“I’m naturally interested in AI because technology is the main engine of economic change. This began in the 1700s, with the Industrial Revolution bringing the ability to manufacture goods cheaply and at scale. That revolution led to cars, suburbs, advertising, consumerism, and much of what we associate with modern life today. With that, most of us have lived through an unusually stable environment.
That’s changing now, and it’s taken a while for people to come to grips with it. In April 2023, Pew [Research Center] did a survey that showed that while 62 percent of respondents believed AI would majorly disrupt the workforce, only 28 percent believed their own job would be affected. So there has been this kind of trepidation with AI; we were forced to pay attention to AI in November 2022 when ChatGPT was released, but some heads remained in the sand….
I think there is a combination of novel factors that could mean the consequences of the AI revolution are far more wide reaching and profound.
First, AI automates cognitive tasks, not physical tasks. Cognitive tasks are what humans are good at; our cognitive skills set us apart from everything else on the planet - we’re unique in that we can build knowledge, generation after generation. With AI, that’s potentially not the case anymore.
Second, AI is a general-purpose technology, whereas the Industrial Revolution automated very specific tasks.
Third, AI is globally scalable. Tech companies can be concentrated in very small areas, like Silicon Valley, and still service the whole world.
Finally, AI will generate new knowledge and new capabilities that are both offensive and defensive, with national security implications of the magnitude of nuclear energy.
This combination of factors makes AI unique and its implications quite different from previous technological revolutions.”
— Professor Jean-Paul Carvalho, professor of political economy in the Department of Economics at the University of Oxford
