"Journalist Ira Glass, who hosts the NPR show "This American Life," is not a computer scientist. He doesn't work at Google, Apple, or Nvidia. But he does have a great ear for useful phrases, and in 2024, he organized an entire episode around one that might resonate with anyone who feels blindsided by the pace of AI development: "Unprepared for what has already happened." Coined by science journalist Alex Steffen, the phrase captures the unsettling feeling that "the experience and expertise you've built up" may now be obsolete-or, at least, a lot less valuable than it once was."
"In technology reporter Cade Metz's 2022 book, "Genius Makers: The Mavericks Who Brought AI to Google, Facebook, and the World," he describes the panic that washed over a veteran researcher at Microsoft named Chris Brockett when Brockett first encountered an artificial intelligence program that could essentially perform everything he'd spent decades learning how to master. Overcome by the thought that a piece of software had now made his entire skill set and knowledge base irrelevant, Brockett was actually rushed to the hospital because he thought he was having a heart attack."
An apt phrase, "Unprepared for what has already happened," captures the fear that accumulated expertise may be diminished by rapid AI progress. Highly educated professionals express concern about their future employability as generative AI can perform many tasks quickly and cheaply. Workshops at law firms, government agencies, and nonprofits reveal widespread anxiety about displacement. A veteran Microsoft researcher experienced acute panic when confronted with an AI that could perform his decades of specialized work. Similar anxieties are echoed by thinkers who question how individuals and institutions will adapt to technologies that render traditional skills less essential.
Read at Fast Company
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