AI Assistants - From Generalists to Specialists

Human Traits Update

This is the week I finish my manuscript before it goes to the editing team! As in most projects, that last mile always feels the hardest and writing a book is no exception to that maxim. As far as novels go, Human Traits will be on the shorter side coming in between 55K and 60K words. Of course, this could change plus or minus as the book goes through the editing process. While most novels in this genre fall between 60K and 80K words, there are some notable works that are shorter (and many that are much longer). The one that comes to mind is Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury. That comes in at an even 50K words. Another classic novel on the shorter side is The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, coming in at 55K words. Throughout the process of writing the book, I never focused on a goal word count. I have written this narrative with no more or no less words than it needed to be told. A book that serves as a large inspiration for me is 1984, by George Orwell. Certainly, this epochal work makes its mark as a literary classic that weighs in at 89K words. In my next newsletter, I will spend time on specific contrast to a future horizon that is more 'protopian' in nature versus dystopian.

Generalist AI versus Personal AI

The narrative of Human Traits takes place in 2032, a mere eight years away. Perhaps AI years will be judged like dog years. Every one year feels like seven. At least that is how the pace feels at the moment, with ChatGPT originally released to the public on November 30th of 2022. The challenge and the fun in writing this book was to predict what life will look like as we coexist with AI into the next decade. This is where the genre of 'speculative fiction' lands. I want this to feel like near horizon rather than distant science fiction. In that effort, I make several predictions about our near future. One that I believe in strongly is the move from generalist AI to one of a more personal, specialist AI. This shows up in a number of ways in Human Traits.

AI assistants have been around much longer than GPT technologies. Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant are the ones that frame our perspective around having conversational access to the Internet along with personal automation tasks. I foresee a world where we go from everyone using the same assistant to everyone using AI that merges a large language model (LLM) with very personal context and training. Such that we will literally name our own AI assistant like we name our own children. In Human Traits, I pay subtle homage to the movie Her where the main character (Joaquin Phoenix) first meets his 'personal OS' named Samantha (Scarlett Johansson). This movie was created in 2013 which is crazy to think about how close we are getting to some of the reality they paint, eleven years later. Here is the scene where Theodore meets Samantha:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV01B5kVsC0

If you haven't seen this movie or if it has been a while, it's worth a revisit considering the current technology landscape. It definitely goes into the esoteric deep-end to a dystopian fate, which differs from my perspective in Human Traits, but entertaining and enlightening nonetheless.

I can't wait to get this body of work out into the world!

Note: The illustration for this newsletter was created in GPT 4.0 from OpenAI with the following prompt:
Prompt: create an illustration that moves from Apple Siri to Jetson's Rosie

GPT 4.0 text response:

I'll create an illustration that depicts the evolution of personal assistant technology, starting from Apple's Siri to Rosie the Robot from "The Jetsons." This artwork will visually represent the progression from a digital assistant in smartphones to a fully autonomous robot helper, embodying the dream of future home automation and robotics. The image will feature Siri as a sleek, modern interface on a smartphone, symbolizing the early 21st-century technology. This will transition smoothly into Rosie, who represents the mid-20th-century vision of future robotics, with her characteristic maid outfit and friendly demeanor, highlighting the contrast and connections between different eras of technology imagination. Let's see how this visualization comes to life.