“A New Age of Change”

We’ve now come to an age where machines think for us. In the past, people valued knowing a lot and knowing people who know a lot. This thought was soon broken by search engines and the internet. After that, people had to know how to analyze this information and make summaries and conclusions out of it. Now, even that skill is becoming useless, due to the introduction of generative AI. Generative AI knows how to get information and make it into a new thing, whether that be a summary, a blog post, or a comic. So, what’s important now and in the near future? There are three main qualities that are important to this enormous change caused by AI.

The first one is pattern-based problem solving, which is something that is being replaced by AI at this moment. When AI models learn, they get huge amounts of information made by humans, find patterns, and use them for whatever their purpose is. For example, a model could summarize things quickly by identifying which points were said the most or emphasized, look for certain trends in data, or translate things by analyzing which translations were used in what context. People will no longer have to think of common patterns themselves, since that is exactly what AI is trained for. Because of this, jobs that involve simply analyzing and expressing things in a different way will decrease, such as translators, data analysts, or even current high-income jobs such as doctors or lawyers.

On the other hand, skills involving creativity and individuality will increase. Though AI can find patterns and make conclusions out of them, AI does not have their own feelings or values. As more AI is used for reaching generic conclusions or artificially copying humans, people will look for more authenticity from humans. Humans, unlike AI, have their own history, emotions, interests, and point of view, and more people will appreciate their genuine stories and efforts. As a result, people will take the role of making big decisions that seem right to themselves, while AI will help people on details or information that can help. Some companies like Shopify are already encouraging “weirdness” and growth to employees. Additionally, people could be able to do more activities outside of work that makes them authentic, instead of just working for money.

As technology grows faster than before, how people use it has become vital. AI is a powerful thing, and how people use it can completely change their lives, from losing the ability to think to being even more productive and creative. This makes, and will make more jobs related to developing, using, and making decisions on technology such as AI. Some people will play the role of increasing the ability of AI, such as machine learning engineers. Some others will try to figure out how to use AI in a way that benefits people, such as ethics professionals. Everyone would have to learn new things constantly, and figure out how to use new technology in a way that helps themselves.

Technology has always changed our lives, and AI isn’t an exception. As AI develops, everyone will have to leave their familiar life of doing what they have always done, and instead actively think creatively and critically, choose their own paths, and constantly learn new things. These big changes will bring some setbacks, such as making people uneducated in AI and creativity harder to stay active, or relying too much on AI. It is everyone’s responsibility to make sure everyone could adapt and advantage from this new age of technology.