Intro: what should we be preparing for?

AI is a rapidly advancing field. The progress in the last decade has been enormous and unexpected. Just think what would people have answered in 2010 if asked when will an AI system be created that can both:

• find security flaws in Linux kernel (see e.g. here); and

• solve famous mathematical theorems that have remained unsolved for 50+ years (example, comprehensive list).

At that time, the likely answers from specialists would have been in the range of 2040 to 2050 or later. For example, this study from 2016 estimated that we were 30-50 years away from AI systems winning math tournaments and solving publishable theorems. However, both in the fields of computer security and mathematics, the future has indeed arrived.

Likewise, in the next decade (or even just next 5 years) there will very probably be progress that we cannot even fully fathom yet. It might have tremendous impact on all aspect of human society, particularly the labor market.

Thinking about my kids who are growing up, I would like to help them to prepare for this new and changing world.

But how do you prepare for something that you don't understand?

Because of this, I am trying to dive into this field to educate me and people around me - and I hope to take you, the reader, with me to this journey. I will try to keep the content simple and accessible to everyone without any prior specialized knowledge about AI systems.

I would like to finish with a quote from a TED talk of Yoshua Bengio (he is often referred to as "a godfather of AI"). In that talk, he talks about catastrophic risks related to AI, and about his vision for a safer path. To cite him:

We are blindly driving into a fog, despite the warnings of scientists like myself, that this trajectory could lead to loss of control. [..]

We need [..] to make sure that everyone understands these risks. We can all get engaged to steer our societies in a safe pathway in which the joys and endeavors of our children will be protected.