AI backers tout new ‘industrial revolution’ — but is dangerous ‘singularity’ approaching?

Artificial intelligence has shaken the windows and rattled the walls of nearly every business, government and institution since it exploded into mainstream consciousness following the launch of Chat-GPT less than two years ago.

Boosters see AI ushering in a new “industrial revolution” led by thinking computers that can reason, plan, and apply knowledge to a dizzying array of industries.

However, so far, most of the value from AI has piled up in chipmakers like NVIDIA , which briefly surged to $3 trillion in market capitalization in June, making it for a time the most valuable company in the world.

Big tech companies, who make their own chips and who have loudly touted the potential benefits of AI, have also benefited. But what about the rest of us?

“Investors are finally waking up to all that AI spend and realizing it is much more of an expense right now rather than a revenue generator,” Peter Boockvar of The Boock Report, an investment newsletter, recently told Bloomberg news.

Or as Roy Amara, a Stanford computer scientist first said , “we overestimate the impact of technology in the short-term and underestimate the effect in the long run.”

AI is on course to create five very significant disruptions to business, culture and our way of life.

In health sciences, AI is helping to identify disease and discover new drugs, leading to breakthroughs that will impact medicine and longevity. Virtual AI companions are also augmenting and improving human capability.

AI is accelerating the development of autonomous vehicles and robotic humanoid companions. And a robot may soon be the household appliance of the 21st century, as commonplace as a dishwasher or TV.

AI can already write a decent limerick. One day, it could disrupt creative industries, paving the way. for an AI-written Oscar-winning screenplay or Grammy award winning song.

Finally, machine-human brain interfaces like NeuralLink will quite literally meld organic and synthetic brains, a moment that prominent futurist and AI expert Ray Kurzweil calls “the singularity.”

Decoding the mysteries of disease

Increasingly, AI can identify diseases better than most doctors, and can simulate the impact of experimental drugs without costly clinical trials.

It can test how different proteins might combine to make life-changing drugs, and it can “train” robot surgeons to perform at the same level as people.

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According to Professor Massimo Buonomo, an AI expert at the International Electrotechnical Commission, “The market for AI solutions is experiencing significant momentum” with healthcare leading the way.

Denmark’s Novo Nordisk (maker of Ozempic), for one, has been using artificial intelligence across its value chain since 2021 .

Earlier this year, the Danish pharmaceutical company offered around $1.1 billion to buy the German firm Cardior Pharmaceuticals , which specializes in non-coding RNA-based therapeutics for heart disease.

Hoffmann-La Roche is also harnessing machine learning to boost its drug discovery and development, breaking free of linear and sequential research processes.

Canadian health-tech company Triage has demonstrated in various clinical trials that its propietary dermatology AI algorithm can outperform most doctors – and even exceed the capability of trained dermatoligsts. “50% of medical visits are for skin diseases,” CEO Tory Jarmain said. “In many countries, it’s up to a pharmacist, nurse or GP to determine if you need to see a dermatologist.”

Triage and companies like it can help empower healthcare professionals with a life-saving toolkit.

AI Assistants

A child born today will have at least one lifelong friend. That’s not unusual.

What’s unusual is that this companion will be her English tutor, and teach her how to improve her tennis forehand, give her cooking lessons, and cheer her up when she’s feeling blue.

They will eventually coach her through her college applications, and SAT prep, before helping her craft her thesis paper and later her resume.

That companion will become her financial advisor, marriage counselor, and write her will, find her a retirement home, make funeral arrangements when her husband dies, and act as executor of her estate when she eventually dies too.

Get the idea? This companion won’t be a person, but an AI companion.

Futurist Ray Kurzweil believes this synthesis of human and machine capability, which he calls “the singularity” will lead to a millions-fold increase in human capability.

Today, startup DarwinAI has pioneered and commercialized what it calls “generative synthesis” technology, where human beings and their AI models collaborate to improve those same models.

For example, DarwinAI combined AI with existing vision technologies to create a production-line inspection system for the manufacturing industry.

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Recently acquired by Apple, Darwin AI is also using geophysical data to identify sites with the greatest potential for drilling.

