Entertainment Isn't a Cure For Boredom

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It's relatively easy to entertain ourselves as we carry around devices with endless possibilities for it. Endless entertainment, however, isn't a cure for boredom and could be the cause of it. I recently had a chat with my dad who wondered how people could live 50-100 years ago without all the technologies that we have today. "They probably were bored to death" he said but were they really?

100 years ago, most families were farmers and their days were filled with tasks pertaining to caring for their families. They were busy doing things for their survival. If they had periods of boredoms it must of been relatively short compared to today. People back then got their entertainment from family gatherings or events and was in relatively short supply compared to today.

“Pleasure does not bring happiness; it only brings an increasing hunger for more pleasure.”

-Orrin Woodward

As soon as we get out of bed in the morning, we reach for our phones to get that little jolt of "dopamine". Throughout the day, we do other activities in an attempt to keep our level of dopamine high and as soon as it's not at the level we're used to we feel bored.

If you entertain yourself to the point where your life feels numb and you're bored of it you need to get rid of that entertainment. Many have said that by limiting their exposure to such things as video games have made them more appreciative of the media when they tried it again. Some have also said that removing entertainment from their lives have made them appreciate other things they didn't really pay attention to before.

A.I. VS A.G.I.

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ChatGPT isn't technically a year old yet and there's already murmur of Artificial General Intelligence (A.G.I.) to replace A.I. as we know it today.

What is A.G.I.?

A.I. in it's current form acts more like a search engine than anything else. When you ask it for something, it searches through data and produces results in a way that humans can understand. A.G.I. is the next evolution of this. Not only will it be able to search through data but it will be able to move through obstacles on its own without requiring additional input from humans. It would be possible, for example, to ask an A.G.I. to work on a cure for cancer and let it work until it finds it. Current A.I. are able to assist scientists with the work but aren't actually able to go through the scientific process (trial and error) themselves nor do they necessarily understand what they're doing beyond their immediate query.

The training for A.G.I. would be a lot shorter than that of A.I. as it would be able to interpret previous data in similar ways as humans do.

A.G.I. is what would be required to make autonomous robots as you need it to be able to go through daily life and overcome obstacles on its own accord. Stairs could be climbed by a robot with A.I. as the terrain is consistent/predictable but a robot with A.G.I. could climb mountains on its own a lot quicker than A.I. could - adapting to the terrain, in similar ways than humans would, without relying on hours of training data to do so.

In short, A.G.I. is A.I. with the ability to think (or program) for itself making it more efficient.

Students Should Learn without A.I.

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It's been argued that A.I. will be able to replace various jobs but some fields still require humans. We still need, for example, human doctors and if these future doctors/students are using A.I. to get through their classes then they need to reevaluate why they're taking the course as it certainly isn't to acquire skills for their future career.

The issue here is, of course, that the future doctors that uses A.I. to get through their classes won't be as good as those that studied the material. In 2-5 years time, we could see a wave of doctors that doesn't actually know how to work without the help of A.I. - this is a field where A.I. should be used but not necessarily dependent upon entirely (at least yet). We have to remember that A.I. doesn't know if what it produces is accurate which means knowledgeable humans still need to double check it.

There's still value for humans to acquire skills if only to argue with the results A.I. might of produced.

Education As A Business

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College/Universities are treated more like a business, looking for profit, than a vehicle for students to learn new skills. Today, not only is it expensive, we need to ask ourselves if it's even worth it in a world of A.I. 

If a student is able to get through his classes with the help of A.I. then how long will it be until said A.I. will be able to do the job the student is training? If you're a student that used A.I. to get through your classes then how prepared are you for the workplace? 

The College/University business hasn't changed much since its first introduction into society. Even with the rise of the internet, students are still required to pay a fee, which is higher than ever before, to attend a class to listen to a professor who recites the same material he did a year earlier. 

Why does it cost so much and why aren't we using the full force of the Internet?

We need to stop treating education like a business and see it for what it is: A way for our specie to move forward.