Artificial Intelligence

When I think about AI, it usually leads down the road to Skynet. And that is not the road that we actually want to be going down. The fact is that we live in a world where software development has come so far that computers are better than people at chess, jeopardy, and even solving a Rubik's cube. Self driving cars are actually safer than the ones driven by humans. Also, airplanes are driven by computer software programs that decide which planes are in the air and when is the best time to take off. All of this is truly a marvel of just how far technology has really come. It is easy to theorize that robots and the technology would always be programmed in such a way as to help the human race and solve some of the major issues such as poverty and hunger. At the same time, this becomes a rather gray area when robots are designing themselves. There is also the issue of people highjacking the software to their advantage in the same way a virus might behave. This is a new world that we are facing and it has never been more important to take a step back and look at where we are going.

Constraints

People often say that they want options. When it comes to getting things done, however, options aren’t always a good thing. When everything is a possibility, it actually becomes harder to make the right choice (or any choice at all). This is the paradox of choice. I could go into the whole free will bit but it might get tedious so let us stick to just fighting procrastination and inefficiency for now. Having too many choices can be hazardous to getting things done, especially if there are deadlines looming. Say you have a business application development project in the works and it is supposed to bring more efficiency to the business professional. There are so many different directions that you can go that they need to be narrowed down because you cannot possibly explore every single option. We sometimes need a tunnel that will get us more focus in the direction that we want to go. Limiting yourself can also eliminate the need to make the same decisions over and over again because making small decisions can actually drain your willpower. What if we apply this strategy to life as well?