Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI

by Ethan Mollick

Principle 4: Assume this is the worst AI you will ever use. As I write this in late 2023, I think I know what the world looks like for at least the next year. Bigger, smarter Frontier Models are coming, along with an increasing range of smaller and open-source AI platforms. In addition, AIs are becoming connected to the world in new ways: they can read and write documents, see and hear, produce voice and images, and surf the web. LLMs will become integrated with your email, web browser, and other common tools. And the next phase of AI development will involve more AI “agents”—semi-autonomous AIs that can be given a goal (“plan a vacation for me”) and execute it with minimal human help. After this, however, things start to get hazy, the future becomes less clear, and the risks, and benefits, of AI start to multiply.