Ay, Ay, Ay, AI

Back in the late 70’s I worked for a major computer manufacturer that made the fastest scientific computers in the world. One of their engineers, Seymour Crey, had a goal to build a computer that would rival human thinking in speed and complexity. The result was the Crey Supercomputer, which was blinding fast for some things, but well behind the human mind in most ways. Seymour would probably be both thrilled and frightened by what has spooled up in the past couple years.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re no doubt familiar with the term AI. AI, short for Artificial intelligence, is rapidly becoming part of our everyday lives. It helps power search engines, recommendation systems, voice assistants, fraud detection tools, medical research, workplace automation, and many newer generative tools that can create text, images, code, and pictures of you as a 14^th century Viking marauder.

Because AI is changing how people learn, work, communicate, and make decisions, and it is happening in an accelerated timeframe, it is important to understand both its advantages and its drawbacks. So, today, we’ll talk about some of the pros about AI and next month, if AI lets me, we’ll talk about some of the downsides.

AI operates out of data centers, the often-unseen infrastructure behind modern life. As more and more of our economy and daily lives moves online, data centers have grown to meet the demand. And with the growth of AI, these formerly innocuous data centers have grown exponentially, consuming more land, water, and power than the older centers. And therein lies some of the rub.

It is undeniable that AI brings advantages to our daily lives. Probably one of the biggest benefits of AI is efficiency. AI systems can process huge amounts of information quickly and perform repetitive tasks without fatigue. In businesses, this can reduce errors, speed up customer service, organize data, and help employees focus on more creative or strategic work. AI can also improve decision-making. By identifying patterns in massive datasets, AI can support doctors in diagnosing diseases, help banks detect fraud, assist scientists in research, and give organizations better forecasts.

Another advantage is accessibility. AI-powered tools can help people communicate across languages, summarize complex information, support students with tutoring, and assist people with disabilities through speech recognition, image description, and adaptive technologies. Do a Google search today and the first thing that pops up is an AI-generated summary response to your query with data, images, and direction to more comprehensive information.

A few examples of the impact of AI data centers on your daily life would include:

1. They make your apps work. From Facebook to Instagram, Gmail, your banking app, your text messages, your GPS mapping and guidance system, and your ability to find a good restaurant in a new town, are all connected and reliant on a data center.
2. They store your photos and files. Did you think ‘cloud storage’ of all your stuff was actually in some cloud somewhere? Nope, it’s in one of the 4,000 plus data centers across the country. So, when you lose your phone, or get a new computer, all of your photos, memories, and work files are still available to you.
3. They help Google answer your questions instantly. Your simple Google search request triggers an instantaneous search through enormous volumes of data stored in different places to provide an AI summary, more relevant information, articles, images, maps, videos, and more in the blink of an eye.
4. They make online shopping possible. Your Amazon order means that a data center has to place the order, manage inventory, process your payment through your bank or credit card, recommend alternate products, and track your package to your door all in one day. Oh, and be able to scale up to deal with a tenfold increase in volume on Black Friday. Uber, DoorDash, Airbnb, book an airline ticket and hotel? None exist without a data center.
5. They keep GPS and navigation running. Google maps, WAZE, and other navigation services depend on data centers to guide you to your destination and supply you with real-time updates on accidents, estimated travel time, and where the cops have a speed trap. This past spring Yelp was able to instantaneously direct me to pubs in every city and small village throughout Scotland, England, and Ireland, along with photos, menus, reviews, and history. Thanks AI.
6. They make remote work possible. Without live streaming, Zoom, access to remote databases and more, you would still be going to the office every day working on a ‘dumb’ terminal on your desk, waiting for your secretary to run down to archives to bring up that document you need. It will correct your spelling, improve your grammar, and suggest ways to make your writing more coherent and/or professional. Minnesotans would not have been saddled with a ‘Learning Center’ had they only utilized Chat GPT or Anthropic.
7. They keep your gaming and streaming smooth and reliable. Netflix, YouTube, Spotify, and other streaming platforms rely on massive computing power to deliver movies, videos, and music to millions of users around the world simultaneously. Data centers store these vast libraries of content and move it quickly enough so you don’t get the pauses and buffering errors you used to. For most of us, access to a variety of streaming services enable us to watch the most recent movie release, catch our favorite team in action, and listen to Jimmy Buffett music whenever we want—things that were beyond our reach just a few short years ago, but that we would sorely miss if it disappeared today.
8. They power the next generation of technology. Back in the day, the object of a computer company was to double the speed and halve the price every few months. That is no longer even a viable goal. Today AI can access far more data with extensive algorithms allowing quantum leaps in processing speed to generate new algorithms to increase processing speed, to generate… Well, you get the idea. But that’s also one of the more scary aspects of AI. Can it now, or will it soon be able to, write its own code and override human controls? As one AI researcher recently noted, “We are gambling with our lives in the race toward self-improving superintelligence,” while others earnestly believe AI could kill all humans, giving it a better than 10% chance of that happening within the next decade.

So, as AI and the data centers which support our lifestyle have become ubiquitous in our daily lives, there are valid concerns that we will explore in our next installment. As with most things, AI is neither entirely good nor entirely bad. It is a powerful technology whose impact depends on how people design, regulate, and use it. And therein lies the problem: PEOPLE. In the global application of AI, the US is in an arms race of sorts, with China foremost, and other technology players who may not have exactly altruistic goals as their agenda. That’s assuming we do, of course.

AI approves this article. For now.