“I know it seems like that. It seems like as we gather more intelligence, the world will become more predictable. But it doesn't”, Soryu said as an answer to a question asked by an AI developer. “If we look back 1000 years, there was less intelligence on this planet. And yet, if you had asked a farmer of that time what life will look like for their children, they will have told you, ‘Just like this. My kids will be farmers, take over this farm, live here. It will be like this.’ If we go back further, and examine stone arrowheads, their design didn’t change for thousands of years. Back then, the world was far more predictable. Today, if you ask a person what life will be like in 10 years, they don't know. You don’t know.”
He went on to point to a glass of water that was in front of the lady that asked the question. “If you had your entire life, by yourself you would not be able to produce a single glass. You would never figure it out without asking others and collaborating with them. Plastic? No chance! And yet that glass, or a plastic cup, is a very common object. The reason for that is that as we gather more intelligence, it is not that the individual people get more intelligent. Every person stays in their lane. For that glass to be produced, many steps are necessary by many people who don’t even know that others are taking steps in concert with them. It is not the person that gets more intelligent, but THAT.” He made a gesture in the air, pointing out how the network of all those people working together gets more connected and intelligent. “Yet with all of that intelligence, we have no answers to the most important questions in our lives. We have less ability to predict the future than ever before. And even in the present, our lives have less meaning than ever before.
“Intelligence can’t really predict the future. It can’t even find the present.”