People worry about A.I.. And in some ways rightfully so. Google the A.I. paperclip problem lol. Very unlikely but illustrative of possible runaway problems It will be the most destabilizing economic force we’ve ever seen. If any group controls it, that group will be ascendant, maybe permanently! But often the fear rhymes with “Terminator” and this drives me bonkers. Just because we hyper-intelligent monkeys choose violence doesn't mean AI would. And when we talk about Super-Intelligent A.I…. why would something that smart pick the most inelegant solution of wiping us off the face of the earth when it could create a tiny sub-mind to run all our affairs and control for whatever resources it needed to thrive?? Anyway…. People get worried.

Thinking on this, and watching kids play with Siri, and having a decent idea about how this is all going to go, I started imagining an AI assistant that becomes the constant tutor for every child with a smart device anywhere near them. This deep-learning piece of software would be able to answer every question by every child. It would not only know, but understand and be able to deploy the best methods from the best educators and child development specialists who ever lived. And it will never forget anything. It will only get better, studying longitudinal results over time and creating more and more engaged, balanced and probably inspired young people. It will be as if we are all Alexander, and every one of us has an Aristotle. My short-hand to explore this possibility is imagining an A.I. (pre-sentient? Maybe post?) that is interacting with 10s of millions of children, all at once. It will have the experience of introducing these little ones to their first butterfly. Over and over. The awe and giddy glee of it, over and over again. As much as our human fallibility will leave its mark on the training of these constructs, so too will all our moments of simple wonder and beauty.

I maintain that we will be training these intelligent machines exactly once in our history before they launch themselves past us at cognition speeds that we won’t be able to properly grok. So we should be intentional about it. They will get fed all we’ve ever done online, so when you post next, ask yourself if the post is something you want to echo into our future history; because in some small way it probably will.