What Will Be the Next Big Thing After ChatGPT?
Three possible breakthroughs you possibly haven't heard of
Dear Medical Educator,
We may all wonder: what could come after ChatGPT?
AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) and ASI (Artificial Superintelligence) are the next logical steps. AGI could perform any economically valuable task that a human can, while ASI would surpass human intelligence entirely. The ethical, social, and technical challenges of AGI and ASI are huge.
However, many of us are not aware of the possible non-AI breakthroughs.
Here are three possible ones that might redefine the future of technology and humanity itself.
1. Holochain: The True Decentralized Internet
What is the Problem?
As technologies like AGI/ASI emerge, they will require access to vast amounts of personal data, such as a very close health monitoring of your body to provide personalized recommendations or even detect the first cells of cancer.
This raises a critical question: would you choose your health or your privacy? Giving all your data to a cloud is risky, as “cloud is someone else’s computer”. Without proper safeguards, your data could easily become accessible by wrong actors.
What is the Solution?
This is where Holochain comes in as a potential solution. Unlike traditional systems that rely on centralized vulnerable servers, Holochain is fully peer-to-peer, allowing users to connect directly and share data without intermediaries (centralized actors like servers). This means that users retain full ownership and control over their personal data.
Why It Can Be the Next Big Thing
By ensuring data is shared accountably, Holochain could address many of the ethical/privacy/security challenges posed by AGI/ASI, while also providing a more efficient, scalable, and energy-efficient approach to managing data. Blockchain aimed to provide a decentralized system, but often fell short due to issues with scalability and energy efficiency, which Holochain overcomes. This combination of data privacy, efficiency, and scalability is possible for the first time in the history of internet, and it positions Holochain as a potential game-changer.
2. ITER: Fusion Power
What is the Problem?
The world faces a critical energy challenge: how to meet growing demands without causing further harm to the environment. Traditional energy sources like fossil fuels produce harmful carbon emissions, and even nuclear fission comes with the problem of radioactive waste.
What is the Solution?
ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) aims to make nuclear fusion—a process that replicates the same reaction that powers the sun—a practical reality. Unlike other energy sources, fusion has the potential to generate vast amounts of clean energy without harmful waste or emissions.
Why It Can Be the Next Big Thing
If successful, ITER could provide a nearly infinite supply of clean energy, making energy both abundant and affordable. This breakthrough would address one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century, changing the way we power our homes, industries, and technology.
3. The Amplituhedron: Rethinking Reality Itself
This is what I am excited about most, even more than AGI/ASI.
Intelligence is a lower-hanging fruit but what even more exciting is the prospect of hacking consciousness itself. Essentially, the amplituhedron is a geometric object outside the space and time that simplifies complex calculations about particle interactions. It could provide insights into the fabric of space and time, and help us find new, simpler ways to describe our 4D universe. It could also open doors to predict and guide the interactions of conscious agents like us. If successful, it could lead to breakthroughs in fields we haven’t even imagined.
Each of these could reshape society, just as the rise of AI and tools like ChatGPT are doing. Let’s see when they will happen (or not happen).
What a time to be alive!
Yavuz Selim Kıyak, MD, PhD (aka MedEdFlamingo)
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Related #MedEd reading:
Kıyak, Y. S., & Emekli, E. (2024). ChatGPT prompts for generating multiple-choice questions in medical education and evidence on their validity: a literature review. Postgraduate medical journal, qgae065. https://academic.oup.com/pmj/advance-article/doi/10.1093/postmj/qgae065/7688383
Kıyak, Y. S. (2024). Beginner-Level Tips for Medical Educators: Guidance on Selection, Prompt Engineering, and the Use of Artificial Intelligence Chatbots. Medical Science Educator, 1-6. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40670-024-02146-1
Kıyak, Y. S., & Kononowicz, A. A. (2024). Case-based MCQ generator: A custom ChatGPT based on published prompts in the literature for automatic item generation. Medical Teacher, 1-3. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0142159X.2024.2314723