Excel as we know it goes away?

I came across a YouTube video that was very thought provoking and its prognostication seemed plausible. It’s not a future I want but it does seem plausible. The outcome will depend on which forces in our society or in the world exert greater influence.

Of course, I’m talking about AI. In this instance, AI and how the whole Office 365 will proceed in the future. And then further into the future with…well, I’ll let you watch the video. I’m not going to spoil anything.

I can’t say that we will definitely face a future where we do not have to learn Excel because CoPilot does it all for us but … it is plausible. Somebody told me that we will still need to have expertise and knowledge and that’s true. I think of calculators and computers today; they don’t negate the need to learn math, algebra and whatever else. We still need to learn them in order to properly use those tools.

But then, I think, we don’t need to know engineering in order to drive a car.

Or to use a VCR (are we still using them?)

Or to use our electrical appliances.

So, it could be that far enough in the future, we won’t need to know how to use Excel because CoPilot does it all for us.

Maybe the finance person will still need to know for model set ups or at least the mathematical financial modeling. We will still need to know the math and the finance theories and such, but we might end up with totally different tools.

I don’t know. But it’s plausible.

Then there is the 4th era with the mind meld with IOT type tools. And that’s plausible too but could end up being a bad turn. It will depend on the forces in our society on whether we have a benign mind meld with computers or a dystopian future where our minds are controlled.

I will say that if capitalism does not break before that 4th era, we stand a greater chance of facing a dystopian future. If less and less people are able to hold jobs because AI has replaced them, I don’t see how capitalism holds. It has to break.

The big question is whether new types of jobs, good paying jobs, replace those jobs lost to AI. That is the unknown right now. So far, historically, new jobs have rolled in to replace the jobs lost, but if AI can do almost everything that man can do and do it for nearly free, then any new jobs can also be done by AI. That’s the part that is worrying.

Here’s an article about the experts and top AI researchers discussing their excitement and/or fears. My reading of the article is that quite a lot of them are worried.

Now note, all of these prognostications are out to 2035, less than 15 years. We ain’t got a lot of time.