The Amplification of Desire and the Perfection of Wisdom
It is the Christmas season, and my social calendar is getting full. Yesterday I had a great lunch and drinking session with all my colleagues at Lalaport. It was a Japanese buffet lunch with free-flowing liquor, and we stuffed ourselves full with endless servings of sake and sashimi. After that gluttonous feast, we adjourned to another place nearby where we celebrated with more beers.
Everyone wanted to release some pent-up frustration after a challenging year. Come year-end, we'll all be saying goodbye to the company. There was a mixture of sadness and relief, but overall, the vibe was good, and the camaraderie was great.
I want to continue prioritising social engagements in the coming year. Travel is not on the agenda yet, but I won't dismiss the possibility outright. Who knows, maybe I'll even blog more often. I have some online classes to attend right before the year ends. It'll be a good opportunity to acquire some new skills for the brave new world of AI that's opening up before us.
In the age of AI, how should we position ourselves? For one, it'll force us to raise the bar on productivity and quality. What used to take a team of people to perform could be accomplished by a single individual. AI could also help us to iron out all the imperfections that exist in our human output. Better quality is to be expected. It will be an exciting future and also a scary one.
Will our jobs be threatened? For sure. But new human needs will also be conjured up; new roles will be created as a result. AI will help us to imagine new possibilities. Humans will pursue their endless desires and amp up existing ones. We could also end up as hyper-stimulation junkies, forever dependent on AI for fulfilment.
AI is currently my trusted companion for the exploration of knowledge. If I have an addiction at all, it is to knowledge. I'm training the LLM in my head, so that I continue to get fresh insights, which then become the starting points for even deeper insights. It is the compounding effect of insights that elevates the spirit. This is my definition of spirituality.
There's so much to hone, so much to perfect, so much to do. Just like how the right prompt will trigger the LLM to output the answer we want, we must constantly prompt our own minds to bring out the spiritual being within. AI will become our ultimate tool for the perfection of wisdom.
Which part of humanity will triumph in the end: the AI-amplified desire for pleasure or the ever-deepening quest for spirituality? Let's find out together!
