Our digital world is software, created and built by software engineers. If the software stops, the world stops. That’s software power. Can they take it down – or abuse it? Of course. It happens all the time … and it’s getting worse.
technology
‘It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear.’ The book title from 2007 by renowned author Frank Luntz works in many contexts, explaining the root of many, maybe most misunderstandings. And the reason why you don’t talk to your kids the same way as you talk to a colleague or…
You’ve probably noticed. Suddenly the newsbeat is about ChatGPT & co. becoming more stupid – less likely to deliver correct results. What’s going on?
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve been hit by the AI hype wave. If you’re more than average interested you’ve wondered when the downturn comes. It always does – it’s as predictable as gravity – and the Gartner Hype Cycle. What happens then?
Most of us have experienced that if something seems too good to be true, it usually is. We’re most likely seeing only part of the picture, the rest being either hidden or ignored – or both. Unfortunately, this seems to be the case for most of our so called sustainable energy sources. Looking closer, they turn out to be not so sustainable after all. Quite possibly the opposite.
Ok, so AI will not give you more time (see part I). And AI can be this huge threat to mankind etc. – according to an increasing collection of experts. Sounds serious, but it’s still kind of distant, isn’t it? So let’s bring it closer to home: Is AI a real…
Think about it: We – presumably intelligent human beings – have collectively put the world on a path towards extinction and don’t seem to be able to do much about it. But there is still hope: Our new AI-‘friends’ possess a different kind of intelligence, quite possibly our key to survival, our lifeboat so to speak. But we don’t want help. In fact, now we’re trying to sink the lifeboat. Do we still call ourselves ‘intelligent’?
It’s becoming tiresome, isn’t it? Every week AI is seemingly conquering new territory, doing more things, becoming more capable and more useful – or threatening, depending on point of view. High noise factor, low value because it’s mostly speculation. What about taking the opposite angle: What AI cannot do – would that be more useful?
It’s almost like running out of gas, except everyone’s surprised: Oops, this thing runs on gas? Where can we get more and who pays? Of course chatbots don’t run on gas, but they do run on data and the data-pipes are about to close. How can this happen and can this possibly be…
Digital trust hasn’t delivered. In fact, digital trust, blockchains, even Zero Trust – which is a concept, not a product – turned out to be less than trustworthy. The reason? We couldn’t get humans out of the equation. What we got was more complexity, less understanding and centralization instead of the expected democratization – more power…