Chronicles of the Future – 2 August 2024

OpenAI just dropped Advanced Voice Mode, perhaps their most exciting launch this year. Here’s a thread of seven incredible examples. Who knows what all of the use cases of this technology will be, but it seems humanity’s punishment for building the Towel of Babel may be over soon.

The craziest AI product I’ve seen in a while launched this week. Friend.com is essentially a portable AI listening device that you can ask for positive thoughts at any time, based on conversations it has heard.

Will this product go anywhere? Almost certainly not, it seems very gimmicky. But does it show the future direction of a new suit of products? Maybe. Technology that guides human consciousness seems like something which could have a use, i.e. you tell an AI what behaviours you want to exhibit, and it nudges you in the right direction.

I came across an extract from a book describing when the first hot air balloon took flight in France in 1783, with Benjamin Franklin bearing witness.

When he was asked what the point was of this new technology and why it was of any use, he is purported to have answered:

"What use is a new born child? It is true, that a child may die in the cradle, perhaps he may grow up weak in mind and body, but perhaps we may behold him some day become the glory of his country, the light of his age, the benefactor of humanity.”

We should remember that phrase when anyone disparages new technology. One day, that technology might grow up.

Jason Hickel, one of the flagbearers of the degrowth movement, and Dylan Sullivan wrote an paper titled ‘How much growth is required to achieve good lives for all? Insights from needs-based analysis’. Using what I would argue is flawed economics, they argued that “decent living standards” could be provided for a global population of 8.5 billion people using just 30% of current resource and energy use (this seemed to involve a top-down redistribution that would somehow result in zero productivity loss).

Putting the implausibility of their conclusion to one side, the reaction to the paper was interesting. Rather than being attacked free marktereers (who at this point seem bored of debunking degrowth economics), they were attacked from the eco-left, who argued that instead of pursuing human development (which is apparently futile due to imminent ecological collapse) we should be preparing for a world where we have no capacity to produce things like refrigerators and phones.

I, and many others, would argue that such alarmism is uncalled for, but it makes me wonder how this mindset infiltrates society. This guy is getting a PhD in the subject and was interacting with others of similar opinions in similar positions. Where do these people end up, and what influence do they have?

Ten days ago, Martin Wolf wrote an important article about immigration that went underdiscussed. Wolf argued, as the title of his piece said, that “immigration is both essential and impossible,” essentially because low birth rate Western economies would collapse without it, yet impossible because the public are increasingly clear that they don’t want mass migration.

Wolf’s solution? Temporary worker contracts. The West would allow swathes of immigrants to work on low wages, but never offer them citizenship, seemingly squaring the impossible circle.

However unpalatable, such an arrangement has most potential in industries such as social care, where increasing wages to the extent that domestic workers would fill the roles would be bankrupting, so we rely on cheap migrant labour. But even this current solution is uneconomic, as these low wage migrants pay very little into the system and yet receive the full range of old age benefits our generous system offers, worth £200,000 over most people’s lifetime. The temporary visa resolves this problem. You get the cheap labour but don’t have to fork out for their state pensions in 30 years’ time.

I’ve been thinking about whether such a system has legs, and, after consideration and discussion with friends, I don’t think it does. Putting the ethics to one side – which would involve creating a permanent underclass of non-citizens exploited by their nations’ relative poverty – it’s unviable.

Would these migrants be allowed to marry natives? If so, would they naturalise? And would they be allowed to have children? Would those children attend normal schools? Would those children be automatic citizens, or would we also deport them when their parents stopped working in their chosen profession?

Temporary worker visas may work in petro-slave-states like the UAE, but it has no future in liberal democracies in Britain. Back to the drawing board.

I’d recommend this long-read on the state of fertility tech, and what developments we can expect by 2050. The author, Sarah Constantin, argues that by the mid-century we will:

·        Will have artificial wombs for rescuing extremely premature infants (these are entering clinics imminently).

·        Won’t have artificial wombs as an alternative to natural pregnancy. As yet, nobody has gotten a mammal embryo to develop more than 20 days post-conception outside the uterus.

·        Will have prenatal polygenic genetic screening, as this is already on the market.

·        Will have embryo selection for IQ. It’s on the market, but the effect size is small.

·        Could have in vitro gametogenesis (for more effective IVF, high-impact embryo selection, and/or LGBT conception). It’s making rapid progress and has already seen success in animals.

·        Probably won’t be able to extend female fertility or delay the menopause. There’s research and investment going on, but it takes a very long time to run trials on preventing age-related diseases and conditions.

However, Constantin concludes that for a person born today and expecting to have children in the 2040s–2060s, all of these technologies might become realities.