In the next 10 years, all financial companies will be turned upside-down, with AI replacing traders, bankers, accountants, research analysts, and insurance companies. Last year, my AI investment algorithm returned 8 times more than my private banker. That reminds me – when I go home I am going to fire my private banker.

　　In the next 10 years, AI will replace most factory workers, assistants, advisors, and middlemen. But AI is not limited to simple jobs. AI will also replace many reporters, doctors, and teachers. Your AI assistant will know better than you what you would like to eat tonight, where you should go on vacation, and whom you should date.

　　But it doesn’t stop there. In 10 years, mechanical AI will become reliable. AI will be safer at driving cars than people, sweeping changes, as it were, brought by the lowly Roomba…. will grow up and cook, wash, clean and handle all the household drudgery for us.

　　In 10 years, because AI will make so much money for humanity, we will enter the Age of Plenty, making strides to eradicate poverty and hunger, and giving all of us more spare time and freedom to do what we love.

　　In 10 years, because AI will replace half of human jobs, we will enter the Age of Confusion, and many people will become depressed as they lose the jobs and the corresponding self-actualization. And many of you will become parents concerned with how to improve education in order to prevent your children from being replaced by AI.

　　These predictions are not based on some hand-wavy comparison of the number of neurons possessed by humans and AI simulators. Rather, they are based on an engineer’s extrapolation based on known algorithms, and the real marketplace and workforce.

　　In my company, we have raised over $1 billion to invest in these developments. Softbank has launched a $100 billion Vision Fund. The tech giants of the past 50 years – IBM, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, have all declared themselves to be AI companies. So even if you doubt me, you probably should not doubt all of them.

　　So, for leading edge, super smart engineers like yourselves, 2027 should be the best of times in your lives. Unless you miss the AI revolution, in which case it may turn into the worst times in your lives.

　　Now let me give you three pieces of advice – how not to miss the Age of AI, so that you can have the time of your life.

　　My first is: Embrace AI, and align your career by betting on its inevitability.

　　Like all big change, AI requires you to have an open mind. It’s OK to be fearful of change.

　　As Mark Twain explained, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear. Not absence of fear.”

　　Your hard work has prepared you to confront, or simply accept, or warmly embrace - change that will push you in new directions.

　　Given what lies ahead, you must warmly embrace AI. While the first AI tools in your industry may appear fragile, be assured they will get better with data.

　　The three software companies I mentioned earlier, when they were first launched: often made people uglier, lost millions in bad loans, and thought I was some talk show celebrity. But given time and much more data, their self-learning made them dramatically better than people. Not only are they better, they don’t get tired nor emotional. They don’t go on strike, and they are infinitely scalable.

　　With hardware, software, and networking costs coming down, all they cost is electricity.

　　So whatever domain you choose, be the first to use AI tools. If you’re a software engineer, use AI tools to check and optimize your code, to find re-usable code, or even to write new code. Use AI tools to hire and build your team. If you start your own company, use AI tools to manage your books and maximize your profits. Use AI tools to replace your customer support and your salespeople. Use robots to produce your goods and autonomous vehicles to deliver them.

　　The symbiotic combination of humans and AI is all about 1+1=3. For example, when a doctor can correctly diagnose cancer, and save 70 lives out of 100, and an early AI tool can save 60 lives out of 100 -- together perhaps they can save 80 lives. And when the AI tool improves to saving 80 lives, perhaps together they can save 90. So do not passively accept AI, but embrace AI, seek out AI, and find every which way that AI can help you. Learn AI, and find clever ways to build that symbiotic relationship earlier. Just like the reporter who first found word processing, the accountant who first used a spreadsheet, the first photographer who applied Photoshop, you will have an edge. In addition, AI will evolve faster and more broadly than these tools, and your edge will grow and become sustainable.

　　My second piece of advice is: Uphold your responsibility as an engineer.

　　We all know that for centuries physicians took the Hippocratic Oath, as a responsibility to treat human life as sacred. In the age of AI, I think engineers’ responsibilities are equally sacred, or even greater.

转载请注明出处。