You heard it here first, the dominance of homo sapiens is coming to an end. Well, perhaps not the dominance, but rather the utlility of the species. It has been a good, if violent, run. I’m not talking about exterminating ourselves via nuclear holocaust or our stubborn refusal to respond with a scintilla of intelligence to anthropomorphic climate change. No, I’m talking about the end to our usefulness in the world as we are replaced in that respect by our own ingenuity and inventions.

We all have witnessed technologies replacing humans in the performance of mundane tasks, from telephone operators to file clerks to typists. We can easily see higher-level tasks supplanting ornery humans in somewhat more demanding areas … computer driven robots replacing skilled laborers on the factory floor, driverless transport trucks dispensing with their human operators, and robotic arms performing at least lower-level medical and surgical procedures. But humans will always be needed for creative pursuits. Right? Our vanity must preserve one arena in which we will prevail.

I doubt that. Artificial Intelligence (AI) innovations are now dominating the headlines. Creations with ominous sounding acronyms such as ChatGPT are capturing the imaginations of innovators and academics. A Wharton School Management Professor recently tried to assess the limits of what these new technologies could do. With ChatGPT, and related programs, he went about developing a business plan for a game he invented. The tasks normally would demand sophisticated skills in several areas of expertise.

He employed his hi-tech servants to do things like market research, create a positioning document, develop an email campaign, set up a web site, generate a logo and ‘hero shot’ graphic, make a social media campaign for multiple platforms, and script and create a video. All was accomplished. What amazed him … it was all completed in the time it would take him to eat his lunch and at a high level, which he termed ‘superhuman.’ Some estimate that 300 million jobs could be eliminated by AI at the next stage of this revolution, many being high paying positions. Bill Gates has suggested that AI technologies would permit each of us to have a personal white collar assistant. Alex, the low-level assistant that turns on our lights, could move out of the picture.

All this has not gone unnoticed. A large number of movers and shakers, including the aformentioned Gates and Elon Musk, have asked for a moratorium on further AI advancements for a while. Humanity surely needs to breathe and think through what this revolution will mean and how we should respond. Miracle of miracles, politicians on both sides of the aisle are talking with each other about the implications of AI. Who knows, this might be an apocalyptic threat that brings us together though I highly doubt it.

The real test of whether this is a tempest in a teapot or a threat to humanity is whether AI will replace university professors. OMG! I always loved the fact that there were places for people like me in the world … where those who have absolutely practical skills can go and do something that retains the illusion of utility, something like disgorging tons of words to be read by a handful of their peers and inaccessible to the world. As I labored in academia, I always imagined I was a conremporary version of the scribe or priest writing volumes on what a great guy the Pharoah or Prince was. Rather useless but having considerable respect attached to the exercise. Might this societal role, and last hiding place for the inept be approaching its end?

Our fear of technology might well have started with the creation of Frankenstein and his monster by author Mary Shelley. It picked up considerable pace during the 1950s, after the emergeance of nuclear power unleashed our deeper fears. We saw all kinds of monsters in our nightmares. I mean, who recalls Godzilla devouring Tokyo … again. Update our imagined horror to Stanley Kubrick’s classic … 2001. HAL, the onboard computer of the spaceship, realizes he is smarter than the human idiots nominally in charge and takes command of the craft. I still shiver at the memory of those scenes.

Our future monsters might not look anything like Frankenstein’s creatio or Godzilla. It might be the tiniest of binary signals operating at speeds which humans could never compete. It would be an unseen monster, but the deadliest of all.

Sleep tight!