Who wins in the competition of AI vs. Human?

Yesterday, I had an interesting call with a prospective customer. He was skeptical at the start, but when I demonstrated what AI is capable of - he changed his mind: “While I don’t think a lawyer will lose to AI any time soon, I will probably lose to another lawyer, armed with AI”.

I got him on board, but the question remains: who will win in the competition of AI vs. Human?

Let’s review a notable fact: ChatGPT-4.0 passed the universal bar examination in the 90th percentile (ABA Journal, March 16, 2023). Most of us know well - the bar exam is not a quiz. You can’t just google a correct answer. To score, you need to discern the case in question into legal concepts and then cross-check those concepts against the law to determine the best answer. You have to reason through it.

ChatGPT nailed it - better than 90% of human test-takers.

For humans, it takes a lifetime to excel in a profession. “7 years of law studies”, “10-14 years to become a licensed doctor”, “10+ years for a PhD in Physics” - it takes time to become an expert. This time is required to upload the knowledge into our brains and then practice this knowledge for years to truly absorb it, get familiar with the edge cases, develop mechanical memory, and ultimately, a deep intuition in the subject matter.

Computer systems are free of the limitations of the biological knowledge absorption bandwidth. Average person reads 700 books per lifetime (source - although I think it’s grossly overestimated! ;-)). It takes seconds to download the content of these books and a few more seconds - to index those books into a searchable database.

And here we go - a human needs to compete with a system that has access to all printed knowledge - law, physics, medicine, chemistry, psychology,... Not only does it has access to all the wisdom created over our lifetime and can reason within one specific domain. AI can reason across domains and create insights at the intersection of law and physics; vascular diseases and chemistry; music and psychology - and many other ridiculous combinations of domains we have not even thought about.

So what do you think - Who wins in the competition of AI vs. Human?