I realized recently that "Apartheid", the South African policy of separating--and using as inexpensive, semi-captive servants--non-white races from the ruling whites, sounds like "Afford-heit."
As I read the book Artificial Intelligence for Dummies, I'm struck by how the authors alternate between talking about what can be done with AI and then saying how actually doing much of that is yet to come in some distant future.
I think the authors are lying that some of the more advanced uses of AI aren't being done yet. The AI tools that you and I can access for free/cheap on our computers and phones are certainly far below what AI capabilities exist. AI has existed since the 1960s, and our cars have been using it in their ABS systems for 40 years.
When it comes to AI, I think we're facing an "Afford-heit" era, where the bulk of us are viewed as the "cheap servants" of people and companies who can afford the best AI technology. They still need someone to do the physical labor of society while they collect and use the data that we give away everyday by using tech (wearable tech especially is a goldmine of information to them) and living our lives. And, of course, businesses need customers...lots of them so as to make lots more money!
Nowadays, we are deemed to be giving up information about ourselves by the most commonplace actions. For instance, did you know that you give away much of your privacy merely by walking onto the premises of a Target or Walmart store? Actually, just having your car *near* a Target store means they are likely identifying you as a potential shopper (see Section 10 of the online Target Privacy Policy). There is a lot of value in our bodies' actions when it comes to the fields of data collection and the use of that data by advanced AI. Even if businesses delete the data eventually, they get to utilize it first and often hand it off to third-party companies, too.
Who would enable this new kind of apartheid? Kids of my generation wanted to be the heroes from the movie The Power of One. Sadly, the enablers would have to include a lot of IT and literary people who were likely bullied in their youth for being academically-oriented instead of physically-oriented/socially-oriented. On Instapundit, the commenters would sometimes say, "Some people just want to see the world burn." My response to that is understanding (I was bullied, too) and hope for them to find meaning in their lives again; returning evil for evil is something I long ago learned was pointless and ultimately unsatisfying.
As with many movements, there is likely to be some in-fighting going on in it. There are five tribes within AI machine learning research: Symbolists, Connectionists, Bayesians, Evolutionaries, and Analogists. I noticed that the sinking of the "Bayesian yacht" last year is in the headlines again. Is that a symbol of some AI "tribal warfare"? The yacht's sinking was a bit mysterious, having been preceded by a lack of storm alerts. I wonder what is under the visible tips of the AI-giants' icebergs.
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