In part one of this series of articles, we tried to emphasise the extraordinary nature of AI.
Really, it is beyond extraordinary, this is a developing position which is completely unprecedented.
We simply must not treat it as another step in the tech story, that started eighty years ago with basic computers, and has brought us to where we are today with big data, the internet, space travel and mobile technology.
This is not another chapter in the story, but a brand new story.
In this sense, the clue is in the AI title, because we will shortly have alongside us a new intelligence.
We should not fall into any trap of thinking this will not take shape, have very limited impact, or will take a while to get going.
The new intelligence is going to be way more intelligent than the individual or combined intelligence of humans.
Already, as none other than Keir Starmer pointed out the other day, AI can diagnose stage one cancer 50% better than the most experienced cancer specialist.
Already, there are people using AI to scour news stories for them, assess those stories towards making stock selections, so they can buy shares that are about to rise in value, with astonishing accuracy.
Already, a few major cities are beginning to run their traffic systems using AI co-ordination to improve traffic flows, reduce congestion and make the streets safer.
If you plug into Google “move 37”, you will see we are way beyond the day when humans could outwit AI in the classic game of Go. No human can compete today with the advanced AI programmes in chess.
There is an interesting tangent to the developing intelligence, and that is computer power and speed. In many ways, despite the incredible numbers currently applying to these, we are scratching the surface, because if Google and others can crack quantum computing (which is getting more likely by the day, because of AI), then current speeds will seem pedestrian compared to what will follow. Computer computational power is escalating alongside the intelligence, put the two together and you have something astonishing.
For instance a device or entity, that can not only assimilate billions of bits of information within seconds, but can sort and assess what that information means, could mean, or how it could be used.
No human can get anywhere near this.
Research that may have taken years in the past, will now be performed in minutes, or hours at worst.
This means we are right to think of AI as super-intelligence and capable of making breakthrough after breakthrough in areas that have caused humans untold challenges, with the medical sector likely to be at the forefront of this. Hence the twelve months referenced by Ray Kurzweil in part one.
In part three we will focus on this and draw out more about what this means, how this prediction is made, and how this will have a colossal impact on financial planning.