The Revolution That Never Happened
This is the era of grand declarations—and also of great downfalls.
"Money is only something you need in case you don't die tomorrow..." - from the movie *Wall Street*
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been and will continue to be a part of our lives; there's almost no doubt about it. From the cars we drive to various media, travel planning, financial systems, music and art creation, commerce, teaching, law, advertising, and marketing, to future analysis and forecasting... However, AI is more like a washing machine and less like humans. It will streamline the way we work, travel, or plan things. It can't replace humans, but like a washing machine, it will be a helpful tool. Instead of washing clothes in the river for hours, AI will "wash" the processes quickly but won't clean the clothes by itself, invent cures for incurable diseases, or create new inventions. So, what is all the fuss about AI? Instead of guessing, you're invited to read...
Let's go back to the basics of Artificial Intelligence. During World War II, the renowned genius Alan Turing was tasked by the British government with cracking the encryption of the Enigma machine, used by the German military to transmit commands. He started the task in 1939 with a team of scientists at Bletchley Park, on the outskirts of London, and step by step, he managed to decode the German encryption patterns using a supercomputer that learned the encryption patterns. In 1942, Turing and his team succeeded in deciphering the Enigma machine and learning the movements of the German army by sea, air, and land. Of course, Turing was not the only one pursuing the decryption of the Enigma machine.
The learning machine designed during the war effort taught him how a machine thinks, and in the 1950s, he developed the learning machine and created the "Turing Test," in which the user has to guess whether they are speaking with a human or a machine. Some people have hearts of stone, and some machines have a human heart, it seems...
The field of AI gained momentum, and in 1961, the first robot, Unimate, began working on General Motors' first production line, marking a new era of robots in industry. In 1964, the first chatbot was invented, allowing questions to be asked and answered, and in 1966, the first humanoid robot was created. Don't expect something that looks like a robot or human. It was a machine that moved "like a robot" and tried to be "like a human." In fact, this was almost the last invention in the field of AI until... the winter came.
Everyone huddled in their homes without any AI development. This technological winter lasted until 1997. Nearly three decades of complete stagnation. In 1997, the first sign of thaw appeared with IBM's launch of "Deep Blue," the computer that defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov. In 2002, the "Roomba" vacuum cleaner came to the world, learning the layout of the house it operated in. In 2011, Apple's "Siri" and IBM's "Watson" that defeated the US trivia champion. In 2014, Amazon's "Alexa," and in 2017, the year that shook the Chinese Communist Party, Google launched "AlphaGo." This was quite a launch...
You see, the game "Go" is not just another game but an essential part of Chinese culture. It's considered the game of emperors and Chinese kings, defining China as much as other cultural elements are identified with this fascinating culture. It's an ancient game that embodies millions of steps and strategic moves used by Chinese military schools in teaching and building military maneuvers.
In 2017, the Chinese party was shocked to see the "AlphaGo" computer defeat the world champion in "Go" - it was like the US seeing the Soviets successfully launch the Sputnik satellite. The Chinese recovered from the shock and began accelerating AI development. Today, they lead the Americans, which is the main reason for the American sanctions policy against them. However, despite the impressive name pretending to be some intelligence, and even though some tech executives talk about replacing humans with computers, these are computing machines subject to physical constraints like a processor, memory, and hard drive designed according to the architecture created by scientist John von Neumann. Yes, with tablets, smartphones, servers, stunning graphics machines, foldable computers, and touch screens... you're all working on 1950s technology principles. Processor + memory + hard drive + communication cables, each component has a limit on data transfer speed, data volume, and data speed.
Since these are built-in constraints of any machine, as the amount of data increases and the ocean of data grows, the paradox is that the machine struggles to transfer it quickly, and therefore, the physical laws that apply to the machine do not apply to the human brain. There are no bottlenecks in data transfer in the human brain, which consumes no more than 12 watts of energy compared to a simple computer consuming between 65 watts to 90 watts. A simple computer cannot perform anything close to the human brain. Now, imagine a server farm with thousands of computers consuming hundreds and thousands of watts and unable to perform simple trivial actions like humans.
