In a year of reading memoirs, one of the last ones I've read is called "Wild Ride" by Hayley Arceneaux, the cancer survivor who flew on one of the first citizen-crew flights into space. It's a pretty short story, and the actual flight itself was shorter than I expected: about 2 days (I've gone on flights to Asia that felt just as long! but the "wild ride" of going up into space and then coming back down is one I'd never want to do, even though there's plenty of talk nowadays about humankind not being a one-planet species, that we need to branch out into the universe (also I just watched Interstellar where Matthew McConaghey searches the universe to do just that).
Things you have to do to go into space: quarantine for Covid (pretty obvious, but yea getting infected with Covid is not great, especially the new JN.1 strain even in best conditions, but especially in cramped positions in space), hang upside down( I don't like blood flowing to my head causing headaches in any situations), feel claustrophic (it's a cramped space, so you're sharing a small cabin with 3 or 4 other people, like getting the middle seat of a long Transatlantic flight). Training for G-forces, simulators to emulate space called "the vomit rocket," and ears popping (my ears already do funky things just going up in airplanes) so "No Thanks" to ever going up in space, even I was somehow picked to go or had enough money to fund my own mission/ buy my way on, etc. I do like the idea of establishing a call sign though to be referred to as a cool name, like "Maverick" or "Iceman"- how's the "Gorilla" for pounding my chest.
The possibility of space travel seemed impossible just 10 years ago, but we live in a different time now: I just listened to a pretty eye-opening podcast about the future of AI: a lot of things we would have thought impossible as a child seem like they might become reality at an exponential rate, like AI taking over all facets of our lives and replacing many of the human functions that we take for granted today: not just helping 6th graders do their homework or creating computer programs, but really fundamentally replacing human beings or at least the need for human beings at all. It's like we're on this "Wild Ride" towards a future that we can't control, that's inevitable- that's what makes it seem really wild. At least on airplanes when there's turbulence and delays and circling the airport you know what the end destination is and it's a safe place to get on the ground, but with the future of AI there's really no telling where it's going to spiral into. One thing I did take away is that today's youth is very in tune with the currency of our time, which is attention: how many people know about you and how many views you get on social media, and the No. 1 sought-after profession is to be a social media influencer.... but maybe instead of replacing old-school jobs like accountants, lawyers, doctors, insurance agents, etc. as is the conventional wisdom, the first job that AI comes for is.......social media influencers? Starting this year there will be more content generated online by AI than by humans, and AI creates better content by learning from the bst content that's already online. I've already heard that in the future actors and actresses won't be needed due to the real-life capaiblities of AI generating life-like characters, what's to stop it from replacing all these slice-of-life videos and how-to-make-a-quiche videos? So unfortunately all those Youtubers and Instagram Models, I don't know if your job is safe guys, AI's coming for all of us. I'll say that I was already worried about AI taking over my office job 5 years old in late 2018; lots of worrying stuff back then already, but here I am still plodding away at my 9 to 5 job (just that it's now in the safety of my home and not at an office). Not taking anything for granted, but here's hoping for another 5 years of work free from the AI Death Star taking over!
No comments:
Post a Comment