Kai-Fu Lee: Artificial intelligence will have a huge impact on society, economy, psychology, humanities and other aspects

AsiaIndustrial NetNews: Recently, “artificial intelligence Pioneer” Kai-Fu Lee and Wang Yonggang co-authored a new book “Artificial Intelligence”, which brought a good recipe for the public to understand artificial intelligence. It also takes us quickly to understand how AI will reshape the future map of individuals, businesses and society. This article is a summary of some of the contents of “Artificial Intelligence” and is worth reading.

Artificial intelligence is here! This is the age of renaissance, this is the age of discovery, this is the age of artificial intelligence.

AI is profoundly changing our society and economy. Will history compare this era to the PC sprouting of the 1970s and the rise of the internet in the 1990s?

When Steve Jobs and Bill Gates worked hard for the dream of having a computer for every desktop and every family, when Jerry Yang, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin tried to integrate the world When they are determined to innovate with information, building an Internet world that connects all human beings, can they foresee that artificial intelligence will come to us so quickly and play such an important role in the early 21st century?

From the perspective of the social value of technology, I believe that the social significance of artificial intelligence will surpass specific information technologies such as personal computers, the Internet, and the mobile Internet. It is even very likely that in the history of human development, it will become the nextindustryThe core driving force of the revolution.

AI is the fourth industrial revolution

Thinking back to around 1760, when improved textile machines and steam engines began to largely replace manual labor in England, and when chimneys proclaimed the arrival of the industrial age, what great changes had taken place in human society and economy! A large number of manual labor attached to agricultural production and small-scale peasant economy disappeared. Thousands of farmers and handicraftsmen were transformed into industrial workers and entered factories and mines. People began to use trains and ships to travel, and the pattern of the entire world changed completely.

Similarly, the second industrial revolution represented by electrical technology and internal combustion engine in the 19th century, and the third industrial revolution represented by atomic energy technology, information technology, space technology, bioengineering technology, etc. The standard of living, work style, social structure and economic development have entered a new cycle.

From the 18th century to the present, in the past 300 years, the world has completed three industrial revolutions.automation, electrification, information transformation. So, what will the future direction of human development be?

If in the 21st century, there is another technology that can be compared with the leading technologies in the previous industrial revolutions, it must be the artificial intelligence technology that is entering a mature growth period. Taking transportation as an example, the invention of steam engines, internal combustion engines, gas turbines, and electric motors has made our travel a leap from the farming era of people carrying horses to the modern transportation era represented by airplanes, high-speed rails, cars, and ships; in artificial intelligence In the era, the self-driving technology alone is enough to completely change the way we travel, which is comparable to the popularity of cars and airplanes.

In January 2017, when I attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, I had the honor to listen to Ian Goldin, a professor of globalization and development at Oxford University and a famous economist, on the current state of the world and human changes. . He said the three biggest challenges facing the world today are:

1. Human beings cannot keep up with the speed of technological development and have no time to adjust and adapt;

2. The interconnection between human beings and the rapid dissemination of information have both good and dangerous sides;

3. Things that are beneficial to individuals or countries in the short term may harm the overall interests of the world (such as Brexit).

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Professor Ian Golding is not looking at today’s world with pessimism. In fact, he is the author of Age of Discovery: Navigating the Risks and Rewards of Our New Renaissance. In this book, he uses cross-examination to find answers to the following questions:

We live in an age where technology is so advanced, why are there still such inequalities?

Human health, life expectancy, global wealth, education, scientific discoveries, etc., have unprecedented development, but why are people still full of anxiety?

What is the price of development?

According to Professor Ian Golding, today’s era is very similar to the Renaissance and Enlightenment that took place in Europe from the mid-14th century to the 16th century. For example, the development of information technology is not only the theme of science and technology in today’s world, but also one of the fundamental reasons for the emancipation of thought and the development of literature and art in Europe between the 14th and 16th centuries. Back then, the information dissemination technology represented by the Gutenberg printing press quickly spread the knowledge of science and technology, literature and art to every central city in Europe, which is similar to the popularization of the Internet today.

Artificial intelligence has caused huge fluctuations in society, economy, psychology, humanities, etc.

Today’s world, like Europe in the Middle Ages, is actually facing many thorny problems, such as the worldwide gap between the rich and the poor, environmental pollution, infectious diseases, war, and so on. On the one hand, science and technology are developing rapidly, and information technology, especially artificial intelligence technology, leads the trend of the times; on the other hand, the world is still in turmoil. Between the rapid development of science and technology and the long-term unstable global social and economic structure, there is a strong imbalance and an inherent need for change.

Professor Ian Golding said: “The rapid development of science should allow us to see the consequences of many of our actions, bringing together global minds and wisdom, and from a scientific and technological point of view, we are full of capabilities. But our political system, global political structures, religious institutions, etc., are still stuck in the 1950s, and the rate of evolution is surprisingly slow… So, in this ‘age of discovery’, we should reset our mind map , political map, economic map.”

Professor Ian Golding links technology with the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. This provides a new perspective for us to understand future technologies such as artificial intelligence.

If we only regard the era of artificial intelligence as a new industrial revolution, then our discussion will be limited to the level of science and technology, ignoring the huge fluctuations in society, economy, psychology, and humanities caused by technological change.

If we focus on the human being as a whole under the influence of future technology, the relationship between humans and AI, and how human society transforms and evolves under the background of the new technological revolution, then we can call today’s era the history of mankind. The Second Renaissance is perhaps appropriate.

Artificial intelligence will be synchronized with social and economic changes, educational changes, ideological changes, cultural changes, etc.

When Copernicus used heliocentrism to change human’s cognition of the operation of celestial bodies and completely break with the old world, today’s artificial intelligence technology is also completely changing human’s cognition of machine behavior and rebuilding the mutual cooperation between humans and machines. .

When Columbus stood on the land of the New World for the first time in the era of great voyages and reconstructed the geographic and political map of the entire world with his great voyages, today’s artificial intelligence technology is also reconstructing our minds with unprecedented autonomous driving. Travel maps and pictures of human life.

When Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and others used epoch-making artistic giants to inspire all mankind to pursue beauty and freedom, today’s artificial intelligence technology is also making bold progress in the fields of humanities and arts such as machine translation, machine writing, and machine painting. try…

Technology is not just technology. The future of technology is bound to be closely linked with the future of society, the future of economy, the future of literature and art, and the future of human globalization.

AI is not just a technological revolution. The future of artificial intelligence will be synchronized with major social and economic changes, educational changes, ideological changes, and cultural changes. We can’t talk about technology itself without the possible employment problems, education problems, social ethics problems, etc., just like we can’t talk about the sculpture, painting and music works of the Renaissance without the enlightenment of human thought.

Artificial intelligence may become the core driving force of the next industrial revolution, and it is more likely to become the beginning of a new great discovery, great change, great integration and great development of human society.

This is the age of renaissance, this is the age of discovery, this is the age of artificial intelligence.