No-one exceeds his potential
Gattaca, that sci-fi film, came out in 1997, when the new science of genetics was new and scary. The Human Genome Project was still underway, Dolly the sheep was a headline and the idea of designing a baby was treated as both a miracle and a threat.
The film imagined a future where genetic analysis machines had the power to predict a person’s life expectancy from their DNA. Social structures were defined by DNA. Scary stuff.
Nearly thirty years on, we can edit genes, sequence entire genomes cheaply and we have a 10-year project to sequence every living thing, yet society hasn’t divided itself on the basis of DNA.
These days we worry about machine learning models ruling the world and making us all slaves. AI is today’s genetics, hyped as the next deadly threat to our position at the apex of the ecosystem.
Genetics hasn’t reshaped humanity’s day-to-day experience. AI probably won’t either, at least not in the way headlines suggest.
One thing that hasn’t changed; Michael Nyman’s music remains as annoying as ever.
-h-
Counter argument … I just walked into Coles to buy sausages for dinner. I took with me the espresso I’d just bought.
At the counter, their AI vision system determined that I had an item that I didn’t scan – the espresso cup and was therefore stealing.
The alarm went off. A human came over, reviewed the footage with coffee cup (the offending item) highlighted in green, then released me.
Hopefully by the time they dispense with the expensive human intervention, the machines have learnt from these errors.
It doesn’t have to know why I was released from custody, just that i had committed no crime.
offshore westerly 