For this week’s post, we want to highlight an article by Arvind Narayanan & Sayash Kapoor from Columbia University. We think they have an interesting way of thinking about AI that is very different than the Hollywood-style “machines-taking-over-the-world” storyline.
Their article proposes that AI should be viewed as “normal technology”, a powerful but ordinary general-purpose technology like electricity or the internet. Its economic and social impacts will likely unfold gradually over decades, because invention, commercialization, adoption, and organizational change all take time.
Instead of replacing humans, AI will most likely create a division of labor, with machines automating certain tasks while people supervise, integrate, and make higher-level decisions. Many sci-fi movie plot elements, such as technological accidents, misuse, concentration of power, and geopolitical competition, could also apply to the adoption of earlier new and revolutionary technologies. The authors argue that focusing too heavily on speculative existential scenarios can distract from the practical policy challenges already evident today. Overall, they recommend treating AI as an evolving technology embedded in society rather than a singular transformative event.
AI, on the surface, is a massive sea change in how we use technology. But when we look at how people use it in their daily lives, it actually follows the life cycle of previous technological advances, like the internet and mobile apps. LLMs (large language models) were a big leap forward, but now we have moved into a phase of answering the question “how do we use this?” We now have tools that didn’t exist when LLMs first emerged, but they’re all focused on how we use and advance this new technology.
Want to learn more? Check out our podcast: Episode #12: AI is normal technology
(art by Becka Rahn)
