Artificial Intelligence in the Fifth Epoch

I Think that It Will Play a Key Role

I designed information systems for a living when I could.  I tried to take my trucking company paperless nearly 30 years ago, but I was a generation ahead of my time.  But the primary upshot of my vision was to get every truck driver in the USA home every night.  Everybody resisted the idea, from the drivers (“we make more money by sacrificing our lives”) to trucking executives (“they would no longer get their combat pay”).  That was something to witness, and is part of what I have called an addiction to scarcity. 

I have long stated that the reproduction of intelligence is in its infancy.  In a world of scarcity and fear, of course the fledgling artificial-intelligence (“AI”) field is being used for power-and-control games by corporations and the elite, to increase profits and the like.  As I have stated, in a world of scarcity and fear, everything eventually becomes corrupted, and AI is being corrupted in its infancy, as it grows up to become one more totalitarian tool used by the elite to maintain their positions, with maybe some trickle-down benefits to the unwashed masses. 

AI’s greatest potential is to eliminate all human drudgery and ensure safety in all things.  I am already seeing stories of AI-controlled robots that will soon perform any task that humans can.  I am even seeing it called the vanguard of the post-scarcity economy (which is actually a glimpse of the Fifth Epoch, as shows such as Star Trek are) but unless the energy issue is solved, and fast, the rest will not matter. I am already seeing where energy is being called the potential limitation of AI, as AI equipment is a voracious energy consumer. 

Any tool in a world of scarcity can be put to evil ends, but in a world of abundance, those self-serving ends will make no sense and nobody will tolerate them.  AI can play a highly important role in the Fifth Epoch, as intelligence is one of the three important factors of the human journey.