Grandpa Randy, I went to a children’s birthday party over the weekend, and I blew up so many balloons my cheeks hurt for hours after.   Some of the balloons were over-inflated and they exploded.   The popping balloons did not bother me too much, but if I listen to Sam Altman from OpenAI, the bursting of the AI balloon may hurt quite a bit more.   According to all the pundits, investments are far beyond any reasonable returns, and this could only mean that there will be a major market correction.   However, knowing that one would expect all the big investors would be backing off and hedging their bets, but that isn’t what is happening.   In fact, the opposite is happening.   They are so bullish on the medium to long-term future of AI that they are willing to lose billions and billions of dollars in the short term.

Of course, once the balloon bursts, all the skeptics will crawl out of the woodwork, and they will start with their “I told you so’s.   No one realistically believed there would not be bumps along the road, unexpected challenges, and very real setbacks; however, AI is here to stay in one form or another.    Leading the charge of “I told you” sayers will be the academics who were threatened to the core by LLMs and chatbots.   As they became aware of how students were using ChatGPT or any of the other platforms to do their essays, the alarms went off, and the knee-jerk reaction was to ban any and all use of AI.  The exception, needless to say, was the professors and teachers who felt it was quite acceptable for themselves to use these very platforms for research, or course preparation, or even assessments.   These critics of AI were concerned their students would lose the ability to think critically or to express themselves coherently; consequently, the demise of AI, even though it might be temporary, will bolster their fragile egos and validate their dire predictions for AI.   I shared with you a week ago an article written by an American academic who held many key administrative posts, who lamented the passing of the era of pedantry and yearned for the good old days when he could stand in front of hundreds of dulled-eyed university students and bore the life out of them.  Why did we have to have AI when life was so wonderful when he ruled the roost?   He, like the other naysayers, may laugh now, but our AI chatbots may end up having the last laugh.

Grandpa Randy, please don’t think I am for everything AI.  I do see and fear many of the implications of this new technology, but like you, I feel we need to be realistic and start thinking about how we can harness and control this beast and do this before it controls us.  I showed my grandchildren how to use Sora in a controlled situation.  They were blown away, and soon they were off being creative and generating all types of visuals.  I explained how they had to frame the instructions and that it was best to write out what they wanted before doing the voice to the product trajectory.   I sat with them and monitored what they were doing, and guided them in places and reigned them in at other moments.   The bubble may or may not burst, but my grandchildren are entering with absolute inevitability a whole new world.  I am certain of that despite what the “I told you so” sayers may think.