Sometimes, I feel like the only reason I am working in AI is so that I am not left behind. It's as if there is this train that is picking up steam, and if you don't hop on now, it will soon be moving quicker than you can run and the gap between you and the train will expand exponentially until the end of time. If you don't hop on now, you never will be able to.
Sometimes I feel like there won't be any problems to work on in a decade. I'm sure no one in the history of time has ever had this overwhelming feeling that this, right now, is the most pivotal time in history, and you have to solve everything right now or else the world will end and it will be too late to save our minds from overconsumption and our bodies from a failing planet.
I always kind of assumed that everyone felt this way, that civilization is on a tipping point right now and you better tell people you love them now because everything will be destroyed pretty soon. The dead cats in the cellar were the first time I heard of a human actively looking out for a human that they will never know.
I don't remember exactly where or how I heard of this, but basically one of the proposed ideas to warn future civilizations of where our radioactive waste is is to literally put radioactive dead cats in there; because death is the only universal language? Anyway, for some reason, I found this idea quite profound, that some people's job out there is finding ways to save humans in 100's of years, after the collapse of society. To me, I had always know humans to be greedy, myopic creatures–a thought that I still need to keep at bay to this day–so this simple act of hope and optimism–putting dead cats in a bunker–moved me.
But this post-society brings up other feelings as well. That there is a post-society, there is an after. Things always feel like the end when you live in a bubble, as I have in tech culture. The AI train is speeding up and you better hop on now otherwise you'll be stuck on the platform alone.
Despite my rushing down the steps and through the turnstile, I've missed it: I watch the uptown F's doors close in front of my eyes. But as I stand there at the Houston street platform and see the train disappear down the tracks, I remember, there's always another train. Yes, all those people you saw packed into those cars are moving fast up the orange line, but what about the people going downtown? What about the people on the blue line, or the people playing music on the platform?
Scale faster, do it bigger, make it more efficient: these are the tenets of the society I have grown to know, and I have made the mistake of projecting this lens on the world. The Earth turns slowly, it changes seasons even slower. There is always another train to catch. Maybe today is a nice day for a walk instead.