AI will doom us all! Or not?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has taken the world by storm. New developments seem to pop up overnight. Programming seems like it will get replaced by AI, as it is writing better (and more correct) code as AI continues to evolve. AIs like Devin have been able to produce more AIs like it, so it seems like the world will end with AI obliterating us because of our bad manners.

Our World In Data - Artificial Intelligence

This graph shows the scary way AI is starting and rapidly improving on beating human benchmarks (or the average human) on many levels (though, still lacking most common sense). But, AI is still a tool that needs human intervention to perform properly. ChatGPT and other AI creators have all explicitly agreed that you can’t use AI in your ventures of making your own AI, so we’re safe in some ways. Although more laws are needed to protect ways AI can and should be used, they haven’t been put in place as AI has been a more recent development.

AI will take programmers’ jobs! Or will it?

AI has spooked everyone and their grandmas (I don’t know if they would be too invested) in taking away programmers’ jobs. Many AI companies are trying to reduce the amount of staff they need and supplement it with a never-sleep, really efficient robot that doesn’t need to be paid, but there will always be jobs for programmers.

Let’s talk about a Sigmoid Function/Curve for a moment. A Sigmoid Function can show how technological advancement evolves. If you look at the bottom leftmost part of the curve, it starts to slow with not much vertical (y-axis) height, this can be shown as the amount of people that know or use a certain product. As you start moving right, the curve shoots up fast (like an exponential curve), this can be shown as a product catching on and many people are advancing that thing fast and making it better. Finally, as you keep moving right, the curve tapers off and the tops go higher, this can be shown as the product becoming as advanced as it will be, and not much improvement can be accomplished.

AI can be described using this very method. Even just a few years ago, AI was mostly unheard of, and when it was talked about it wasn’t really anything impressive and mostly reserved for far-off Sci-Fi movies. But recently in the past two years, AI has taken off, and with increased funding rapidly accelerating companies rushing to put AI in everything to catch the computer nerds of the internet and generate profit. The one scary thing is, for AI we don’t know where we are on the Sigmoid Function (nothing is) until after it tapers off at the end. The best outcome is it finishes off soon and is just a helpful tool for programmers to be more efficient, otherwise, it might result in a loss of jobs if people aren’t smart enough.

Our World In Data - Artificial Intelligence

What can we do?

Closing Notes

In any advancement, whether it be cars or factories, people were always scared of losing their jobs to these new things, but in the end, it has always created new and exciting jobs around these things. The same will probably happen for programming, companies and corporations will always need somebody to tell the AI what it needs to do, or someone to train the AI. Whatever it is, there will be something for us to do, who knows maybe there will be competitions for the best and fastest humans to go head to head against AI as a sort of human test.

While AI might seem scary (even more so with media coverage and the crazy fast advances) you shouldn’t need to worry, programmers are here to stay as long as computers stay (otherwise we’ll have to touch grass!), someone will have to guide and help the AI, others will help teach it, and more. So, in the end, you can rest easy not worrying about your job… or can you?

— SalladShooter

Credits:

Charlie Giattino, Edouard Mathieu, Veronika Samborska and Max Roser (2023) - “Artificial Intelligence” Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/artificial-intelligence' [Online Resource]