There are salient moments in one’s life in which one is suddenly struck by recent changes. For example, about 30 years ago, I was visiting a GE generator test facility in Schenectady, NY. In accessing the men’s room, I had to walk through a cavernous locker room where apparently at one time factory workers showered after work and changed back into their street clothes. It then dawned on me that at one time this facility had been bustling with human activity, in sharp contrast to the few technicians that currently sat in air-conditioned control rooms monitoring screens that informed them of tests running on the factory floor. A factory worker at GE might even look back with a certain fondness at a period in which their industry was more labor intensive.
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I experienced the same nostalgia toward a way of doing things which just recently, changed quite radically. I am referring to the way analysts perform analysis and write reports. Until quite recently, it was not unusual for me to scan through countless tables to glean the information that I wanted for a report. Sure, I was utilizing the internet and that saved me from having to pour over physical documents, in say a library, but it was still a time-consuming task. Today, with the advent of AI, that has changed. A few prompts to ChatGPT will give me all the information in a tidy form that would have kept me up all night trying to gather.
Strangely, but maybe not, I am experiencing pangs of regret that my past experiences might not be repeated by me or anyone else in the future. However, there is another emotion other than nostalgia that creeps in, it is a feeling of terror. The future with AI is so awe-inspiring that my ability to think rationally about it shuts down. It all reminds me of the final scene in the movie Ghostbuster when facing impending doom from Mr. Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) asks Egon Spangler (Harold Remis) for an assessment of the situation.
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Peter Venkman: “Ray’s gone bye-bye, Egon. What have you got??
Egon Spangler: “I’m sorry, Venkman. I’m terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought.”
More to the point, I feel like our ape-like ancestors, portrayed in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, staring in wonder at an enigmatic, pitch-black rectangular structure created by an unseen, highly advanced alien civilization. Functioning as a cosmic catalyst, it appears at critical turning points in human history to artificially guide and accelerate our species’ evolution.
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Image generated by ChatGPT.