Self-interest before pride
On Napster, the opioid crisis, and why finger-wagging over AI probably won't do as much good as relating first-hand experiences from the dot-com bubble
As much as some people ought to be ashamed by their use and abuse of artificial intelligence tools as a cheating machine, there’s only so far we can count upon a sense of honor as a check on laziness. There is a great big world of marketing right now positioning these tools as the ultimate answer key.
■ Teachers and professors are lamenting the developing landscape left and right, and there is much that the education sector generally needs to do in order to adapt appropriately. But where pride (and shame) fall short, self-interest may have a part to play.
■ People of a certain age -- those who were fairly young during the original dot-com bubble -- ought to recall just how many fantastic new tools appeared for free in that era, as though out of thin air. There was Napster, along with countless free streaming services. Website hosting services like Geocities gave their goods away for free and ICQ promised free calls for everyone.
■ Then a combination of obstacles fell in the way: Napster got sued, streaming services shut down over copyright fears and economically unsustainable bandwidth costs, and a wide array of other services abruptly shut down when the investor cash ran out. The lesson should be fixed in memory: Free products generally stop being free once enough consumers get hooked.
■ Computing tools are on the receiving end of an unprecedented capital spending spree right now, fueling a land rush into AI. But the tools that people are finding addictive today won’t remain free forever. Either they’ll become so cluttered with ads as to render their results suspicious at best, or the tools worth using will become premium products, subject to a hefty charge. A few things will stick around but become markedly worse to use over time, while others will be sold to shadowy and potentially malign buyers when the trustworthy money runs out.
■ This is the free-drugs-from-a-dealer phase of the technology cycle. It’s perfectly understandable that people are greedily lapping up the free stuff while it’s there. But if the past is any guide (and it undoubtedly is), those who become dependent on it today will find themselves treated like junkies and addicts later on.
■ The only reason for this much money to go into one sector is because the competitors are planning to make it pay off many times over later on. It’s up to those who have seen this story before to offer their juniors some fair first-hand warning: Don’t come to depend on the free stuff as though it will be good and free forever.