Some Time
In The
Future

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I started to write this book some years ago. At that time the main issue within it – the rise of AI which might threaten mankind – seemed a very long way off.

At that time it seemed impossible that smart software could summarise any book in a few hundred words, or write a poem or explain the theory of relativity to you – but all that is now true.

The rise of generative AI like Chat GPT4 has changed everything. Things which I thought would happen far into the future – the rise of software which could create, draw, write songs and sift through vast amounts of material, which could diagnose a patient better than any human doctor, which could write a film script, which could carry out nearly any mental task more quickly and effectively than a human promises to radically change our society.

All sorts of professions which never thought they could be at risk from automation now face being disrupted, reduced or eliminated. A whole class of people hitherto safe from the effects of smart software may have their lives disrupted by generative AI. Massive changes are coming down the line, and it is too early to say if they will be positive or negative.

No wonder the main character in my story is a journalist who has been made unemployed by artificial intelligence. He is one of a new generation of workers who thought they were safe from automation – until it happened to them.

In the future there could be huge numbers of people who have suffered from what is known as technological unemployment. Nearly anyone who uses a computer, who has to make decisions with a digital component, might be at risk. Doctors, engineers and screenwriters might all find themselves under threat, as their work is gradually automated by Chat GPT.

What then will all these people do? That is one of the main topics of this book. Will automation of many jobs, especially well paid and creative ones, lead to a new golden era of leisure? To sun-lit uplands free of stress and competition, where there is leisure and wealth for all?

Or is work something fundamental to us, without which our lives have no meaning, and we all descend into sloth and unhappiness?

Other changes await mankind. In particular robotics threatens to do to physical labour what Chat GPT is doing to office-based workers.

At the moment there is no reliable robot which can peel potatoes, cook your dinner or carry out a thousand-and-one other household and domestic tasks.

But sooner or later this is likely to change. At some point – not too far off – there will be lightweight robots which can perform nearly any physical task currently done by humans. When that happens we will be close to the ultimate singularity – when a mixture of robotics and smart software can carry out nearly any human function.

Lurking over and above all this is the question of evolution – and man's place within it.

Traditionally we have thought of evolution as a process which produced man – who stands as the end-point of this remarkable natural process.

But is mankind really the end result of evolution? Or only the end result of organic evolution; and in fact, couldn't there be another kind of evolution – the evolution of things – which is also happening, and which is even more significant?

It is when the evolution of things has reached the point at which a combination of the right kind of hardware and software means that artificial intelligence can continue to upgrade itself without any further intervention from humans, that we can say the ultimate singularity has truly occurred. After this point of course, it is impossible to say what might happen next.

No wonder the main character in my book spends so much of his time thinking. After all, he has plenty of time to think – and plenty to think about. He has the whole of humanity to ponder, and what might lie in store for the human race.