Boiling Frogs

Getting comfortable with AI

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Friends,

The story goes that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will immediately leap out to escape the danger. However, if the frog is put in warm water that is slowly heated to a boil, it will not perceive the gradual increase in temperature and will ultimately meet its demise, unaware of the looming peril until it's too late. A bit like me dozing off in a jacuzzi.

Similarly, the rise of AI has been and continues to be a gradual escalation. Initially introduced and talked about in simple examples that we could all understand (maps and navigation, facial detection), its presence was like the tepid water for the frog—comfortable and seemingly harmless. Society welcomed AI for its convenience, efficiency, and the promise of a better future. We've seen it evolve from simple machine learning algorithms to complex systems capable of emulating human-like decision-making and action, moving from the background of our digital experiences to the forefront of our daily lives.

Much like the frog that doesn't realize the water is heating up, we may not fully grasp the profound changes AI brings to our social fabric, economy, and privacy. The transformation is so incremental that each advancement seems like a natural progression, not a cause for alarm. We celebrate the conveniences and efficiencies it brings, often overlooking the broader implications, such as the displacement of jobs, ethical dilemmas around privacy and autonomy, and the potential for AI to make decisions beyond human control or understanding.

I feel that we are way too comfortable. We are frogs leading our best lives. Startups are rolling out tools, we’re using Claude and ChatGPT Copilot and the next tool that will become extinct/acquired/sunsetted. We’re drinking the Kool Aid.

The boiling point we will soon hit will represent a future juncture where AI's influence and control over society become all-encompassing and possibly irreversible, leading to significant consequences for human autonomy, employment, and even our social structures. Like the frog that fails to jump out of the boiling water, humanity might not take decisive action until it's too late to reverse or mitigate the impacts fully.

AI’s evolution in our every day tells me one thing. The bar is so low for entry that it’s going to be ubiquitous across jobs and society. We will get so comfortable that those once perceived as intellectual will lose their edge.

It’s imperative that we redefine and evolve our capabilities today and structure ourselves in ways that will best mesh skillsets together. Over the last 18 months I have met with teams and companies, some of whom still have organisational structures that are hierarchical. The decision-making needs to go through layers of middle management to get approval. On the flip, you have those who are leading from the ground up - because their goals are clear. If we don’t have clarity in the why and the how, companies that are using innovative techniques with embedded AI in their thinking will win over those who are waiting for a decision from manager number 2, who happens to be on holiday with an “out of office” to contact an assistant if urgent. We are not quite at this precipice. But I make the point that bureaucracy will die because the speed of AI and the evolution of a new model will win.

Where we are going is different to what we have experienced in these crazy 2 years. Large Language Models will evolve to Large Action Models. A Large Action Model in AI could be defined as an advanced AI system that not only understands and generates human-like text (as LLMs do) but also can perform actions in the real world or digital environments based on that understanding. These actions could range from making online reservations and scheduling appointments to interacting with other software systems to perform complex tasks. The key difference between LLMs and LAMs is the latter's ability to directly execute actions or commands based on the processed information, moving beyond mere suggestions or generating text-based outputs. In education, that might be a teacher asking a service to “prep my lesson” - and the agent would know what to prepare based on what was coming up the next day - based on the curriculum or lesson. It could also be an agent that could book a restaurant for dinner tonight - where preferences of those attending, the numbers and location could all be catered for. The LAM acts not just as an information processor but as an active agent that executes tasks on behalf of the user, interacting with various digital platforms and services. It exemplifies the transition from AI as a tool for understanding and generating language to AI as an autonomous actor within predefined domains.

Concurrently, while speed of technology evolves, so does the hardware - AR/VR tools, as well as tracking rings and wristbands - and cameras tracking our every move. Not only do we have the Humane AI Pin but there are Ray-Ban Meta Sunglasses and iOS 18 and Apple earpods with cameras and sensors that highlight the deepening integration of AI into daily life, offering personalized suggestions and actions. The proliferation of devices equipped with cameras and sensors will enable a form of intelligence that adapts to and learns from user behaviour, enhancing the human-AI relationship.

AI is everywhere and we’re letting it in because it feels comfortable and “cool” and efficient. We need to navigate these turbulent waters with a transformed consciousness, seeking not just to chart a course through the emerging landscape but also to shape it for the better.

The Frog in the Water is a cautionary tale - urging us to remain vigilant and proactive in shaping the development and integration of AI. By being aware of the temperature of the water, so to speak, we can ensure that AI serves to enhance human society rather than endanger it, maintaining a balance that fosters innovation while preserving our core values and autonomy. And don’t doze off at the edge of the jacuzzi.

