AI Disrupting Economics: How AI Will Change Our Future
This article was translated through AI, there might be inaccuracies.
"The impact of AI on human life still has a long way to go, but it is worth looking forward to"
While browsing in a bookstore, I was attracted by the book "AI Disrupting Economics" and wanted to understand how we should face future challenges in the wave of AI. This book brought me great inspiration. Unlike many books on the market that focus on hot topics like ChatGPT and generative AI, it explores how AI will reshape the entire socio-economic system from a more macro and historical perspective.
Unfortunately, this book doesn't read very smoothly, possibly due to it being a translated work. This also made me curious - if we fed the entire book to an LLM and then had humans make adjustments, what would the translation quality be like?
Here are several viewpoints from the book that impressed me:
1. Three Levels of AI Revolution: The author uses an allegory of three entrepreneurs to explain how new technology will impact our lives at three different levels:
- Point Solutions: Improving efficiency and reducing costs within existing models, for example: using AI for programming.
- Application Solutions: Redesigning workflows, for example: fully automated customer service processes based on large language models.
- System Solutions: Disrupting existing models, for example: new AI-based software architecture patterns that may have a significant impact on the existing software industry.
2. Rules vs. Prediction: The book mentions an interesting viewpoint: many current social rules actually exist because we cannot predict accurately. For example: epidemic control - in the past, because we couldn't accurately predict at-risk groups, we could only restrict everyone through rules. More accurate AI might be able to restrict at-risk groups more precisely without needing to restrict everyone.
3. Separation of Prediction and Judgment: One important transformation in the AI era is separating prediction from judgment: Prediction: Left to AI to handle (for example: predicting customer churn probability) Judgment: Reserved for humans (for example: deciding what action to take)
In the future, more prediction work will be handed over to AI, while humans need to think about how to make good use of AI results to make better decisions. For some lower-risk applications, the decision-making part can also set thresholds and be left to AI for decision-making.
4. Rethinking Existing Workflows: We can start thinking about which work in our jobs is purely predictive in nature? We can consider introducing AI. Which requires human judgment? We should invest more effort in strengthening our decision-making quality.
This book gave me a more complete understanding of AI development. Just like the electricity revolution mentioned in the book, although it took 20 years to truly change factory operations, it ultimately completely transformed the entire society. Similarly, AI may seem to have limited impact now, but its potential to change society should not be underestimated.
Rather than worrying about AI replacing humans, we should think about how to make good use of AI's advantages, correct ourselves, and find our position in this wave of technological revolution. History tells us that every technological innovation ultimately brings a better life for humanity.
I hope this article can help everyone think about AI's future development from a different perspective!