Tl;dr
- AI development is rapidly outpacing societal adaptation
- We should focus on adapting AI development to benefit human society
- Concerns about job displacement can be mitigated by creating new AI-related roles
- Combining AI with various scientific domains could accelerate breakthroughs
- AI raises existential and philosophical questions about human uniqueness and purpose
Obviously, we will face or are facing the situation that the pace of development of those frontier AI system greatly surpasses the one of adaptation of human society. However, the problem is: Should human society adapt to the development of AI, or should the development of AI adapt to the human society?
Currently, one of the greatest concern is about unemployment. My opinion is that general deployment of advanced models would make a lot of people lose their jobs, for example, those who do repetitive text-based work (transcriptionist, proofreader, etc.). This would cause great negative impact to our society. But we can try to slow down the speed of unemployment rate by bring more job opportunities. I suppose in the near future, we would need more people who are adept in guiding the AI systems to do something that they're not so good at, or trying to bring them into some specific domains (Chemistry, Biology, etc.).
Except of this, I think we should also consider the existential crisis that AI would possibly bring. As those AI models become more advanced in areas like creativity, reasoning, and emotional intelligence, some of us may question what makes us truly unique or special as a species. Besides, AI raises profound questions about the nature of consciousness, intelligence, and what it means to be a sentient being. What's more, AI's potential to solve many of our problems might lead some to question the meaning and purpose of our existence if our traditional roles are diminished.
I think these are complex and nuanced questions without simple answers; and only time would give us the answer.