When innovation kills

Life-altering technologies can come back to bite us in unexpected ways, both grand and terrible. AI is no exception.

Killer Cyborg, as drawn by Midjourney.

Let's be honest for a moment. Nobody really knows where any of this AI stuff is going. Multiple times over the last six decades we've seen a flurry of hype and hope around artificial intelligence, and then... bupkis. Another "AI winter" settles in. We all go back to watching reruns of Green Acres and Petticoat Junction [1] and stop worrying about machines enslaving humanity.

We're in one of those cycles again, only exponentially more hyped. But this feels different. This one feels more like an accelerated spring and a long hot AI summer. Maybe a little too hot. We don't know yet. But I think AI is here to stay, and it will disrupt [2] all kinds of things we aren't even aware of yet.

For example: Software development. A couple of VCs, Paul Kedrosky and Eric Norlin, just published a long, wonky but still accessible discussion of how software is facing its Gutenberg moment thanks to AI. Tools like ChatGPT that can automate the production of software code are going to make development so dirt cheap that it will be applied to all kinds of things it isn't already applied to. [3]

Why Gutenberg? Because the invention of the printing press inspired massive changes to society and gave birth to new industries:

The history of any major technological or industrial advance is inevitably shadowed by a less predictable history of unintended consequences and secondary effects — what economists sometimes call “externalities.” Sometimes those consequences are innocuous ones, or even beneficial. Gutenberg invents the printing press, and literacy rates rise, which causes a significant part of the reading public to require spectacles for the first time, which creates a surge of investment in lens-making across Europe, which leads to the invention of the telescope and the microscope.

That particular quote comes from another long but worthy read in the New York Times Magazine [4] by eminent science writer and Wicked Smart Dude Steven Johnson. [5] Called "The Brilliant Inventor Who Made Two of History's Biggest Mistakes," it's the story of Thomas Midgley Jr., the inventor of leaded gasoline and of Freon.

Exactly 100 years ago, leaded gasoline made its first appearance on the market. Before then, cars running on pure gasoline would experience a violent knocking sensation whenever they accelerated or climbed hills. By diluting it with heavy metals (ie, the heaviest one), cars running on "Ethyl" (gas+fractional amounts of lead) would burn fuel more slowly, making it less explosive, and cars less unpleasant to drive.

The effects on engine performance were profound. Automobiles running on leaded gasoline could take on steep inclines without hesitation; drivers could accelerate to overtake a slower vehicle on a two-lane road without worrying about their engine being seized with knock while in the wrong lane.... Over the course of the 1920s, the number of registered vehicles in the United States tripled. By the end of the decade, Americans owned close to 80 percent of all the automobiles in the world, increasingly powered by the miraculous new fuel that Thomas Midgley concocted in his lab.

But Midgley wasn't done innovating. He also applied his considerable brain power to solving problems with artificial refrigeration. In the late 19th century, gases used as refrigerants (like ammonia or methyl chloride) were explosive and/or deadly if accidentally leaked. Yes, that new fangled box will keep your beer cold, but you also might die. [6]

Midgely came up with the idea of mixing fluorine (a commonly used but toxic refrigerant) with chlorine and carbon, making it both benign and nonexplosive. The new brand name for this product: Freon.

Besides refrigerators Freon is also used in air conditioning. And that had its own unintended effects. Per Johnson:

When Willis Carrier hit upon the idea of air-conditioning, the technology was primarily intended for industrial use: ensuring cool, dry air for factories that required low-humidity environments. But once air-conditioning entered the home — thanks in part to Freon’s radical leap forward in safety — it touched off one of the largest migrations in the history of the United States, enabling the rise of metropolitan areas like Phoenix and Las Vegas that barely existed when Carrier first started tinkering with the idea in the early 1900s.

There is of course a problem or two here. Lead is deadly -- especially for the atmosphere, where the emissions from hundreds of millions of cars created the greenhouse effect, thus causing all of the meteorological mayhem we've been suffering through over the past two decades.

Chlorine+Fluorine+Carbon = CFCs, which was for several decades a common ingredient in aerosol cans. We now know that CFCs ripped an enormous hole in the Ozone layer -- good if you're interested in getting an insta-tan, not so good if you're worried about skin cancer.

Here's the difference. When Midgely added lead to gasoline, everyone knew that lead wasn't good for humans. (Midgely himself contracted lead poisoning while working on the project.) And there was another more benign substance available that would perform the same trick: ethanol. But ethanol could be made by anyone (think: bathtub gin) and couldn't be patented. Ethyl could.

The danger from CFCs, on the other hand, wasn't foreseen by anyone. When that became apparent, the substance was banned from aerosols, just as leaded gas was finally banned for automobiles, though wasn't until 2021 that the last gallon of leaded gas found its way into a car. [7]

My point, if you're still with me, is that we are now on the cusp of a similar tipping point with AI. Tremendous life-altering innovation, with potential consequences that are both known and unknown. And rather than wait and see what bad things might happen, maybe we should start thinking and talking about them now, before it's too late?

Just a thought.

Does AI worry you? Even a little bit? Post your thoughts below or email me: crankyolddan AT gmail.com.

[1] Especially the crossover episodes, where Oliver and Lisa Douglas swing by The Shady Rest. (Yes, this is how I wasted my youth.)

[2] Yeah, I know -- that word again. You just can't escape it these days.

[3] An increasingly short list. Software is in nearly everything built today that uses electricity.

[4] Sorry for all the homework. Yes, all of this will be on the final. Don't forget to bring your blue books.

[5] Who also has his own newsletter. Because, of course he does.

[6] The newspapers called them "death gas ice boxes," which is also a good name for a hardcore metal band.

[7] Lead is still used in other engine fuels -- airplane, marine, farm equipment, etc. So don't breathe easy just yet.