A.I. On The Highway With No Brakes
By Eli Amdur
“You can’t overlook the lack, Jack, of any other highway to ride. It’s got no signs or dividing lines and very few rules to guide.”
Here are two questions.
(1) Are those lyrics familiar?
(2) They were written 55 years ago but do they portend anything more current and pressing?
Here ae the two answers.
- They’re from “New Speedway Boogie” – a song written by Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter about the disastrous Altamont Speedway concert on December 6, 1969 – and was written within a day of the event. It debuted later that month in a live concert at the Fillmore West in San Francisco, and then in June 1970 on the Grateful Dead’s wildly successful “Workingman’s Dead” album, iconic in the band’s history and lore.
- You bet they do. Just as things got out of control in Altamont – way out of control – that’s what’s going on in the warp speed growth and change of A.I. Make no mistake. This is history repeating itself, as it never fails to do.
Case in point. Goldman Sachs Research published a report on Aug 1, 2023, with the following headline: “AI investment forecast to approach $200 billion globally by 2025.” Pretty impressive, but if you’d been watching things develop over the previous couple of years, you’d have considered that number terribly timid.
Want proof? In its quarterly earnings report last week, Meta announced that it would spend as much as $40 billion on A.I. this year alone. That’s 25% of Goldman Sach’s global projections all by themselves. And not by 2025. Now. Much of that investment will go toward infrastructure (data centers), chip designs, and R&D. By the time we hear from the other giants and then the second and third tier players, not to mention aggressive governments, that $200 billion will be long surpassed. For example, Saudi Arabia has created a $100 billion fund for A.I., focusing on events, research, and other ventures. Additionally, they added another 440 billion to encourage joint ventures. Put just the Saudis together with Meta, and you’re within range of Goldman’s number.
That’s what I mean by out of control. Just like in all other events and developments, when the initiators (innovators, on the innovation adoption bell-shaped curve) get ahead of the regulators, things get out of control, not an entirely bad scenario, but with potential for real bad stuff can happen. And we already know what some of that tastes like with A.I.
“Spent a little time on the mountain, spent a little time on the hill. I saw things getting out of hand,
I guess they always will.”
Unless, of course, we do something about it now. Because the innovators are light years ahead of the regulators, despite major efforts by the EU and the Biden administration. I’m not advocating for stifling regulation, but we’ve seen what happens without a modicum of tethered thought.
Because, in one breath, that $200 becomes a trillion faster than we can count it.