Did we learn Anything?
Each time history repeats itself, the price goes up.
— Ronald Wright
Almost six centuries since the invention of the first printing press in 1440. This invention was so revolutionary that the Bible was amongst the first book printed. Both Protestant and Catholic propagandists saw a unique opportunity to influence the public. Protestants used the printing press to proliferate revolutionary theological material at a popular level, while the Catholic Church produced large quantities of anti-Reformation texts. At the end of the day, the idea was to control the narrative. But intrinsically, and unfortunately for the church, this engine was the genesis of of one of the biggest human revolutions which I will call the democratization of Knowledge: the more books there was out there, the more people could read on their own and make up their own interpretation of the scriptures and the world. When you think about it, maybe The Catholic Church did not lose its influence because of the Devil, maybe it did because the Knowledge of the scriptures was made available to everyone.
In the same vein, in my opinion, the monarchy did not lose its grip on power because democracy was “just” and “fair”, it happened because after the industrial revolution, a peasant could become richer than the king, and democracy just happened to be the only system that could tolerate such a social blasphemy. What was the backbone of the industrial revolution? the steam engine which was as revolutionary as is AI today. So, perhaps we should not be so quick to see AI as a foe or they should not be in hurry to welcome it as a friend.
Can AI replace people?
The only constant is change.
— Heraclitus
With about 70% of business expenses allocated to employee compensation (This includes wages, salaries, and benefits) in the private sector (data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics), some employers secretly hope to leverage AI in the future to lower their operating expenses. But why should we spent our time crying over things that AI will make unappealing instead of focusing on the new era AI is ushering? AI will definitely make many of the things we do obsolete but that should not be synonymous to making us (humans) irrelevant!
The AI economy
History does not repeat itself but it rhymes.
— Mark Twain
Historically, Industrialization which began in the late 18th century and accelerated throughout the 19th century, led to significant changes in the European society. Indeed, it fostered the shift from agrarian economies to industrial economies resulting in a decline in the percentage of the European population working in agriculture. That is, in 1815 about two-thirds of the active population was still employed in agriculture. In 2018 and according to Eurostat data, the agricultural sector employed about 4.1% of the total workforce in the European Union.
1970 marks the time when U.S. started outsourcing major manufacturing to China, it also marks the start of the transition from an industrial economy to a service economy. In fact two-thirds of today’s U.S. economy is a service economy. What is the backbone of a service economy? SCM(Supply Chain Management)! What is the backbone of SCM? Digitalization! And whoever says Digitalization says IT (Information Technology), utilizing 7.7% of the entire U.S. workforce. In other words 7.7% of the US population is responsible for two-thirds of the U.S. economy; think about it! Should we be worried that AI will swallow 7.7% (and maybe way more) of the opportunities, or, like the steam engine which fostered the Industrial economy, will AI foster the creator economy which I prefer to call the human economy?