What the Covid should have taught us about AI.

In this new issue of the newsletter, I would like to return to something that remains my main concern for the near future: the general unpreparedness regarding the exponential spread of artificial intelligence, which is advancing with such speed that only a small portion of humanity is actually seeing it coming.

I am talking primarily about the devastating effects on the world of work, with the younger generation as the most exposed category. I am talking about the destabilization of the economy as we know it today. And I'm talking about all the most dangerous uses for which AI could be employed: automated wars, artificial pandemics designed with the help of advanced biological models, and systems for controlling and surveilling people on an unprecedented scale.

The Covid Metaphor

In his viral essay, Matt Shumer says that we are in the same place today with AI as we were with Covid in February 2020: the signs are all there, but almost no one really takes them seriously. Back then, the world went on with business as usual while a “distant” virus was about to change everything; similarly, now many see artificial intelligence as hype or a passing fad, when in fact it is already transforming the economy at a speed that most people have not yet realized.

The Covid metaphor is more effective than the “tsunami that is coming” because it is an example close in time that has affected all of us directly. It does not serve as a psychological terrorism, but as a reminder of a key lesson: underestimating exponential change is the best way to get overwhelmed instead of prepared.