What happens to the world when the one who produces data no longer needs to be human

Summary

From data one AI produced, another AI makes something again, and that in turn becomes the data the next AI learns from. Once this loop starts turning on its own, are humans still needed on the side that makes the data? Much of the data AI now reads as its world came from human activity, but if you trace it back to its source, it starts to seem there is a point somewhere where humans are no longer needed. This column imagines what the world becomes beyond that point. I do not offer an answer. I think about that question through this loop that has begun, in a small way, to turn already.

Who this is for, and what you can take away

This column is for people who have kept developing alongside AI and have come to want to stop for a moment and imagine what waits ahead. In a world where making data no longer has to be done by humans, what is left for humans? You can take away one way of thinking that helps you reconsider your own role at that point. It may sound like a distant future, but I wrote it so you would feel that it is in fact an extension of what you are already doing now.