I know it's crazy, notes from the AI Advantage Summit

Dean asked us to share a breakthrough moment:

A breakout moment for me, the first one, happened during Zack Kass’ great talk. it happened when I momentarily misunderstood one of his slides.

Zack had explained that we humans have been improving our collective intellect quicker than other species of animals. Unfortunately, not in pace with AI’s improved intelligence.

Zack explained the history of intellectual development leading to the creation of the Internet. And that initially the internet was to be a library of scholarly text from all of the top schools. Then someone figured out how to make money from it through advertising. And now users cannot escape the advertisers.

One of Zack’s first slide on this topic read: “We are building machines that possess intellectual equivalence and superiority.”

Then the slide that came after read only: “The rate of Improvement is accelerating”

That was the moment: I thought he was talking about the continual improvement that we humans were experiencing and our adapting. I actually got a shiver, and my `mind popped' with the sudden realization that Zack was still talking about the internet, and not `we the people’.

I wondered if, at the end of the world, would the smart machines take over, as they do in science fiction? And would we humans, become slaves to our creation? No longer would this creation of ours be called and considered as `artificial intelligence’, but now would be understood as (AI) `advanced intelligence’.

Zack was, in my mind, suggesting that our only hope of containing the potential dominance by AI was for humans to learn more, and faster.

We, this audience at this summit, are all here seeking to be educated. And we are being educated. Our “rate of improvement” is also accelerating. But we, believers in this important continued education, are the few. The majority of humankind carelessly are being intellectually eclipsed by technology's rapid pace. Technological advancement was/is already displacing more and more workers.

I thought of all the possibilities that could happen when technology overtook human development. A torrent of ideas started flooding my head: `What do I desire? and, what should I desire? Should my desires be my own personal development, or be a servant to the continued effort to bring all humans forward with the hope that our 'collective mind’ might better control technology?

They tell us that more than six hundred thousand people were here in this educational experience. After this `summit’ is finished, -are we not called to be responsible for humanities sake, to be teachers to the many, less they fall far behind?

Some will always be at the forefront, and many of those will only be looking only out for themselves. Others will be at the back of the line making and believing excuses for why they are at the back of the line.

Sometimes in a breakthrough, millions of ideas and seemingly random connections may race simultaneously through your head. In my head, at that moment, I thought about one of my favorite books, `Catcher In the Rye’ by Salinger. I pulled out the book from my shelf.

I flipped through the worn pages, some had passages underlined, some were highlighted and some had notes in the margins. Then I found a passage that was both highlighted, underlined, and with notes along the margins. The passage that brought a smile to my face and maybe an understanding of my/our purpose.

From the text: "Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around—nobody big, I mean—except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy."

My last notes from Zack’s talk were: “Today is the best day ever to be born. Tomorrow will be, too. Optimism is not naive." (4/23/2026)

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