Basically, we have the same fear of missing out (FOMO) and being marginalized, left behind to do the boring-ass-shit [in comparison] during the A.I. Revolution, just like everybody else.
Yeah... we could try to get a job at a FAANG and follow data scientist researchers around converting python into C++. But ... nah
Add to that the fear that 'they' are going to eff up this extremely powerful and lucrative technology... [It's not like we don't have a lot of recent examples of introducing powerful and lucrative technologies - some, e.g. personal computing or even the smartphone, relatively benign and others, e.g. social networking, a complete, unmitigated disaster].
Combine these two fears, and we have the unfortunately highly probable expectation that a few big players will discover and keep the best A.I. to themselves, parcel the rest out to us in overly expensive overly complicated wrapping paper, and will then proceed to drive the world [further] into a dystopian pyramid with the god-like few on top with the rest of us wondering just what the heck just happened.
Assuming that the next few decades play out like the last few, one way or another, we will see a massive growth in smart software and hardware and the power they confer upon their users.
Automatic.ai is our attempt to help The Rest of Us have some say in how this all goes down
The Vision
We believe the only thing preventing a massive explosion in the number of positive, beneficial applications based on AI research is that the AI software development process is currently a severe pain-in-the-ass. This has a tendency to limit access to companies with extensive staff and specific skillsets and significant monetary resources. The result is mostly boring-ass trickle-down technology for the rest of us.
We believe that tools for streamlining the building of software which helps apply the results of AI research will allow all software developers to participate, not just those behind the hallowed walls of the FAANG empires. More developers participating means the number of beneficial applications will increase exponentially, spawning in a new, and egalitarian [staying true to the tech meritocratic ethos], Intelligence Age.
We also believe that an overwhelming preponderance of "good" AI may be the only thing that can prevent "bad outcome" AI.
Okay. Cool. So, you might agree with some of these things. What do we do about it ...?
What we can do
MORE. Help build the tools that streamline the process of leveraging AI research so software developers can [more] easily create new novel applications as well as incorporate intelligence into the majority of current generation applications.
BETTER. Help guide the adoption of AI research, pushing it towards benevolent A.I., improving everyone's quality of life. At the same time, increase friction against research and applications of "bad" AI.
MORE ACCESSIBLE. Help expand the accessibility of AI for developers, smaller businesses and the general public.
And how about the hard part - a plan, a doable plan, that we can all work on, for those of us without several billion dollars folding money bulging from our hip pockets?
The basic functional requirements
MORE
- Building of many composable, reusable parts and the tools that use these parts to build A.I.
- Focusing on support for 'small, efficient and affordable' solutions reducing development turnaround times, energy and expenses
- Increasing the depth and breadth of reusability by creating abstract interfaces to the common tropes (data, filters, reports, features, performance, inference)
- Expanding accessibility by opening up the interface and making open-source, sharable components the default
- Expanding accessibility by posting how-to build and apply A.I. articles
MORE BETTER
- Encouraging and enforcing a 'the only good AI is a good AI' sense of responsibility
- Publically offering huge numbers of beneficial A.I. services to pivot the mindset away from military, gamer and Hollywood doomsday A.I.
MORE ACCESSIBLE
- Providing a YouTube-like interface for people to search for and discover services they may find useful
- Making the creation and use of many services essentially free
- Streamlining the building of services so that not just developers but savvy small businesses and ordinary folk can participate
- Posting how-to use A.I. articles for small business and the general public
These are all things that guide our work, day in day out.
At its core this is a place for devs to work with researchers to use the research to build positive, intelligent things for, and make these things easily accessible to, everybody and their businesses.- the rest of us