AI is described as a revolution that will change the world. But... the same was said about blockchain infrastructure, green energy, and electric cars. If you're browsing YouTube, listening to Spotify, shopping on Amazon, using Google Translate, or navigating with WAZE, you've been using AI for years. Have you felt the revolution? That the world has changed?
So why all the noise now? Well... what’s happening now is a huge bubble being inflated by Wall Street. You have to notice what’s not in the news and under the big noise. Electronics sales in the US are very poor. The American housing market is frozen. Families can't buy homes, and those that can struggle daily due to rising living costs. Even Apple hasn't shown good results for several quarters. There's a decline in iPhone sales. Yet, its value has risen, and it is at the top along with Microsoft and Nvidia with a market value of about $3 trillion. In fact, today there are three companies worth $3 trillion, two companies worth $2 trillion (Amazon and Google), and one company worth $1 trillion (Meta - Facebook).
The thing is, if you're an investment manager, you'll put your money into the big, well-known names like Apple, Amazon, and Nvidia and keep pumping the market with dollars. But, beneath Big Tech, there's almost no movement. The market is quite boring. This is an unhealthy situation for the American economy, where a few companies make up a huge share of the money movement, but on the other hand, if you're in the shoes of investment managers - who will fire you for daring to invest in Amazon or Microsoft? Just for illustration, Nvidia's stock crashed between 2021-2022. The meteoric rise in the purchase of graphics cards resulted from the competition between Google and Microsoft over dominance in search engines, and this fuel provided the energy for Nvidia's stock to rise from $18 per share to over $135 per share. In recent weeks, the stock has been losing altitude, and it is likely to continue to dive...
To justify the massive investments in the field and keep pumping the US stock market, PR articles about the technological revolution are marketed to the public. But, it's not about a revolution but about evolution. It's not about a global change but about global adaptation. A survey conducted by Lucidworks among over 1,000 technology professionals worldwide found that they do not intend to invest in AI this year. The return is low relative to the required investment. According to the survey's authors, "the honeymoon of AI is over. While leaders remain enthusiastic about its potential to change businesses, the initial euphoria has given way to a more measured approach.." The main reason for the investment freeze was the lack of financial benefits. "Unfortunately, the financial benefits of implemented projects were dismal," the study said. "Forty-two percent of companies have yet to see significant benefit from their AI initiatives." Additionally, only 25% of all technology-related projects established by the surveyed corporations moved from the pilot phase to full deployment. Only one in eight companies in the survey expects to see revenue and growth from the technology in the coming year, and only one in six expects it to help reduce operating costs.
Is AI not real? Of course, it is. For example, advances in AI technology helped Google in biology with AlphaFold, significantly discovering how protein breaks down in the human body. The human body has about 64 DNA codons that can produce ribosomes that create specific proteins beyond amino acid proteins. Scientists' attempt for five decades to track the structure of the protein formed from DNA code was difficult, arduous, and error-prone. The ability to produce drugs was limited. AI technology contributed to analyzing the protein shape the body is set to produce. The achievement through AI is enormous and will allow for relief from various diseases related to protein production issues.
In the real world, about 50% of the electricity coming out of the wall socket to a computer never does any work, according to Urs Holzle, Senior Vice President of Operations at Google. Nearly 30% of the power in a medium server is lost. The physical constraint in server farms, tablets, and mobile phones reduces the efficiency of the computer, in addition to the von Neumann bottleneck.
The future fear of job losses due to AI is exaggerated. This technology will help people be more efficient. Did tractors kill agriculture? Did the development of transportation means improve human lives? AI technology will be like washing machines for people. Instead of washing by hand for a long time, this technology will help like a washing machine for cleaning clothes. But it will not be a good substitute for the human brain. Wall Street finds "the next big thing" in every era. You don't need artificial intelligence to understand this—human intelligence familiar with the history of the financial world is enough. The numbers change, the names are different, but the lust for money remains the same. Is there a risk given the reliance of the American stock market on a few high-tech companies? Certainly. Will Wall Street soon realize that companies do not intend to invest more in AI? Certainly. The financial implications will follow accordingly.
Don't be surprised—the revolution didn't happen—and you will not be replaced by threatening cyborgs.
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