There was this magical moment when the robot, having analyzed the skin of its target, gracefully swung into an autonomous ballet of algorithmically delineated motions, artfully mixing ingredients, shaking, and stirring with the deft precision of a London bartender. Moments later, the work was complete: a personalized bottle of bespoke skin foundation.
I saw this little piece of theatre last week in Seoul at Hera Beauty in the Seoungsu district. Seoul is full of weird and wonderful, immersive retail experiences - but here is something you might not know: South Korea is the most automated country on the planet today. One out of ten workers in that country is already a robot.
You will find robots everywhere in Seoul - in factories, distribution centers, restaurants, kitchens, airports, and retail shops. Regarding automation, the controversial issue in South Korea is not robots taking people’s jobs (yep, an aging population with the lowest fertility rate in the world!), but cheaper robots from China taking work from locally made machines.
Spending time in Seoul made me think about a bigger question: what would it take to build a fully automated, autonomous, AI-powered civilization? Frankly, when contemplating the more significant impact of machine intelligence on our world, we lack ambition. What do we find exciting? This week, a mildly more intelligent chatbot or the inclusion of an action button on a smartphone. But the real opportunities and obstacles to advancing our civilization on any measure (the Kardashev Scale or otherwise) go largely unnoticed.
That said, we are still adept at fretting about civilizational collapse - whether it be ecological, sociological, or technological - we just don’t sufficiently consider how the tools of our demise may also be the means of our salvation.
I believe there are three things we are not adequately considering:
- Energy: we vastly underestimate the energy requirements of a full-stack, AI-powered society. Amazon has already bought a nuclear-powered data center, and Larry Ellison wants to build some of his own. Let's put it this way: we don't get to keep using ChatGPT and Instagram, plus move towards net zero emissions, while relying just on wind farms and solar panels.
- Organizations: Silicon Valley is great at creating flashy startups with high valuations, charismatic founders with a compelling TED talks, and fun amenities for their employees. However, the companies capable of creating civilization-scale infrastructure are more likely to be mature, industrial, diversified, vertically integrated, global mega corporations.
- Governance: advancing world living standards at scale will take more than one term, TikTok-friendly policy platforms. We will need much longer planning horizons and a more rational approach to public/private partnerships.
Anyway, watch the video, and let me know your ideas on how we might think bigger about our collective future.