What Ikaria Thinks of the AI Hype Cycle

Many of you Soul Seat customers and fans are knowledge workers, creatives, writers, therapists, lawyers, and music producers whose jobs are squarely within the crosshairs of the booming AI industry. In this post, I want to offer some hope that comes right out of some recent AI research.

Steve Jobs famously said that he envisioned computers being the bicycle for the mind. His metaphor was based on the notion that the bicycle, when combined with a human rider, has been one of the most efficient machines we’ve ever invented. A human on a bicycle can travel faster and farther with so little effort compared to walking or running. The recumbent version of the bicycle is so much more efficient that it was banned from the Tour de France by those invested in the racing infrastructure built around the conventional bike. I don’t think it’s just a coincidence that the pioneers of the first human flight, the Wright Brothers, were also bicycle manufacturers. They knew the power of that efficiency intimately.

Here’s the part of the equation that AI boosters don’t want to let on. Just as a bicycle without a human rider is only a pile of potential motion, it’s becoming clearer and clearer to me that a herd of AI agents can no more take over our human-built world than a warehouse full of bicycles can take over transportation. I grew up with images of rivers of folks on bicycles elegantly navigating the city streets in China. Even then, it wasn’t described as a river of bicycles that would soon take over the world. We saw it accurately as a river of humans. I contend that the same is true for AI. The AI builders and boosters need us much more than we need AI, and it’s time we put a value on our portion of that equation. I think AI is showing us just how miraculous all biological instances of intelligence are - from the nematode, to the web-spinning spider, to the humpback whale.

The myth behind the current allocation of global capital maps to this metaphor perfectly. Our leaders are choosing not to invest in us miraculous human beings, in our health, education, or even the health of the intelligent soil that sustains all intelligent life. Instead, they are feverishly filling up warehouses of “bicycles”. They think they have extracted intelligence from us and can now turn it to their own blatantly greedy purposes. Does that seem rational?

As Algorithmic “Intelligence” begins to approach its point of diminishing returns, and we hear more and more talk of an AI bubble, the research about how to make AI equivalent to the typical knowledge worker is landing on both sides of the line, mimicking the two camps of bubble bursters and AI boosters. However, a recent research paper that was a collaboration (all biological life mastered collaboration eons ago) between US and Chinese AI researchers demonstrates how AI developers are just now trying to figure out how to get AI systems (mind you, after billions have already been spent) to manage planning in a stable, static environment, while also changing that plan in the face of a dynamic world. Like balancing a bicycle and going where you want to go while dodging potholes and other riders.

So, is the equivalent amount of money being invested in the young person you know who is just learning to ride a bicycle? Does your current salary reflect the amount of money being spent to replicate the miracle that you are, the skills you have that an AI can’t function without?

I’m old enough to have witnessed several AI booms and the equivalent number of AI “winters”. We’re approaching another winter for AI. Each time, from the “Expert Systems” craze to the current agentic AI craze, the boom and bust cycle has confirmed what a miraculous feat of intelligence even a spider spinning a web is. 

I’m also very fortunate to have a front-row seat watching the fascinating and delightful development of my granddaughter, running parallel to the growth of this latest AI boom. As impressive as my conversations with Claude AI have been, I’m still much more impressed and amazed at what happens as a real mammalian intelligence develops. 

When we humans invented theatre, I’m sure there were some boosters who were sure they could control the masses through one-way, one-to-many telling of stories. They surely imagined reducing the human storytelling role to just those few playwrights of the day. And I’m sure there were others predicting that the capacity to tell stories would atrophy further with each new amphitheater constructed.

Keep a running inventory of your skills as a human, not just your consciously learned ones, but all the innate and unconscious ones as well. Like navigating gravity, managing and monitoring a microbiome of billions of microscopic agents in your gut. And increase your value with each injection of cash the AI models burn through to merely mimic what you can do in your sleep. 

I’m not being rhetorical there, because you do some of your most intelligent work of integrating the day’s experiences while sleeping - don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Deprive a human of sleep, and they start hallucinating just like the latest LLM. Take that thought with you to your next pay-raise negotiation.

At Ikaria Design, we will continue producing products that help you amplify your ability to focus while celebrating the fidgety mammal you are. Our products won’t insulate you from the effects of gravity, so you’re more likely to notice those wise signals from your miraculous physiology that it’s time to move. We are not interested in enfeebling you for profit or creating dependency for our gain. No business needs to do those things to thrive, and you needn’t be a cog in that sort of machinery. You and a bicycle are plenty efficient; you don’t need to be sacrificed on that artificial altar of efficiency for any reason.

Let us know what you’ve noticed about human intelligence lately and the intelligence embedded in the world around you.