Last year, I read Daniel Gross’s essay called “AGI Trades”. The basic premise was who are the biggest losers and winners in a post AGI world? I have been working with AI for many years now. It’s clear that AI today is unlike AI in 2018. And I think that warrants people having a hard look at their lives.
First, I am concerned about India. It is true that a huge chunk of India’s GDP is GPT-4 tokens, which are getting cheaper as we breathe. For the purpose of this essay, I am going to forgo the term “AGI”, as not only adds zero value to the discourse, but also takes away from it. Instead, I am going to call it “Useful AI”.
Before I get into my assertions, I will note that these are simply my observations, and others may disagree with them. I don’t have the mandate heaven declaring what India is or isnt, but my 24 years of lived experience in urban Bangalore gives me enough perseptcive to make claims that may somewhat be rooted in reality.
Indian have a scarcity mindset, and for good reason. Historically, especially since the mid-1900s, there had not been enough of anything to go around. Things are changing now, but the mindset has stuck. It has not only stuck, it has warped into an weird gate keeper-ey culture for certain things.
Education is the prime example. We have few good institutes, and the good ones don’t have enough capacity. And the selectivity is a matter of pride. Useful AI is going to challenge this. Useful AI is digital abundance.
I don’t make the claim that Useful AI can grow crops. But it can make knowledge more accessible. Knowledge and power are keys to wealth in today’s world. Power can be built with knowledge. And knowledge can be built with Useful AI.
I think the biggest risk that India faces is that Useful AI will not be accessibly to everyone. It will be gate kept in the same way good education has been gate kept. Useful AI’s benefits will be felt only by those who know how to weild it.