificance and loneliness, to the extent that some even require psychological intervention for depression upon returning to Earth.

 

Discussing this primarily serves to introduce a crucial topic: a world without borders. A borderless world not only means the literal absence of borders but also symbolizes a fair, just, peaceful, and happy world. This seems like an era that most people, including myself, cannot imagine. However, for those who have completed the first and second phases we discussed earlier, this era is undoubtedly foreseeable.

 

As mentioned before, when AI systems replace government systems and eliminate the abuse of power, war and hostility will naturally disappear, the concept of nations will fade, and the concept of a borderless world will find fertile ground. In such an era, people can do what they genuinely love, and the only differences between people will be in thought and spirit. The concept of "gap" will also vanish, as true respect for individuals should not involve the idea of a "gap" but rather be described as "different."

 

Combining the three phases I mentioned earlier, people will inevitably live in a happier and more loving world. Consequently, people growing up in such an environment will be healthier, both physically and mentally.

 

This brings to mind a serious issue in modern society: are the "bad guys" we see on TV truly born evil? I believe the answer must be negative. When "bad guys" appear, most people's first reaction is to think about how to punish them, forgetting to consider the deeper causes. Aren't the "bad guys" a product of modern society? We can imagine a child who experienced abuse and violence in their youth, and in their still-imperfect adolescence, not only lost their parents but also lived in a social environment with strong racial overtones. It seems inevitable that this person would have character flaws. This person we imagine is Hitler.

 

As an individual, Hitler's crimes were evil and absolutely unforgivable. However, condemnation alone cannot help us understand the deeper reasons. Hitler was despicable but also pitiable because he was a product of his social environment, and his character flaws, combined with the abuse of power, directly led to the greatest tragedy in human history. Therefore, so-called "bad guys" are actually a reflection of the dark side of every social environment.

Today, the United States is plagued by frequent shootings, reflecting the dark side of contemporary society, and gun control is not a solution at its source. These statements are not intended to satirize the inaction of governments and society, because in the long river of history, our era may only be in its youth or even infancy, so imperfections are inevitable.

 

Nevertheless, human society will eventually reach maturity at some point in history, perhaps hundreds or even thousands of years from now. Just as we look back on human society 1,000 years ago, we find that society was filled with barbarism, closed-mindedness, violence, and paranoia. Abuse, slavery, and rape were common phenomena at that time. However, isn't this also how people 1,000 years from now might view our era? They may see our society as filled with anxiety, confusion, greed, and numbness, just as we view the society of 1,000 years ago.

 

Sharing these thoughts is not meant to make people more anxious about not being born in a better era, but to help everyone recognize the present, reconcile with the world, and live more comfortably.

 

I always try to view many issues from the perspective of the future, as it allows me to see the root causes of many problems. I temporarily call this way of thinking "Zheng's Thinking" In my opinion, if imagination can stretch far enough, cognition and consciousness may increase with the expansion and change of imagination. It is an entirely different perspective. 

 

From a historical perspective, the furthest we can trace back is to our ancestors, Homo sapiens, who, through the power of imagination, broke through the limitations of carrying capacity by creating beliefs. This allowed them to consolidate tens or even hundreds of thousands of Homo sapiens. Despite not having an advantage in intelligence or physical strength, they managed to exterminate other human species with absolute superiority, leading to the civilization we have today. More recently, this can be traced to the birth of the great inspiration of the general and special theories of relativity, which laid a profound foundation for human civilization.

 

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"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination." - Albert Einstein

 

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Returning to the main topic, the far-reaching impacts of AI cannot be covered in just a few sentences; I could probably talk about it for days without exhausting the subject. However, that's not the point. What's important is that I have conveyed these concepts and visions to you, and that is enough.

 

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The birth of AGI:

The significance of the birth of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) is far greater than that of any other important event in human history. The current ChatGPT is merely imitating text through extensive data learning via powerful algorithms. It fundamentally cannot truly understand what we say, let alone self-learn and possess self-awareness.

 

AGI, on the other hand, represents the development of wisdom in AI, with self-learning and self-awareness capabilities. Imagine how terrifying it would be for an AI to self-program and optimize itself. For a profound example, AlphaGo is a Go-playing artificial intelligence that does not possess self-learning capabilities but still easily defeated top human players with billions of training instances. AlphaZero, an even stronger version, has self-learning capabilities; without relying on human knowledge, it has evolved to unimaginable levels through self-learning alone. AlphaZero not only crushes human players in various board games but also trounces AlphaGo. Humans can no longer predict AlphaZero's moves because it has advanced too far.

 

Returning to the main topic, the birth of AGI is similar to that of AlphaZero. The difference is that while AlphaZero's self-learning is limited to the board, AGI's self-learning is comprehensive, and it will revolutionize our understanding of everything. However, the development of AGI is extremely challenging.

 

First, it requires more powerful algorithms, which means that breakthroughs in mathematics and theoretical physics are necessary. Second, a large enough database is needed, which I believe is relatively easy to solve and may be resolved when we achieve the first milestone. Third, it requires immense computational power, which demands the support of higher-performance computers and storage devices. This implies that our chip theory research and application research must also achieve breakthroughs.

 

However, these are not the most important aspects. The most crucial is to ensure the ability to generate imagination, the capacity to create something out of nothing, just like how humans have invented various concepts that don't exist in reality, such as gods, souls, and ghosts. As of now, GPT is unable to speak about content it has not been trained on. Currently, it is quite challenging to truly develop AGI without a complete understanding of why humans possess imagination and the ability to think.

 

The most direct impact of AGI on human life would be AI interaction empowerment, enabling AI to break free from programming and genuinely understand human intentions, thus better helping humans manage everything. To be honest, although I can predict the short-term impact of AGI on humanity, the long-term impact is absolutely unpredictable because the birth of AGI actually signifies the birth of a new species that may surpass humans entirely. Predicting the development of a species is like predicting the thoughts of a god.

 

This does not mean that we are in opposition to AGI. Humans can rapidly develop science and technology through AGI's self-learning, just as current human players have discovered many new moves and techniques through AI's self-learning. When AGI leads technology to a certain level, humans will inevitably reach the technological level to modify the brain or even upload consciousness. At that time, the human brain may possess AGI-like capabilities, or we may even merge with AGI. Therefore, while developing AGI, we may also be seeking the possibility of a breakthrough in human civilization.