Daniel Rossi-Keen
If you’ve been paying much attention to the news lately, you’ve probably been hearing more and more about the growing role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in contemporary society.
Services like Siri and Alexa, in a relatively short period of time, have become common tools used in daily life. For at least several years now, mainstream society has been talking about the algorithms of platforms like Google, Facebook, TikTok and the like. Most of us have likely wondered if our phones are actively listening to us and feeding us curated content (spoiler alert: they are). Automated cars, though seemingly fraught with PR and safety concerns, continue to represent an ever-closer reality in everyday life.
In recent weeks, some of you may have heard (or have begun to experiment with) GPT-3. GPT-3, which stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3, is what is known as an open-source language model. GPT-3 was first made available to the public in May 2020 and has since become one of the most popular and widely used language models. This service is capable of generating human-like text and can be used for a variety of applications, such as question-answering, dialogue generation, and text summarization. GPT-3 is considered to be the most advanced language model currently available and is continuing to be improved and developed.
Most of the preceding paragraph is in italics to indicate that the text was generated (with only very minor edits) by GPT-3 in response to the question: “Tell me about the history of GPT-3.” This brief illustration of the capabilities of this system is merely the tip of the iceberg, to put the matter quite mildly. Over the last couple of weeks, I have spent a considerable amount of time testing the limits of the system. I have chatted with it, I have used it to help write organizational documents, I have generated emails with it, and I have put it to work rewriting things that I have previously written on my own. When doing so, I have been alternately fascinated and horrified at nearly every turn. Fascinated because of its shocking sophistication. And horrified because of the many ways such technology will undoubtedly strain our current understanding of what it means to function as a human community in the coming years.
As a public leader whose work exists at the intersection of community development, education, public communication, and creativity, I have been thinking quite a bit about these issues of late. Truthfully, I have been thinking about what they mean for my own identity, as one whose brand is tangled up with my ability to read, write, and communicate. What happens to my own value if a computer can do many of those things increasingly well? What do I tell my teen-aged kids to do with their time and energy, particularly as it relates to education? How can we best prepare community leaders to be indispensable in a world where intellect, calculation, and communication are increasingly viewed as commodities that exist independent of character, history, and purpose?
Beyond questions about my own value, I have also been reflecting on the implications of such technology for the future of communities like ours. To a place like Beaver County, some of which still uses clip art and dot matrix printers, GPT-3 may sound like science fiction. And, I suppose, on some level it is. But here’s the thing: it’s a kind of science fiction that is now upon us and with which we must now contend. Because of this, I have found myself asking a bunch of questions about what such an automated future might mean for Beaver County. Here are just a few of the questions that we may explore together in the coming weeks.
1. Where are there unexpected opportunities on the horizon for a place like Beaver County when technology is rapidly and dramatically challenging historic assumptions about economic structures, employment, education, the nature of community, and more at every turn? How can our region take advantage of these shifting cultural and economic conditions in ways that generate healthier, more productive, and more vibrant communities?
2. Who are the leaders and organizations that are poised to utilize and deploy such technology in ways that are generative, constructive, and principled? How can we incentivize and empower such leaders and organizations, encouraging a more visionary and proactive response to what is certain to be widespread and rapid cultural change?
3. How will the rapid and widespread deployment of something like GPT-3 further expose Beaver County’s limitations, weaknesses, and general unwillingness to embrace change? How will such technological and cultural developments generate greater inequities and how can these changing conditions and tools also be leveraged to overcome the same?
4. In what ways will the coming AI revolution further highlight relational failures, dysfunctional systems, and shortsighted leadership that has long been associated with our region? As the world becomes increasingly more automated, and as creativity and innovation become more critical than knowledge, how will our region respond? Will we be able to leverage new tools to overcome our relational shortcomings, or will those shortcomings be all the more apparent in a world that is rapidly moving into new possibilities, new partnerships, and new ways of building communities?
As I continue to think about the constellation of issues referenced above, I keep coming back to this: what will distinguish communities, talent, organizations, and civilizations in the near future is directly proportional to their capacity for creativity, their sense of shared identity, their commitment to artistry, and their relentless pursuit of values-driven community formation. The wide-stream introduction of AI into mainstream society will highlight these matters in increasingly obvious and impactful ways. Together, it will be our task to sort out how to respond and how best to seize these opportunities for the greatest benefit of the communities in which we live.
Beyond questions about my own value, I have also been reflecting on the implications of such technology for the future of communities like ours. To a place like Beaver County, some of which still uses clip art and dot matrix printers, GPT-3 may sound like science fiction. And, I suppose, on some level it is. But here’s the thing: it’s a kind of science fiction that is now upon us and with which we must now contend. Because of this, I have found myself asking a bunch of questions about what such an automated future might mean for Beaver County. Here are just a few of the questions that we may explore together in the coming weeks.
1. Where are there unexpected opportunities on the horizon for a place like Beaver County when technology is rapidly and dramatically challenging historic assumptions about economic structures, employment, education, the nature of community, and more at every turn? How can our region take advantage of these shifting cultural and economic conditions in ways that generate healthier, more productive, and more vibrant communities?
2. Who are the leaders and organizations that are poised to utilize and deploy such technology in ways that are generative, constructive, and principled? How can we incentivize and empower such leaders and organizations, encouraging a more visionary and proactive response to what is certain to be widespread and rapid cultural change?
3. How will the rapid and widespread deployment of something like GPT-3 further expose Beaver County’s limitations, weaknesses, and general unwillingness to embrace change? How will such technological and cultural developments generate greater inequities and how can these changing conditions and tools also be leveraged to overcome the same?
4. In what ways will the coming AI revolution further highlight relational failures, dysfunctional systems, and shortsighted leadership that has long been associated with our region? As the world becomes increasingly more automated, and as creativity and innovation become more critical than knowledge, how will our region respond? Will we be able to leverage new tools to overcome our relational shortcomings, or will those shortcomings be all the more apparent in a world that is rapidly moving into new possibilities, new partnerships, and new ways of building communities?
As I continue to think about the constellation of issues referenced above, I keep coming back to this: what will distinguish communities, talent, organizations, and civilizations in the near future is directly proportional to their capacity for creativity, their sense of shared identity, their commitment to artistry, and their relentless pursuit of values-driven community formation. The wide-stream introduction of AI into mainstream society will highlight these matters in increasingly obvious and impactful ways. Together, it will be our task to sort out how to respond and how best to seize these opportunities for the greatest benefit of the communities in which we live.
Daniel Rossi-Keen, Ph.D., is the co-owner of eQuip Books, a community bookstore in Aliquippa and the executive director of RiverWise, a nonprofit employing sustainable development practices to create a regional identity around the rivers of Beaver County. You can reach Daniel at daniel@getriverwise.com.
This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Community Matters: The robots are coming for Beaver County
This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Community Matters: The robots are coming for Beaver County
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