Ali Yahya's AI barbell strategy

The other day I saw this tweet (do people still call them that?) that I found quite interesting and which I want to jot down my thoughts on.

As a naturally curious person, ignoring AI as a disruptive technology just was not an option for me. I had around two years of “down time” while I pursued an MBA during which I had free rein to explore AI, something I wouldn’t otherwise have had the chance to do had I remained working a corporate job with all the time constraints, guardrails, and restrictions that come with it. As a result, I slowly started building the conviction to direct my career towards building in this space.

However, there were still things that didn’t fully click for me. “How can we humans outsource to machines something we take as much pride in as our intelligence? " I’m not talking arithmetic (we had already done this with calculators); I’m talking things like critical thinking or reading comprehension, which are essential to us as a species and separate us from other living beings like animals.

The more I thought about it, the more I saw parallels between AI and the tale of Icharus. “Here is this amazing tool we have at our disposal, but there is this underlying feeling I get that if I become too dependent on it - and fly too close to the sun - I will get scorched."

I have always felt as though life is a constant balancing act, where extremes are never good. This applies to politics, work, health… However, I agree with Ali that with AI, it seems like extremes are actually where you want to be playing. Getting the benefits of constant exploration of the so-called jagged frontier, while at the same time remaining grounded in our humanity, is a heuristic I will try to keep in mind during the years to come.