The Other Hand

Every magician knows the oldest trick in the trade: get the audience to watch one hand while the other does the real work.

For months the AI conversation has circled one question: is AI going to end humanity? My first answer was, of course not, any more than my SUV is going to back itself out of the garage and run somebody over. Then it hit me. AI could be driving that SUV sooner than we think. We’re approaching an interesting crossroads, where we build autonomy into the idol.

But what if even that is a diversion?

We’re an attention-driven species. Just ask the people who program the algorithms. And attention is limited: the job, the family, soccer practice, when to take the medicine, and what time Monday night’s kickoff is. Everything else gets backburnered.

So while we watch the robot, what is the other hand doing? In Part 4, we follow the money: quantum computing, the math behind the machine, and a financial system being rewritten in code. Babylon was never just a city. It was a marketplace.

Article: https://50b.us/TheOtherHand

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