How Jack Ma prophesied the Third World and what is the purpose of artificial intelligence

The era of cruelty of the previous pharaoh has passed forever!..

The era of my cruelties has begun! (c) – robot Bender)

War, of course, supersedes most other news. But not all. For more than a month, citizens have been discussing the advent of the era of neural networks. Midjourney, gptchat, decentralized search engine Presearch and dozens and hundreds of other topics. It seems that Professor Kapitsa wrote that when there is a transition to a new technological order, the first innovations look like individual balls in a pot of water standing on fire. Bulk, bulk... and then everything starts to boil at the same time and there are hundreds of thousands of those bulk. Citizens, who did not expect this, fall into a stupor and neurosis. Opinions are divided into extremely euphoric and extremely pessimistic.

Optimists reach out to communism (freedom, creativity, spirituality, pink unicorns), pessimists quote "Revolution of the Machines" and grimly predict the onset of the Apocalypse and post-civilization.

I think both scenarios will unfold in parallel according to the "dreams come true" principle. Supporters of the previous model will suffer more, brave pioneers of the new system will win more.

Third technological and Third world

You may remember Jack Ma's speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2018. Then he said that the Third World will be caused by the development of artificial intelligence. Like, the first technological revolution provoked the First World War, the second - the Second World War, and now the Third Technological Revolution is coming. So, - he says, - let's do without nonsense, let's declare the Third World due to climate problems, diseases and global poverty. I remember this speech well, mostly because the reference to artificial intelligence seemed to me to be pulled by the ears.

Now I think he was right.

During the rising wave of the Kondratiev cycle, wars and revolutions historically take place. Wars are for a key resource that will become the basis of a new technological order. What do you think this resource is?

Latest news: Nvidia has announced a new version of its H100 chip for export to China. This new chip (H800) will work on China's largest AI projects led by Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent. But there is a nuance. According to export restrictions, Nvidia must reduce the performance of the base chips for AI systems supplied to China. Therefore, for the new H800 chip, performance was left at the level of H100 (operations per second). But they halved the bandwidth (GB per second). Thus blocking China in the competitive struggle in the field of artificial intelligence. It will not be possible to quickly replace the supplier by China's own forces - it will take 5 to 7 years.

There is also an opinion that China is not interested in Taiwan as an "original Chinese land". Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, one of the world's most powerful manufacturers of semiconductor products, may be in the eyes of the Chinese government a trophy more valuable than the entire island.

It will not be superfluous to remind that with the beginning of the war in Ukraine, two large factories immediately stopped supplying the global market with neon, which is used for the production of microchips.

If all this does not coincide, it can be predicted that the basis of the next technological system will be artificial intelligence. And also - production automation and robotic systems in all spheres of life. What Jack Ma hinted at. The war has not yet become the Third World War, but the upward cycle of the Kondratyev cycle has not yet ended. Long-term experts predict that the 20-30s of our century will be "military-revolutionary" in general.

In fact, at the same Davos forums, the problems that the implementation of such technological solutions will entail have been voiced many times. The main one is the billions of "redundant people" who will have to be released from their usual jobs. And significantly limit access to resources and social security. Do not forget that most of them are urbanites. That is, they are unable to sow a garden or a field and provide themselves with at least food. Here are the prerequisites for revolutions and upheavals.

I can already see the latest Luddites sledgehammering laptops and robotic factories. And they can be understood in advance. When the technological system changes, a full-fledged catastrophe occurs for people who do not see themselves outside the previous economic and social model. Paleolithic, the collapse of the agrarian economy, deindustrialization, and now - a potential neural network. With a great risk of physically not surviving the phase transition. Although a new space for living and working is gaining momentum very close by, it is worth seeing and accepting.

Transition between worlds

Especially since this time the industrial age was not giving up its positions as rapidly as its predecessors. It is known that the pace of economic growth began to slow down in the 70s of the last century. For a simple reason: the markets were saturated and it became clear that it makes no sense to endlessly build up new industrial capacities. The task was to download at least the existing ones against the background of falling demand. Consumer loans, waves of "marketing fashion", the formation of a consumer society, access to new markets with the parallel design of the foundations of globalization, which would support global trade, were launched. That is, jobs were added slowly, but people - even very rapidly. Mind you - all this was happening long before start of automation.

