Open Your Eyes and SEE!
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At least all around me, seven out of every ten have no real understanding of what is coming with the AI tsunami, and some that do, have a negative vision of what will happen. I hope this article is an eye-opener in all the right places.
Let’s start first with: WHY The Tsunami!
"Attention Is All You Need" is a research paper presented by engineers and the research team at Google in 2017. As a matter of fact, attention has always been a prime factor; and is one that in ‘evolution’ defines who succeeds. When laser-focused on a target, in humans and predatory species alike, this focus achieves what we call tunnel vision — the capacity to maintain a fixed-point orientation amid all surrounding distractions.
I wrote a more extensive article in this theme, “Attention is Everything”, you may want to check it out.
Learning AI skills has nowadays landed in Agency as the unique applied characteristic that exemplifies the modern capabilities of the AI integration system.
And you may ask yourself what is Agency?
Foremost, Agency is the ability of an entity to discern, decide and act towards a defined goal, operating with a certain degree of autonomy based on the perception of the environment.
Humans have complete agency (in principle), that is they can discern, decide and act towards a defined goal; while AI systems can have certain agency according to the area they are trained in and integrated into.
Why talk about agency?
If you are following AI at all, you have heard about “agency” lately. What has happened in the last two years is nothing far from mesmerizing. Agency is the capacity of AI to connect with the apps we use to act in our world: social media, emails, chats, cameras, screens, phones and mobiles, webs… everything we use to connect with eachother!
The following list reflects the areas where AI can be applied to assist in tasks and automation processes. I publish the list for reference, but things will be put in perspective further down the article.
I recommend just browse and come back later if interested.
You will notice how extraordinarily wide the range and applications are in this list of ChatGPT:
Conditions for Agency to Be Effective:
Dynamic environment
Goal-directed outcomes
Complex decision-making needs
Speed advantage
Scalability requirements
Transversally automatization can be incorporated in Business and Government Areas:
Operations management
Sales and marketing
Customer experience
Finance and insurance
Healthcare
Security and cybersecurity
Education
Robotics and IoT
Governance and public services
The productivity gain for organizations has been estimated
Support Agents: Handled 13.8% more customer inquiries per hour when assisted by AI. (Forbes)
Business Professionals: Produced 59% more business documents per hour using AI tools.
Programmers: Completed 126% more projects per week with AI assistance.
Average Productivity Increase: Across these roles, AI improved worker productivity by 66%.
These findings are from detailed analysis of three separate studies, which examined the impact of generative AI tools on various professional tasks. (Nielsen Norman Group)
AI Productivity in Government
Public Sector Savings:
The UK government estimates that digitization and AI could achieve up to £45 billion in annual savings and productivity benefits. (Financial Times)
Automation Potential:
A study estimated that 84% of complex, repetitive transactions in UK central government are highly automatable, potentially saving approximately 1,200 person-years of work annually. (arXiv)
Generative AI Usage:
In the UK public sector, 22% of professionals actively use generative AI tools, with 45% aware of their usage in their area of work. (arXiv)
UK has over 540.000 employees, and the £45 billion savings is only in automating administrative tasks, migrating services and reducing fraud (arXiv). Imagine what is going to happen when reducing redundancies, infrastructure and Urban Planning, Education, Healthcare, and transportation.
Just as a curious number, USA has over 3 million employees. What will be the impact worldwide if Elon Musk is able to influence the implementation of DOGE, which I am sure it’s including some kind of AI integration.
Why this tsunami will be so devastating?
Since 1970 when Milton Friedman’s Shareholder Supremacy captured business theory proposing shareholders were the main beneficiaries of all strategic implementation, business leaders were not the only ones captured by the idea. Small Businesses and self-employed workers, as well as governments and organizations of every kind believed the reason to do whatever they did was the economic benefit of their enterprise. Merge that idea with “the only reason I live for is to be happy,” I think “my opinions are right because I have a right to them”
To top it all, governments and corporations’ limit is “we can achieve whatever we choose as long as is legal and doesn’t have a ‘push-back’ by society.” The legality of our actions are a pretty dim ethical measure for acting. Giving superpower to our whims is bound to explode in our faces.
That whole mix is an explosive cocktail. So, we better grow-up… and fast!
Our weaknesses and lack of judgement is what makes the AI Tsunami devastating. The further we walk giving our backs to our personal and social responsibilities, the harsher the damage, and the more it will hinder our prosperous objectives.
Some facts to give us perspective
It all starts with personal responsibility, that is where the dam needs to be set to prevent further damage. How many individuals invest time and resources into self-improvement? How many use their work as training to develop character and learn skills?
I ran a comparison between ChatGPT, GEMINI, DeepSeek and CLAUDE just to see what was the statistical estimate of conflating disengagement and dissatisfaction with motivation loss, which may show people who are not actively trying to upskill their potential (you can find my comparison in this link).
A rundown showed about 20–30% globally will have extreme difficulty in keeping up with the AI Tsunami.
So, we socially and culturally focus on “if I seek my benefit, no mater my motivation, I am right and society has to respect me”; no matter where you are in this spectrum, this belief is embedded inside your consciousness. So, to start, please do not judge those that have it harder to keep up.
Our beliefs have caught up with us all, and we all have to change dramatically.
Attention is no different than worship!
So as to understand where to focus for the personal change, let me pinpoint something factual about our nature, hoping you see it and changes your perspective on what you aim at.
All human beings are oriented towards an aim, that is how we see the world: our brain does not just see objects and infer meaning, it sees meaning and then infers the object. Our needs and wants impress in our brain a “vital prompt” lets say, and the brain scans the surrounding to find the satisfaction of the need or want.
Example, you are tired and have walked for a long time, you need to sit down, but there are no benches or chairs, so you scan for any-thing that will fit your need and, there behold a stump of a tree, it is a magnificent place to set your bottom and rest. The brain sees the value, not the object.
Existentially we are no different, we seek a place to suffice the stifling pressure existence supposes, so we quest for that meaning to make our existential walk worth the while, a Good Aim worth the whole trouble of life. Something bigger than us, much bigger and transcendental.
We are religious by nature; we seek ultimate meaning, and we have difficulty deciding by ourselves, then society or culture gives it to you. So we become advocates for ‘saving the planet’, or ‘social justice’, or ‘rights of women’, and we have extreme devotion for those and find them a primordial value everything else must vow to.
We put all the attention we can to those, and that is no different than worship.
To close, idols are representations of the real thing, but they are not the real thing. That’s why they are empty.
We are religious, like it or not. We will worship idols if we are not oriented toward what is truly meaningful and transcendental. And even if you’re unsure what that truly meaningful thing is — a brand, a toy, civil rights, saving the planet… IS NOT!
If you use AI, a ‘super power’ we’ve created, to serve your idol or achieve your whim, it will tyrannize you and leave you bankrupt.
OPEN YOUR EYES, and choose what you’ll worship… because what you worship will shape the kind of human you become!