We are entering the Age of AI

We are entering the Age of AI.

History does not repeat itself but it rhymes and this era combines aspects of the renaissance, enlightenment and the industrial revolution.

We have collectively never had so much access to knowledge. AI is making it more digestible with amazing answers and summarization. Despite its many problems, academia has never had as many bright minds doing research. AI will supercharge science and most other knowledge and research endeavors. There have never been so many artists exploring the human condition from so many angles. AI will enable anybody with an idea to share that idea in an artistic form. The speed of art will accelerate. We are overall going to be A LOT more productive and efficient in our work.

What will maybe be most distinctly different is that we will have a lot more people in total and percentage-wise with lives where most any of the basic human needs are fulfilled almost all the time. There's a certain kind of simplicity in struggle but complexity in success. You have to figure out what comes after that success. What will be our new collectively structured pursuit of wisdom, togetherness, belonging, grounding, meaning, or purpose?

Of course, we're also sitting on top of the advances of recent eras of steam, electricity, computer and internet and if you want to be pessimistic... maybe add some sprinkles of the middle ages.

As is always the case, the future (and any era) might already be here but not equally distributed. We're also for the first time acutely aware of all the places on earth that are struggling with war, famine and other catastrophes made by humans or nature. It creates even more pressure on our moral frameworks and how we define our in-group vs out-group, how we merge empathy with utilitarian effective altruism.

One thing is clear, if you were born from a random sample of all humans on earth, now is likely the most interesting time and your best shot to live a long life.