AI’s abundance: dream or distraction?

We’re sold a vision of superhuman tools and economic utopia, but is current AI development truly building that future, or just dazzling us with digital party tricks?

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Disclaimer: you may not like this content… but in the end this is valid for every article, right?

But these words are coming out by themselves. Because the buzz around Generative AI is deafening.

We’re promised a revolution, a future brimming with images, summaries, blog posts, and tweets conjured at our command. It’s undeniably neat.

But I really need a step back from the initial sparkle…

Is this the profound shift we’ve been anticipating? Frankly, I’m not convinced.

Not yet anyway.

I was listening to the last speech by Yann LeCun in Singapore, and I couldn’t but agree 100% with him.

We are soooo far from super-intelligence, and AI scientists are making the same mistakes over and over again… maybe guided by the hype?

I will leave the link to this video later on in the article.

Don’t misunderstand me; I’m no AI detractor. In fact, I find it fascinating. A lot.

If you ever read my articles, I put 110% of myself in them: I want to make sure that everyone with a computer can run an open-source AI. And I test everything myself, with trials and errors. I will leave some of them at the end of this article.

So, there is disillusionment, but also exciting potential! It’s the promise that captivates me: perhaps the teacher in me yearning to see this raw, almost reframing, potential shaped for genuine good.

My sense of critical hope sharpened recently while listening to Mark Zuckerberg on the Dwarkesh Podcast, outlining Meta’s AGI plans.

Zuckerberg spoke of…

“a world of abundance where everyone has these superhuman tools to create whatever they want, creating all these economic benefits.”

It sounds magnificent, doesn’t it?

But what does this “world of abundance” truly mean?

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Where is the tangible groundwork being laid to construct this utopia for everyone? How are we, the everyday users, supposed to wield these “superhuman tools” effectively if the overarching vision remains so nebulous?

So, what occupies AI’s time right now, in its current iteration? Let’s take a candid look:

• Automating mundane, repetitive tasks.
• Drafting robotic email replies.
• “Streamlining” (an amazing AI generated buzzword!) business plans for solo entrepreneurs, complete with boilerplate marketing strategies.
• Generating AI art for sale, or, more troublingly, fueling the creation of deepfakes.
• Threatening to displace actors, writers, and entire film crews with AI-generated movies.
• Venturing into “vibe trading” on stock markets — a curious new application.
• And “vibe coding” everything while exclaiming “it’s so over!”
• Cloning voices for podcasts based on AI-written scripts.

Honestly, in the middle of all this flurry of activity, truly mind-blowing breakthroughs for humanity seem very rare.

Why aren’t more resources and intellect being channeled to tackle the true tough challenges? The serious, long-haul projects that could redefine our world for the better?

Imagine AI models dedicated to early cancer detection from CT scans, accelerating the discovery of life-saving drugs.

Or open-source accurate real-time translation that bridges global communication gaps.

You know, applications with profound, tangible impact.

Do we genuinely need a multi-billion-dollar model primarily tasked with a cursory glance at blood work when we could be laser-focused on preventing diseases in the first place?

Here Professor Yann LeCun in Singapore few days ago… This is inspirational!

AI starting blocks

To me, it’s clear: we’re merely at the starting blocks. And currently, the prevailing gaze seems to be inward, with no distinct finish line in view for broader societal benefit. This entire Generative AI world often feels like it’s constructing itself, for itself — a closed loop, endlessly consuming data to achieve greater scale and sophistication, but without a clear external purpose.

And what of concepts like the “MCP” (Master Control Program) — allowing AI to manage your computer, your email, your finances? Is the pinnacle of innovation truly watching a machine perform your chores on your own device?

The reality is simple: most AI models are only refining the same core ingredients. Major labs are locked in a race towards “general intelligence” or “superintelligence” — the nomenclature varies, but the objective is similar. They are all pursuing that identical vision: an AI that bestows “superhuman tools” upon everyone, a little bit of Buzz Lightyear toward a “world of abundance” and vast “economic benefits.”

It echoes a line from a Barbie movie — “You can be anything!” — but is this the AGI we genuinely want or, more importantly, need?

Nobody seems to present a bold, pragmatic plan for what this “world of abundance” concretely looks like or the steps to achieve it. It remains aspirational talk.

image by the author and

Is this truly the grand destiny of AI?

My skepticism isn’t unfounded. We are barely scratching the surface of AI development; to be specific we are still looking for reliable, truthful foundations.

Whatever happens inside the Neural network of these huge Language Models is still a kind of magic. That infamous “black box”? It remains disconcertingly opaque.

Our primary interaction modality is still conversational language. And critical issues of ownership and regulation are far from resolved.

We are inundated with flashy demonstrations, those “wow” moments designed to impress. An entire company run by AI agents executing tasks? Forgive me, but that’s not profoundly impressive, and it’s certainly not enough to justify the grand narrative. Go ahead, connect your email, your bank account, your digital life to all the Master Control Programs you wish. And then what follows?

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Where is the plan?

So yes, you can color me unimpressed with the current AI magic show. We’re being marketed an epic vision of the future, but what I predominantly observe are sophisticated digital party tricks. It feels like a vast, yawning chasm separates us from the “world of abundance” we hear so much about.

Yet, that teacher part of me, the one initially ignited by AI’s promise, still clings to a sliver of hope. There’s something monumental here, a potential that could be genuinely transformative. But it requires deliberate, thoughtful direction, not just escalating hype and ever-larger machines learning to converse with themselves.

Until we, as an active community, get serious about defining what we truly want AI to achieve for humanity — beyond enriching a select few or making our online existence even more surreal — we’re essentially stuck in the mud, revving an incredibly powerful engine without a map.

So, what’s the actual plan, people? Or are we just waiting for the AI to tell us?

And what do you think?

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Here some practical hands-on local AI projects you can run on your PC:

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