On AI

As a data professional, the AI revolution is very scary. I’m relatively new to the job market, but most of my skills are concentrated in one area: the creation of business value through structured interpretation of real world signals (i.e., data). I don’t believe I have a huge edge; given enough system access and a sufficient token budget, any system like Claude Code or OpenAI Codex could, in principle, take a database, understand its data, and create something that adds value to the company: a dashboard, a model, a structured workflow… namely, do my job.

I don’t have a precise answer to this potentially life-changing moment. I’ll try to reasonably upskill and stay ahead of the curve, but there is a limit to what I can do; I refuse to become a rat hunkered down in my room trying to simultaneously beat Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI. A certain degree of acceptance, or equanimity, is needed for psychological survival.

However, there’s one thing I feel more confident about, and that is morality. An AI system, apart from general helpfulness and wholesomeness (which, let’s be honest, are appreciable traits) does not have any built-in incentives to be pro or against democracy and freedom. The software companies programming it, instead, do have powerful incentives, and given the techno-corporate-fascism the US are heading towards (where most of these companies are based) I can envision a future where AI is tweaked towards supporting harmful policy goals.

I’ll try to play my part, and build AI and data systems to support pro-democratic and free movements around the world (the mission of this whole project). I do believe in an innate responsibility that we have, as human beings, of making our values a reality in the world through our patience and constant action (twhat Timothy Snyder defines as freedom) and I will try to abide by that principle.

Maybe I’m not doing enough. In the end, I also have a cushy corporate job in a gaming company owned by Saudi Arabia’s PIF. But I’m a human being, not a martyr. Convincing more people to join worthwhile causes also entails showing them that they don’t need to end up in jail, or give away all material possessions.

Let’s start this journey, then. May I be blessed with enough inner light and fortitude to carry out my human duties.