Kevin Kelly
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Freakonomics Radio · 693. What’s Our Job as Humans Anymore?
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What Jobs Will Humans Still Do After AI?
Kevin Kelly says one of the main jobs left for humans as AI improves is being human.
People like being around other humans, and they like a human sense of humor. He expects AI to be funny in an alien way, the way someone can stand near Spock and still prefer Kirk. What he thinks stays appealing is small talk, holding someone's hand, being there, making a joke, and creating the way humans create. He would be surprised if a work touched a lot of people while humans had very little to do with it.
Asked about the AI-generated performer Tilly Norwood, he says stars of the past are easy to watch and that he wants to be around them. He does not feel that draw with Tilly Norwood.
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Why Is Kevin Kelly Optimistic About AI?
Kevin Kelly is optimistic about AI because he thinks our capacity to solve problems is larger than we think, even though the problems themselves are real. A co-founder of Wired Magazine, he calls himself a radical optimist. New technologies produce the biggest problems we have ever seen, and AI, the most powerful thing we have made, will make the most powerful problems we have ever had. There will be a lot of problems, and we will solve them with better technology.
He focuses on the most positive, best-case version for a particular reason. The paths where AI goes wrong are many, frequent, and easy. The path where everything goes right is narrower and harder to navigate, and we cannot reach