The new renaissance

I have often written about the care economy, where advanced AI takes away the economic value of intelligence and forces people to focus more on their human side, and more recently on the rise of the polymath. The care economy derives from the contrast between the value placed on human and machine involvement. We take it for granted that one coke can or a plastic cup is identical to another, and is actually a very high precision artefact in spite of its low cost. By contrast, hand made items command a high premium even though by comparison to mass produced machine-made items they could be considered shoddy workmanship. Essentially, we often value human involvement far more than any physical measure of quality.

It seems reasonable to assume that intellectually superior AIs will eventually be able to invent, create art, and design stuff better than humans. But even if they meet our ergonomic and aesthetic requirements perfectly, we will still place far more value on the works of other humans. This does not take anything away from the value of AI though. When AI is used to assist humans to create art works, it increases their effective skill level. Craftsmen have always used tools, and such AI may be considered just as a sophisticated creative tool, even though in one sense AI might do almost all the work. With ordinary people enabled to create great works by using great tools, and with more time and money available for self expression, we will see the arts flourishing as an important part of the care economy. As a core part of the self actualisation layer, arts are one of the pillars of human nature. As AI progresses, we will see a new renaissance in human artistic expression.

Calendarising the important component technologies, the age of the arts is likely to arise about half way through the care economy, in the mid 2020s.