Stay Curious, don’t get boiled - and don’t forget to be amazing,

Rahim

Here are my recommendations for this week:

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Now

1. I like my own company. But do I spend too much time alone?: With growing numbers of people living without partners and children, and working from home, more of us are spending time alone. But is this actually a problem? In Solitude: The Science and Power of Being Alone, authors Netta Weinstein, Heather Hansen and Thuy-vy T Nguyen argue that time spent by ourselves is not necessarily a threat to our wellbeing, nor an inherent good. According to the authors, “alone time” and the extent to which it’s beneficial or detrimental is highly personal and not well understood by researchers. “It’s something that society tends to frown upon. We tend to conflate the word ‘solitude’ with loneliness,” says Nguyen. But they are different. Related: 6 Of The Most Passive-Aggressive Phrases You’re Probably Using (But Shouldn’t Be)

2. Uber-style pricing is coming for everything: More and more industries are adopting “dynamic pricing” — and consumers aren’t happy. Amazon, for example, reportedly changes prices millions of times per day, with the average product’s price shifting every 10 minutes. The FTC, which sued the e-commerce giant last year accusing it of being an illegal monopoly power, alleges that Amazon used an algorithm to test whether competitors would match the company’s price increases on certain products and keep their own price high if they did match. The FTC estimates that Amazon made about an extra $1 billion in revenue through this automated pricing process. Amazon has said that it no longer uses the algorithm and that it was a brief experiment to see whether its price-matching system could lead to unsustainably low prices. Data related: Weather forecasts have become much more accurate; we now need to make them available to everyone

3. China creates world’s fastest humanoid robot – but there’s something odd about how it moves: A Chinese firm has created the world’s fastest humanoid robot – but don’t worry, you can probably still outrun it. For now. Clocking in at seven miles per hour, an impressive speed for today’s robots, the Unitree H1 Evolution V3.0 has been showing off its capabilities in a video that shows it running, jumping, climbing stairs, carrying a basket and dancing. Although as with most robots, the faster it moves, the more it looks like it may have soiled itself – or that the very least is dashing for the bathroom. Related: Elon Musk's Neuralink shows first brain-chip patient playing chess: Noland Arbaugh, the 29-year-old patient who was paralysed below the shoulders after a diving accident, received an implant from the company in January. Mr Arbaugh could control a computer mouse using his thoughts, Musk said last month and has appeared to play online chess.

4. Kate Middleton’s cancer diagnosis is part of a frightening global trend

   It’s not just the Princess of Wales. More and more young people are getting cancer. Also: I Hope You All Feel Terrible Now. Health related:To Build Muscle, It’s the Sets That Count: Short workouts can make you stronger, but longer workouts are better for building muscle, according to new research

5. The Babysitter is dead: For decades, sitting was both a job and a rite of passage. Now it feels more like a symbol of a bygone American era. Today, the teen babysitter as we knew her, in pop culture and in reality, has all but disappeared. People seem to worry less about adolescents and more for them, and for their future prospects. “Teenagers don’t seem very grown-up these days.” There’s not much reason to fear or exalt babysitters anymore—because our society no longer trusts teens to babysit much at all. Related: End the phone-based childhood

Next

1. Scaling through Chaos: The Founder’s Guide to Building and Leading Teams from 0 to 1,000 - Phenomenal resource from Index Ventures. Must read for startup and scaleup people. Related: The Highest Valued Startups In The World

2. 8 Google Employees Invented Modern AI. Here’s the Inside Story: They met by chance, got hooked on an idea, and wrote the “Transformers” paper—the most consequential tech breakthrough in recent history. Also: A ChatGPT for Music Is Here. Inside Suno, the Startup Changing Everything

3. Bringing AI to the Masses: How building infrastructure for creators can democratize AI: “ I think nobody knows how the future is going to unfold, but we think that there’s going to be a lot of diversity in the kind of products that people build on top of these models, and in the models themselves. I think there are a lot of trade-offs involved in making one of these models. You have to decide what data you are going to train on it, what kind of fine-tuning you are going to do. What kind of instructions is the model going to expect you to give as a user? What kind of expectations do you want to set with your users about what to use the model for? And in the same way that the early internet had this huge explosion of different applications, I think we’re going to see the same thing from AI.” Related: Saudi Arabia Plans $40 Billion Push Into Artificial Intelligence

4. ‘A landmark moment’: scientists use AI to design antibodies from scratch

   Modified protein-design tool could make it easier to tackle challenging drug targets — but AI antibodies are still a long way from reaching the clinic. Related: Pig kidney transplanted into living person for first time

5. Is the “AI developer”a threat to jobs – or a marketing stunt? This week has brought a bigger wave of coverage, with startup Cognition Labs producing a video demo about its product “Devin,” which it calls “the first AI software engineer” – just as they announced raising a $21M Series A funding. Also: Apple’s AI ambitions could include Google or OpenAI

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