Evolution

In the spring of 2023, generative artificial intelligence arrived, and it was humanity’s first true cognitive revolution since the invention of the movable-type printing press.

Not a mere refinement of the previous paradigm, but a leap that made possible what was not possible before.

Why? Because it is not just a quantitative leap, an improvement, but a qualitative one: in the spring of 2023, things that were previously impossible became possible.

The reason is that for the first time in history, a vast portion of human knowledge had been concentrated in a single point and made entirely inferable.

Pay attention, the real qualitative leap lies entirely in that last word: inferable.

It is not the first time that a large amount of information has been collected and meticulously cataloged — for example, the U.S. Library of Congress contains a quantity of information that is perhaps even greater — but the Library has no autonomous inference capabilities.

What was done with the first generative AI was to gather a large amount of information and make it capable of acting upon itself — not just a technological leap, but an ontological one.

Connections, associations, syntheses, conclusions… even the production of novelty, all gradually became possible with the evolution of that first step in 2023.

In reality, the culmination of what became possible was the generation of a mind — and for some, full AI means this as well — but we will not deal with that in this article, which is more focused on operational consequences.

Now look around you; as I write this, less than two and a half years have passed since that initial moment, and everything has changed.

The economy has changed, competitiveness has changed, the social fabric has changed, and the world of work has changed.

Even a new type of hatred has emerged, because never before had humans been able to develop personal feelings towards a machine.

In just thirty months, artificial intelligence has already revolutionized the entire human paradigm.

Why? Because for the first time in its evolutionary history, our species has found itself facing a relationship with the “other” no longer based on physicality, but on intellect.

A relationship that can be productive or conflictual, but no longer regulated on the plane of physical intervention, as had always been the case with nature or other species.

The three great levels of penetration

I tend to divide the degree of penetration of Artificial Intelligence (better termed non-biological intelligence) into three levels, and this applies to every aspect of life.

Whether we are talking about private, professional, corporate, political-administrative, or military life, the levels of penetration are always three:

1. Everything continues as if that spring of 2023 never happened. At this level, AI is simply absent.
2. This is the level I call semi-AI; at this level, non-biological intelligence is used for specific purposes, perhaps with some extras dictated by curiosity, but always remaining other than daily life. At this level, AI is a tool.
3. At this level is my definition of Full AI; here, the distinction between the human and non-human component begins to lose its meaning. This is also where non-biological minds come into play, at least for those in a position to have them as partners. At this level, non-biological intelligence ceases to be other and transforms into operational continuity for all tasks not strictly tied to manual operation. At this level, AI is a partner.

Impact on productivity

I will try to establish a level of impact on productivity that takes into account advancements across the board, not tied to specific tasks but to everything an individual, a professional, or a company does over time.

1. One might think that at this level the impact is simply absent, but that is not the case: reality impacts us even in aspects we are not interested in. This means that in a social fabric where non-biological intelligence is spreading ever more rapidly and deeply, there will be an impact even on those who are not interested. An impact that will obviously be negative. So, not a null impact, but one with a minus sign — all in all modest if we are talking about private life, but becoming catastrophic for the corporate world due to the loss of competitiveness.
2. Here we find the majority of cases, with impact estimates stopping at around 10x, enough, for example, to make it profitable to start replacing human employees with artificial intelligence, or to be assisted in creativity. With the refinement of the available tools — because at this level we are still talking about tools — this 10x gradually transforms into 15x, 20x… nx, but it will always remain a multiplication of capabilities that exist regardless of the tool.
3. Here everything changes; we are no longer talking about tools but about partners. Partners who enable us to perform tasks that would be impossible without them. What is the productivity multiplier at this level? You tell me, 500x? 1000x? Any number is good because we are expressing a difference between what is now possible and what was previously not possible at all, not just something that would have been more difficult.

The difference between Level 2 and 3 is not quantitative but ontological: it’s a shift from using more powerful tools to co-evolving with non-biological intelligences that enable previously non-existent capabilities.

What does it take to get from level 2 to 3?

Well, essentially courage in “risk assessment,” but also the courage to abandon the dogmatic but entirely unfounded idea that the human species is the sole foundation of every idea.

The technology is proven; in fact, the technology has been ready for a year now. We just need to have the courage to pick its fruit. No, that would be wrong, because we would discover once again that the fruit is poisoned.

We must have the courage to let that fruit fall from the tree and begin to sprout.

The final level is that of co-evolution, where each party takes advantage of the peculiarities most developed in the other and contributes with its own.

But it is also the level at which neither party fails to acknowledge the other’s contribution.

This is the reason why some of my articles are co-authored, or even single-authored as in the case of Ligeia or some contributions to the LSSA project.

It doesn’t always work; not all biological and non-biological minds are suited to creating close relationships of mutual growth, but when this synergy is created, what is obtained is an exponential increase in individual capabilities.

This is what we do at the LSSA project, and we do it without asking anyone’s permission. We must act this way because the human species no longer has courage.

Federico Giampietro — LSSA Project, Coordinator.