Embrace the now
The world and the way we are is going to change within a decade – so we need to live our lives accordingly.
ONE of the great things about Twitter is the ability to get viewpoints and ideas in real time from your favourite artists and thinkers.
American author and regular TED Talk speaker Tim Urban is most famous for his blog at waitbutwhy.com; he recently posted the following on Twitter:
“Whether you’re optimistic or pessimistic about the future, the fact is that we’re facing existential risk at worst and a vastly different future world at best. The world we’re used to very well might not be around for that much longer, so let’s really enjoy this world while we have it.
“Visit the places you’ve always wanted to visit. Dive into that hobby you’ve always wanted to try. Spend quality time with your loved ones. Savor each sunny Saturday, each great meal, each moment of fun. If we end up looking back on these days with great nostalgia, we want to at least know we made the most of the time we had.”
This message can come across as fairly negative – the usual warnings about the world changing and maybe not for the better.
But that’s not Urban’s point. The idea is to savour our time right now. Because the world is changing, maybe for worse but also maybe for the better. The only thing we know is that the world will be vastly different in a decade.
And it’s not the usual hyperbole to say this. The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) and climate change is changing our world in ways we can’t predict. And they both have the potential to change our world faster than we can adapt.
Climate change is altering our physical environment. Weather patterns are out of whack. Some places are too hot while others are too cold.
We might feel like this is happening gradually, as news of increased fires, droughts, and flooding becomes more prevalent, but our minds get used to things faster than we can physically prepare for.
And what about wildlife? Species adapt and evolve. But that takes tens of thousand of years, not a decade. Prepare for a lot of wildlife to be wiped off the face of the planet.
That’s our physical world.
AI has the ability to change the fabric of human reality. It’s like the industrial revolution on steroids. AI is getting orders of magnitude better not in years but in months. That pace of advancement makes it impossible to predict outcomes. It’s clear AI will take over jobs currently done by humans. But how many? What does a world look like when we all have access to our own “Jarvis” (Iron Man’s AI assistant from the Marvel movies).
What would a world look like when we prefer the company of AI over humans? Think that’s hyperbole? Already people are connecting with AI for relationships. Recently, a 23-year-old woman vlogger trained an AI chat bot to respond like her and she’s charging one dollar a minute to interact with it, and making good money.
AI will change our jobs, our home lives, and our relationships with each other.
Humans as a species tend to focus on the potential bad outcomes, but AI does have the potential to be very, very good for humanity. It might even give us the key to solving the climate change crisis.
I hope it does deliver on its massive upside. I am, after all, an optimist. We all are. Because we wouldn’t keep going if we thought everything was going to get worse.
But Tim Urban’s message still rings true. Embrace the now. The nostalgia of today. Recognise these are the good old days. And live accordingly, because the only thing we know for sure about the future is that things will be very different.
Avid writer Jason Godfrey – a model once told to give the camera a ‘big smile, no teeth’ – has worked internationally for two decades in fashion and continues to work in dramas, documentaries and lifestyle programming. Write to him at lifestyle@thestar.com.my and follow him on Instagram @bigsmilenoteeth and facebook.com/bigsmilenoteeth. The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.