But people gave themselves advice. And little by little they began to move to the service economy. However, the service economy is a low-productivity area. Services are sold directly to customers and are significantly limited by the physical capacity of the provider. You can't "slap" 1 million massages on a conveyor belt. Make 2 thousand haircuts or hair coloring in 8 working hours. Seat a thousand guests in a small cafe or restaurant. Organize a tourist excursion for 800 people at the same time. So it is useless to expect economic growth based on the service economy. In fact, it is one of the reasons for slowing down the economy of Ukraine during all the years after post-Soviet deindustrialization. However... there is bread to go with bread - and that's bread.

Ultimately, corporations decided not only to conquer global product markets, but also to take advantage of global labor markets in order to optimize costs. And they took production to the countries of Southeast Asia, leaving it under complete control only those links that provided the largest share of income in value-added chains. By the way, nothing particularly catastrophic happened here either. Because the Internet appeared at the same time, which offered a gigantic space for new types of employment. Mostly young people who didn't want to work in factories anyway and quickly figured out how to find a profitable place for themselves in the company. Providing services and trading already online, practicing remote employment, producing and monetizing all kinds of content.

As a result of the covid pandemic, the service economy has transformed into a gig economy, where a self-employed entrepreneur calmly provides services even in the B2B segment and feels great. Not least due to the fact that he already knows how to organize multi-income. Which is formed both through the sale of own services and other types of entrepreneurship, and through passive sources of income.

As you can see, this time humanity did not crash headfirst into the next phase barrier, but "crawled" through it slowly like a snail. At the same time, forming an environment in which, if desired, the last ardent supporters of the industrial type of employment can join.

Against this background, automation, robotics and neural networking will not cause such a catastrophic scale of technological unemployment. At least - in countries where similar "spare airfields" are sufficiently developed and there is a culture of rapid development of new technological environments.

Freedom from and freedom for

Personally, I am a supporter of the implementation of technologies of the new system. On the one hand, it is a solution to problems that are fundamentally not resolved at the previous level of system complexity. And usual working and household comfort. To be honest, it's easier for me to "hire" Midjourney and ask it to do as I want to see, than to explain to a human designer or artist. And then boast that his vision is more correct than my request. I've been waiting for the super market versions of the robot farmer and the one-seater helicopter for a long time, but I just really want it. Moreover, the first working samples have already been presented. I wouldn't turn down a robot maid either. And I am even happy for men that their fantasies will eventually be realized by robots. In this case, the relationship with living women will be much deeper. Those men who need something more from a relationship than just a set of certain functions. On condition, if you managed to build a relationship with yourself first. Even here a neural network can be an assistant, just watch the old movie "She" with Joaquin Phoenix.

Automation of production is a good thing from a pragmatic point of view. Allows you to save on the main cost item - salary. To make production cheaper and avoid crises of overproduction. Well, yes, it will take some of the work out of even my fellow marketers, but the "sell shit" meme isn't even funny anymore. It is much more pleasant to participate in the development of something that people really need, it is only necessary to change the focus a little and retrain a little. And from a humanistic point of view - a good thing. No one does monotonous work, is not depressed, does not burn out, does not suffer from bad management, is not afraid of losing his job.

I am sure that under the condition of big data analytics and quick technical and economic calculations, projects of common good will be implemented in much higher quality than those that officials are trying to hide. Even if we put aside corruption and vested interests. As an acquaintance recently said about the functionaries of his own ministry: it is a black trouble when theoreticians invent rules and regulations for practitioners.

At the same time, I do not understand the complaints about the financing of the social sphere we are used to. Who will finance medicine??? - they ask. But what medicine? Given the early diagnosis of diseases with the help of AI and quick correction of the situation, how many of those hospitals will you need, dear?

All this is only from one side.

On the other hand, people throughout their history fought for "freedom from". They freed themselves from slavery, then fought against the feudal lords, overcame corporate slavery, and in the end, they will find themselves in a situation where everyone's fate is literally in their hands. And for the first time in history, the question may not be "how to make a living", but "what to spend your life time on". How best to implement the "freedom for" that has suddenly fallen on its head?

I suspect it is this question that causes such existential horror, not the prospect of being out of work on a basic income. After all, even covid demonstrated that few people started to engage in creativity, self-development, sports, meditation or plunged headlong into hobbies during forced vacations. TV series and games can be a temporary pill, like other "time killers". But sooner or later everyone will have to answer questions about the meaning of their own life. This seems to me the most interesting in the context of the new technological system.

Kateryna Gladkevich, a visionary Newsky (William D. Donovan Foundation for International Peace)