A future where intelligence becomes a commodity
There was a point in time when fighting on horses with swords, spears, bows and arrows offered a competitive advantage to armies. In fact, it is speculated that Genghis Khan’s empire was built based on a specific technique:
“…. One extraordinary claim says that Mongol archers were able to lean down the side of their horses and fire arrows, stabilising their bows by pressing them against the horse’s neck, giving them greater range and a defensive position.” (source)
All this changed with the invention of gunpowder and machine guns. Remember the scene in ‘The Last Samurai’ where Tom Cruise and his band of samurais charge on horseback towards the machine gun knowing that this was certain death for them
Currently no sane leader will build an army of soldiers with swords or spears. The ability to throw a spear accurately is now probably an advantage during sports events and not during a battle.
Moving on to knowledge work — an area we are familiar with.
We know that ability to do math calculations quickly without errors is an advantage during standardised tests (SAT, GRE, GMAT). Ability to solve logical reasoning problems are also tested in these exams that are used to shortlist students for competitive university courses.
A cheap calculator can beat most humans in speed and accuracy of math calculations. Affordable calculators have been available for decades now.
Open AI’s O3 model has started solving Competition math and PhD level science questions
o3 is significantly better at coding. At the most aggressive high test-time compute setting, o3 achieves an Elo score of 2727 on the Competition Code
o3 achieves 96.7% accuracy on Competition Math, and 87.7% on GPQA Diamond. Claims state-of-the-art performances on both these benchmarks.
o3 gets over 25% on what OpenAI researchers consider one of the toughest benchmarks out there (EpochAI Frontier Math). The previous SoTA was 2.0%.
o3 achieves SoTA on ARC-AGI. When o3 is asked to think longer with high-compute, it scores 87.5%. (source)
The reason why standardised tests still use math and logical problems is not that they are relevant in university or workplaces. They are however proxies for something called general intelligence or IQ.
Human intelligence is the intellectual capability of humans, which is marked by complex cognitive feats and high levels of motivation and self-awareness. Using their intelligence, humans are able to learn, form concepts, understand, and apply logic and reason. Human intelligence is also thought to encompass their capacities to recognise patterns, plan, innovate, solve problems, make decisions, retain information, and use language to communicate. (source)
The pace by which intelligence is being commoditised is overwhelming. Current prediction by the metaculus community is that general AI (AGI) systems will be publicly announced by 2031. But by many definitions we have weaker version of the same systems already available getting stronger in months.
Some of these systems are also getting adept at using interfaces that humans generally use to interact with their environment.
We are definitely seeing a future (or even a present) where:
- AI can write better than most of us and sometimes the best of us
- AI can create better art than most of us
- AI can diagnose diseases better than many doctors
- AI can analyse companies, markets and write investment research reports better than most of us and sometimes even the best of us
It feels like raw human intelligence and knowledge are no longer competitive advantage for workers. ( Just like throwing a spear no longer remained competitive advantage for soldiers or hunters)
How do we adapt to this new future ?
These are hypotheses based on my current reading and intuition. We need to stay iterative here.
Workers
- Be on the side of learning and implementing AI. The efficiencies will eventually be too high to avoid. Be on the right side of implementing AI instead of fighting it. (This is similar to the time when computers and internet were introduced)
- The future will be less workers being more productive via AI agents. Try to be one of the workers who can work with and manage humans and AI agents. Be accountable.
- The future will be less workers and more owners. Try to own a portion of a business.
- Humans still value collaborative relationships and social connections with humans. The ‘glue’ person will still be valued.
Students
- For the younger ones — “old school” education and fundamentals matter.
- Work on your “soft skills” — collaboration, resilience, emotional intelligence — the skills that make you a better, stronger person.
- As you become senior — just stay aware of the trends and be adaptable. It is too early to predict the future now.