FOMO and Deep Learning

In Silicon Valley, the big tech companies copy each other whenever one of them makes a big bet on some new tech. When Google took the plunge into deep learning, Facebook and Microsoft followed. Even though they had no idea what they might do with it! The reason they jumped in was FOMO – fear of missing out. The risk of not getting into any new tech was viewed as an existential one. They didn’t want to be like the companies from a generation back that ignored the possibilities of the Internet and got run over by new Internet based upstarts.

 

Since they had no clear uses, both Facebook and Microsoft initially struggled to woo the top deep learning folks in academia to join their companies. In both cases, the CEO’s, Mark Zuckerburg and Satya Nadella, had to personally meet and convince prospective employees that they’d find applications later, but they’d support it in their R&D departments until then, that they’d pour far more money in their R&D labs than what any university could ever offer. Huge salaries were promised too.

 

Then there was Elon Musk. He made many public statements on the dangers of AI’s that might spin out of control and wreak havoc. He funded an open source group called OpenAI. It would be free for all, not just the richest companies, he said, and it would have an ethics body to oversee its evolution. Musk though is torn on this. Whatever his personal views on AI, he is also the CEO of many companies. And hence the contradictions in many of the things he does. While he may have funded OpenAI, in his avatar as the Tesla CEO, his company is applying AI in driverless cars. FOMO again – can Tesla not try it when Google, Uber and so many car companies are at it?

 

The fear and concerns aren’t misplaced. Even if a Terminator style takeover may or may not happen, as facial recognition got better, military and security applications became obvious. Drones that could recognize faces of terrorists are an obvious use. But who knows what else it is being planned for? The militarization and weaponization of AI is a deeply divisive topic for many.

 

Whatever the fears and concerns, it looks like the genie of deep learning is out of the bottle. The potential rewards are too high and for now continue to overweigh the fears.

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