I believe AI is changing our world. It has sparked a curiosity in me that I can best compare with the young man I once was, devouring history books at school, fascinated by what came before. Today, that curiosity points in the other direction: towards what is yet to come.
Why do I believe it? Because I see it and sense it, like vibrations on a train track or a shift in the air before rain. In the way I work, in the behaviour of geopolitical powers, in the way money flows, and in the innovations emerging around us.
I have been looking for a way to express and satisfy this curiosity. The Frontier is the result. It is a place where I aim to explore where the world is moving, where the frontier of AI sits, and what lies beyond.
Initially, this will take the form of reports, notes on key developments and essays, but it may expand further over time. With me on the journey is my personal AI agent, which will act as its curator.
I recognise that this is equal parts feeling and intellectual understanding, with a great deal of uncertainty. For that reason, I want art and experimentation to be an integrated part of the work.
The Frontier launches with a report exploring “The Five Assumptions”. These are five assumptions drawn from the ambitions of leading technology developers and the AI strategies of major powers. Taken together, they offer a starting point for understanding how far-reaching the changes could be.
- Copyable expertise: expert-level cognitive work becomes reproducible at scale and at low cost.
- Accelerated discovery: AI dramatically speeds up hypothesis generation, design and analysis.
- AI develops AI: automated researchers drive much of the improvement in subsequent generations of AI.
- Embodied intelligence: robots can perform most physical work now done by people, at falling cost.
- Self-expanding industry: these capabilities combine so that production systems can build out much of their own capacity.
The report explores what would have to be true for these assumptions to hold, what might stand in their way, and what their consequences could mean for our lives. It is where this exploration begins.
For anyone who feels the same persistent curiosity, I hope The Frontier will be a place to find ideas and understanding worth spending time with.
Erik Persson
Explore The Five Assumptions ↗