I think this will be one of the lasting lessons that I will remember from the current AI era. There are many really smart people who have conflicting ideas about how things will turn out and what choices we should make. Some of them will be wrong. You could argue that self-interest is motivating some portion of AI experts (on all sides). While that’s likely true, there are plenty of smart true believers who are on board with those same claims.
Here are my takeaways:
- You can be very smart and also very wrong
- Smart people fall into group think and band wagoning just as much as the rest of us
- Smart people can also believe in dumb ideas
- Predicting the future garners attention
- The cost of being wrong about future predictions is usually minimal
- Going against a trend will generate resistance
- You won’t get much credit for being right when the majority is wrong
- Tides can turn quickly
- Language makes meaning
- FOMO > critical thinking