A recent one from the Journal of the Bleeding Obvious:
Chinese researchers found that restaurant serving staff, who memorise patrons and meals, perform better on a working memory test than restaurant security staff, who don’t. In a subsequent study, the same researchers trained uni students on a restaurant serving game for several weeks found that the trained students’ working memory improved more than those who were not trained on this game.
I found the abovementioned study and started to think about AI.
The study itself was not remarkable. Its part of a large body of research that has found that the brain is plastic. This doesn’t mean that it is a synthetic material made from organic polymers, but that it is changeable due to environments and choices.
A fundamental study into the effect of work on brain plasticity (called neuroplasticity) was done with London Black Cab drivers. Becoming a London cabbie involves a lot of training and an arduous test – most people fail it. When they studied the brains of London cabbies, they find that a key memory centre, the hippocampus, is larger than for us normals. The size of the hippocampus keeps increasing the longer the cabbie’s driving career.
Neuroplasticity tells us that our brain changes throughout life to fit into our circumstances. As a theory, it appeals to those who wish that the world or themselves were different, whilst repelling those who are happy just the way things are.
What would neuroplasticity theory say about the impact of AI?
Intelligence Rising
Last century, intelligence researcher, James Flynn, discovered that humans were getting smarter. Reviewing the data from about 70 years of research, Flynn found that IQ rose between 5 and 25 points per generation across the world.
Why were we getting smarter? The research tells us that dietary and health improvements probably play a part. But the big reason? Education. Education and complex jobs were driving our plastic brains to get bigger and better at acing IQ tests.
150 years ago, almost all kids in almost all countries weren’t in formal education past age 10. But education then, as now, was highly correlated with high income. And of course, high income equals high status – the drug that all us humans crave. We couldn’t get enough.
Now, there is evidence that the Flynn effect is slowing down or maybe even reversing. Researchers looking into this, are implicating environmental factors.
Is our plastic brain wasting away? Where to from here?
Robots: Doing the Heavy Thinking for Us
I’m amazed that people feel so certain that blue collar jobs are more threatened by AI than white collar jobs.
The decisions that those with formalised education make are rational and linear. Every professional must be able to back up their decisions by reason, to do so would be to invite claims of incompetence. These types of systematised decisions are already being made by AI now. This will only increase further.
Of course, it is natural for humans to let machines do our heavy thinking. Humans have allowed machines to do our heavy lifting since at least the windmill and the watermill. These mills cost jobs and thus changed human consciousness. With our hands and muscles free we had more time and energy to devote to problem solving.
What changes will happen to our brains once AI has relieved us of heavy thinking?
AI and Plasticity
The brain which isn’t taxed on a daily basis becomes less of a brain. It wastes. Artificial intelligence promise to relieve the burden of thinking jobs, and we can expect a similar wasting.
This won’t just mean we’ll having less brain capacity if the Wi-Fi goes down and were forced to work again.
This will change our ability to consider our choices and actions, to make long-term goals, to think about the perspectives of others. Mental health starts to deteriorate when we feel stuck. Will our slow-witted forebears be able to think themselves out of a problem?
Working in a restaurant makes you smarter. It makes your ability to understand problems better. All jobs do the same. When a robot does your job, how will we stop the wasting of our brain?