Dr. Joseph Geraci founder, chief technology officer, and chief scientific officer of NetraMark, a provider of advanced AI products for late-stage clinical trials, describes AI as “science sidekicks” that will expedite scientific breakthroughs.

DarwinAI CEO Sheldon Fernandez doesn’t think AI replaces us but compliment us. “AI is superior at augmenting human capabilities rather than replacing them,” he said.

Robot Companions

“Robots that look like humans will be best suited for tasks where a human touch is needed,” said Matt McMullen, CEO of RealBotix, a company that literally embodies AI by integrating AI, robotics, and silicone rubber technology to create human-like robots. “I could order a coffee at Starbucks from C-3PO, and that might be cool. But I might like it more if it looked like a person and interacted with me as a person would.”

McMullen also imagines all kinds of robots with specialties such as elder care and temporary agencies that hire them out to retirement communities and assisted living facilities.

There they could interact with people living with dementia, perhaps contributing to research data on cognitive impairment, supporting caregivers, and watching out for elder neglect or abuse. Robots could boost family members’ peace of mind.

Robotics and AI are combining to turbocharge the robotics revolution.

Consider Waymo, the autonomous car company .

It uses AI to train its fleet of cars, resulting in ‘robot drivers’ that are statistically far better than people.  Robots can now “watch” humans performing tasks and learn from their behavior.

Researchers at Meta AI have been training Boston Dynamic’s spot robot (which looks like a dog with an adjustable robotic head and neck) on training date to improve how the robot “reasons and plans” and “locate and retrieve items in unfamiliar spaces.”

AI and the Creative Industries

From the dawn of the industrial age, technology has acted as a tailwind for creators. Will AI continue that trend?

Cezanne said, “a work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art,” but plenty of studio executives who see an AI-enabled future where they don’t have to pay human creators would disagree.

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Ted Sarandos, CEO of Netflix, views AI as just another technology tool for creators to harness. “Writers, directors, editors will use AI as a tool to… do things more efficiently and more effectively. And in the best case, to put things on screen that would be impossible to do,” he said recently in an interview with the New York Times.

Maybe so, but Sarandos is discussing AI as it exists today, and in the future AI might be far more capable. OpenAI’s latest invention, Sora, allows anyone to create cinematic-quality content with a simple text prompt.

Kurzweil says AI moves so quickly we tend to quickly discount its achievements shortly after they’ve happened. Sora is a prime example.

AI can draw a picture, write a poem, make a short film, and write a mediocre screenplay. Why not a Noble prize winning novel (some day)?

Despite AI’s recent breakthroughs, it can never capture what it feels to be human because it isn’t one, some argue.

“Strike the creative stuff” for now, said Fernandez of DarwinAI. “AI doesn’t understand forgiveness and redemption or suffering like Dostoevsky.”

The Singularity: When Man and Machine Merge

Kurzweil and others believe that AI and human intelligence will soon merge. If we do this right, he argues, we can enhance human capability and unleash an era of economic, cultural, spiritual flourishing.

Today, brain-human interfaces are no longer the realm of science fiction or even speculation. Consider Neuralink, founded by Elon Musk in 2016.

In 2024, its first user, Noland Arbaugh, a quadriplegic, received the brain implant and today can use signals from his brain to manipulate a computer to search the web, play video games and much more.

Most new technologies begin with a niche market. Brain computer interfaces today can help disabled people regain their independence. In the future, they may enhance all of us.

These advancements should be celebrated, but they are only the first step towards the merger of human and machine intelligence. That next step is fraught with risks.

For one, these AI models are programmed by people on available data. But which people and what data?

We want to “avoid the errors and biases that could undermine the validity and reliability of AI systems,” said Hadassah Drukarch, director of policy and delivery at the Responsible AI Institute. This is especially true when it’s implanted in your brain.”

But Fernandez of DarwinAI and Geraci of NetraMark see a positive future for human-machine cooperation.

“Human intelligence will adapt and find a creative stratosphere that neither AI or humans can achieve alone,” said Geraci. “The human imagination still has so much further to climb…we are more powerful together.”

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