Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly influencing our lives. Despite the pervasiveness of AI, I keep running into people who are unsure what it is, how it could impact them, and why they should care.
Some are dinosaurs blithely strolling toward a retirement that is closer than they appreciate and worse than they dare fear. Others are so busy in their day-to-day that they cannot manage this innovation or its perniciousness. And some are simply unaware that "Denial ain't just a river in Egypt" (Mark Twain, unknown year).
The progress continues nonetheless. In December 2024, Google unveiled its "quantum computing chip." The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) says this new chip could decrease computing time for the most challenging computations. The example is an equation that would require today's
fastest super computers ten septillion – or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years – to complete,
which could be completed by the new chip in 5 minutes. This would use "particle physics to create a new type of mind-bogglingly powerful computer." Read that again, 5 minutes for the new chip to do what would take our best technology literally forever. Ten Septillion years is longer even than George Burns lived.
February 2025 brought news that Microsoft also has a new chip named Majorana. It claims this is "the world’s first quantum chip powered by a new Topological Core architecture," and it will be used to create "quantum computers capable of solving meaningful, industrial-scale problems in years, not decades." Microsoft claims this is game-changing. It says "All the world’s current computers operating together can’t do what" one of its new computers will be capable of.
Within days, Penn Today announced it has created "a new silicon-photonic chip" that "uses light waves, rather than electricity." This has the potential to perform calculations at an incredible speed while "reducing (computer) energy consumption. Note that one of the greatest concerns with AI is the volume of electricity required to power and cool its server farms.
Only a few days later, Amazon announced its "quantum computing chip." This is said to have capability to decrease "quantum error," and to enable "quantum computers capable of solving problems of commercial and scientific importance that are beyond the reach of today’s conventional computers." This effort is underway at the California Institute of Technology.
All of this can be summarized with great simplicity:
Computers are going to be faster, more energy efficient, and more powerful than you ever imagined. They will do more, with less, and faster than we can really comprehend. The next generation will be that much better than the last, and that has always been true.
Against that reality comes the potential for "singularity."
This refers to "the theoretical point where machine surpasses man in intelligence," according to Popular Mechanics. There is great debate in the scientific world, and disagreement as to when we will reach singularity. Some say it is a decade away, others claim it will occur in 2026.
There is agreement, however, that it is an eventuality. AI is driving scientific thought, expanded interest, and progress. Though there is disagreement on singularity "when," there is a feeling of consensus that this will "arrive before the end of the 21st century."
There is a confluence of software and hardware driving us forward. We are on a ride that many of us simply will never understand. Our world, way of life, way of work, and more are going to change. The implications are potentially cataclysmic or rapture, or perhaps somewhere in between.
We elderly folks remember a day when computers filled rooms, yet could not outperform today's smart phones. We remember days when entire floors of buildings were crammed with shelves of paper, which today could all be stored as images on a device that fits in your pocket.
Today, we are building data centers to power and house the vast server farms that AI will (does) require. In our present, that investment for 2025 looks to be about $2 trillion worldwide. And it is likely that those data centers will go the way of the Univac computer (below) as chips and other technology continues to evolve, as the pace of evolution increases, and as the world becomes increasingly dependent.
Courtesy U.S. Census Bureau
There are only going to be three kinds of workers in the world in ten years: Those who adapted to AI, those who wish they had, and those who never got the chance. If you are reading this, you are not in the third group, and you have a clear choice in front of you.
A list of previous Artificial Intelligence and Robotic posts is on DWLangham.com