I started to ponder the future of work, life and AI. Based on my experiences, I thought about the 2004 movie "I, Robot," starring Will Smith. There is a scene in the movie where he interacts with a person’s hologram. When he asks specific questions, the hologram responds, “I am sorry, my responses are limited. You must ask the right questions.”
With AI, you must ask the right question, or you will not get the answer you’re looking for; however, due to the way it works, you can zero in on the right question. I previously wrote about AI and how it works.
Briefly, AI will review your whole conversation log each time you provide a new input. It does this to understand your new input in context. This is what helps make AI so valuable. Both you and the computer understand the context of the previous questions and answers. This makes it way more lifelike.
How has life changed for me? I typically use an internet web search engine to find information. It has been very good, but each search only provided a series of links. I would have to review each link and see if it provided the information I needed.
More recently, some search engines started utilizing AI to provide brief answers to questions along with links to more in-depth information. This showed the power of AI. I switched some of my queries to AI for research, history and general learning.
One particular day, while traveling, I was trying to find a restaurant with certain specific foods. As my search concluded, the AI asked me a question, like a friend might ask of you after a conversation. While it was just a bunch of ones and zeros, I felt compelled to answer. This brought out a conversation with the computer for about four minutes. While I knew it was a computer, it was like chatting online with someone.
I am getting more involved with asking AI to help me at work.
As a computer programmer, I have done what so many before me have done. When I get stuck on something, I "Google it” to help find an answer. But in order to do this, you have to know what question you’re asking, just like in "I, Robot," because the computer can only provide you with specific information based on the question asked.
I have heard so much about AI being able to do the job of programmers, but I had never tested it until this past weekend. With AI, unlike a search engine, I can provide a prompt, which is a set of data that AI will utilize to build an output.
I decided to see what AI could build based on my prompt. First, I was shocked at how quickly it threw answers my way. It provided hundreds of lines of code faster than I could have written 10 lines. While it is undoubtedly faster, it did not offer bug-free answers. In fact, everything produced had bugs that needed to be solved before moving forward. The majority of the time, I worked with AI to fix bugs. While it is much faster, it isn’t more accurate.
This brings me to a fascinating study I heard about AI. Aidan Toner-Rodgers, a Ph.D. student from MIT, has been studying AI and its use in science. He has a research paper dated Nov. 27, 2024, called “Artificial Intelligence, Scientific Discovery, and Product Innovation.”
His study involved just over 1,000 scientists in the R&D lab of a large U.S. corporation. In the abstract, he writes, “AI-assisted researchers discover 44% more materials, resulting in a 39% increase in patent filings and a 17% rise in downstream product innovation.”
He noted “strikingly disparate effects across the productivity distribution: ... the bottom third of scientists see little benefit, the ... top researchers nearly doubles.”
The most interesting part was “evidence reveals ... 82% of scientists report reduced satisfaction with their work due to decreased creativity and skill underutilization.”
Based on my personal experience, I agree with the study. A lot of the fun of programming is building something and the demanding mental challenges while figuring out complex solutions. I didn’t have those feelings when I was using AI, so I was more productive, but I wasn’t enjoying it. Ultimately, I do not fear the coming revolution. Instead, I am excited to see where it takes us.
Anderson let AI take a crack at writing his bio this week. Here is what it came up with: Scotty Anderson has been writing columns for the Daily News for seventeen years, consistently providing a conservative perspective grounded in principled logic. As a computer programmer and avid sports enthusiast, he brings both analytical thinking and real-world experience to his bi-weekly commentary. When he's not writing about politics, technology, and social issues, Anderson can be found participating in competitive sports leagues and exploring the implications of artificial intelligence in modern society. He welcomes reader feedback at crier@cityofpullman.com.
