At the Crossroads of Humanity

I have a few reflections on this video from CNBC. Professor Alec Ross invites us to see the world at a crossroads between what he describes as “Mad Max” vs. “Star trek.” The reality will probably be somewhere in the middle. Will there be tremendous technology that will make life better? Yes, but only for some people. Will there also be many people left behind to a dystopia where society has failed? Also yes. The reason I post this in trends is because it is important to underhand how this moment is going to change the markets and the economy. Professor Ross is quite right when he says that how this decade goes will determine how society moves forward from here. There are several interesting trends happening right now. There’s demographic changes (much ballyhooed by Peter Zeihan) and there are major technological changes. I think ChatGPT and its inclusion in more services like Zapier and Microsoft teams portends the kind of ways AI will change our lives. It will be subtle at first and will increase exponentially towards the 2030s. However, it is important to remember that we aren’t helpless here. We can made decisions as a society on how we want this to go. There were many missed opportunities to do that with the personal computer and later social media and the smartphone. We have seen the results of this and the reality is that unless we collectively intervene, there will be consequences. I think the saddest part about this video and this trend is that the framing around it is incredibly passive. Professor Ross acts like there is nothing we can do about this and that the decisions are really in the hands of others. This is not the case. Democracy can get to work and curb the worst kinds of changes.