As the business or corporate world is divided into two groups — those overexcited about AI and those overdepressed about it — I want to tell you about Alonso Quixano. He is not the founder of another AI unicorn company in modern Spain. But many of you may recognize Alonso and even remember him from your grandparents’ tales. In those tales, you might have heard of him as Don Quixote – the iconic character created by Cervantes in the 17th century.
The world had changed, but Alonso got into the rabbit hole of stories about knights-errant, their great deeds and honorable achievements. And he thinks that to become one of those knights, all he needs is armor and willpower. Or, as the executives doing some life coaching would call it nowadays, resilience.
The problem was that being a knight required a little bit more, and it was time. In this case, time that had passed long ago. If you haven’t read the book, you need to understand what it looked like to see Don Quixote acting as a knight. Simply imagine leaving home today and seeing a guy in medieval armor trying to protect a girl from her boyfriend kissing her on a beautiful sunny afternoon. And it’s not even Halloween.
When the age and need for knights-errant have passed, trying to become one might make people question your sanity.
It is interesting to see how many people today think pushing back against AI can earn them the most credit. I read one manager literally saying that soon, writing without AI is what will ensure employees get a six-figure job. I do see a clear parallel here with Don Quixote becoming a knight in post-knighthood times.
When the age and need for knights-errant have passed, trying to become one might make people question your sanity.
First, what does it mean to write with AI? This is a very vague concept. Is it the research? Polishing? Grammar fixes? Drafting? Generating a text from scratch, then amending it and incorporating it into personalized messaging? Working with AI has many dimensions, and before committing to accepting or rejecting it, we must define the concept.
By the way, none of the things mentioned above are bad or wrong, because the way you use AI depends on the job you do and the requirements you have.
Second, talking about yesterday’s AI may already be old news. This technology is developing very quickly and, apparently, outside the total control of its developers who argue for the need to slow it down while keeping their own foot on the accelerator.
If we had AI technology with limited capabilities that was less intelligent than each of us, I would agree. Why use a less intelligent brain when yours is way better? I think we have already passed the stage when AI could be less intelligent than individuals. But the time when you especially don’t want to be tempted to become a Don Quixote is when AI becomes smarter than all of humankind combined.
That’s exactly what Alonso Quixano was doing when he was fighting the windmills.
Talking about yesterday’s AI may already be old news.
In this regard, I have two quotes at hand, both from our contemporaries. The first one belongs to Mr. Elon Musk, who said: “I think AI may exceed the sum of human intelligence in around five years” (by around 2031 — auth.). The second quote belongs to Mr. Alonso. Don’t let the name confuse you again; this one is a Spanish F1 driver, Fernando Alonso, who famously said, “The stopwatch is the only thing that matters, not the age.”
Fernando Alonso’s way of thinking is very smart in the context of F1. In real life, the stopwatch has zero value, and this way of thinking can create the kind of illusion another Alonso was living in several centuries ago.
Elon Musk’s words emphasize once again that we are building artificial intelligence that will do almost everything better than us in a few years. Hoping to get a six-figure job because you can reject AI will look odd, to say the least. And, to be honest, it is a super-easy career strategy that is not going to work.
Given the high stakes in AI technology, which has become an arena of geopolitical and economic influence, I don’t think we would even be able to slow AI development down, even if Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, Elon Musk and Bernie Sanders pressed their stopwatches as hard as they could.