by S. Abbas Raza
From the Dept. of Shower Thoughts (literally, this morning): I keep seeing, especially as advice for young people, that the skill needed to thrive in our AI dominated, rapidly transforming future is going to be the ability to continually learn new things and skills and being “adaptable”. Okay, I guess in some ways it is a good thing to learn new things and new skills (even I do so from time to time, remember my choir singing from a couple of years ago? 
). But newness also brings stress and anxiety. Most of you will remember your first day at some new school and the dread and anxiety of that experience, simply caused by everything being new. And every new thing brings that to some degree or other, I think. We can deal with this comfortably if the changes come at a certain pace, but beyond that, we may all experience what I have been experiencing over the last year in trying to stay on top of what the frontier AI models are capable of and how I can use them: severe stress and CONSTANT learning of an ever-changing subject. How I do some routine things this month is not going to be the same as I do those things next month. This is becoming too much for me already. So, is re-living the first day in a new school every month or every week what all our futures are going to look like? If so, I will need all the Xanax I can get my hands on! 
P.S. Related thought: The newest form of polarization in society is people who emphasize the ways in which AI is different from human brains vs. the people who emphasize how they are similar. They are, of course, both. So you can find plenty of evidence for whichever side you support.
P.P.S. Please give some feedback on whether my sharing these barely formed thoughts here on 3QD is good or just a waste of your time!
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