AI Is The Best It Has Ever Been And The Worst It Will Ever Be

By Josh Bobrowsky

AI is amazing, and AI is deeply flawed.

However, at the current pace of advancing tech, in just a few years things that were once thought impossible will become common.

The ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer)

One of the earliest computers, ENIAC, was 8 feet tall, 3 feet deep and 80 feet long. Taking up 1,800 cubic feet.

ENIAC was built in the 1940s at the University of Pennsylvania. At the time of construction ENIAC was the most technologically advanced computer in the world.

Fast forward to today, an Apple watch is millions of times more powerful than ENIAC and it is smaller than 1 cubic inch.

Exponential growth

• Apple watch is roughly 0.9 cubic inches

• ENIAC was roughly 1,800 cubic feet

ENIAC was 24,000 times bigger than the Apple watch.

• Apple watch is capable of 5 billion operations per second

• ENIAC was capable of 5 thousand operations per second

Apple watch is 1 million times more powerful than ENIAC.

Over 80 years the efficiency of computing became 24 billion times more efficient. Things change fast.

How AI will change computers:

• Enhanced processing power

• Autonomous software development

• Advanced encryption algorithms

Examples of modern exponential changes

Video Games: Pong x Elden Ring

Pong, one of the most advanced games in 1972, is just a few lines on a black screen vs Elden Ring (2022) which is a deeply immersive realistic role playing game.

How AI will change gaming:

• Characters will be so advanced that they will build relationships with human players. People may have their best friend be a character in a game

• Infinite gameplay: Games can advance with levels and stories that never end

• Deeply personalized gaming experiences customized to each user

Cell Phones

From large nearly unusable devices to replacing the current phone system and changing almost all human social interactions.

How AI will advance phones:

• Advanced personal assistant that goes everywhere with you (think of the movie Her)

• Real time language translation

• AR and VR experiences

The next 18 months

In the next 18 months I believe the largest changes in AI advances will be for coding.

Products like Cursor AI, ChatGPT, Claude 3.5 and Replit are making coding substantially more accessible to those who do not code. Additionally they are dramatically increasing the efficiency of more advanced coders.

While the products remain imperfect today, they are getting better at an exponential scale and this is where I am paying attention for the near future.

I believe in 5 years 95%+ of coding will be able to be done by AI and only a small fraction of products will require deeply specialized coding experience.

This will change the world and make it possible for incredibly small teams to build multi-billion dollar companies.

Conclusion

Sometimes it’s easy to be caught up in the moment and focus on the limitations of current technology. However, it is better to realize that things are growing, changing and getting better faster than most people can imagine. This leads to changes that can be 1,000x or even 1,000,000x greater in just a few years.

Cheers

Josh Bobrowsky