You’d be forgiven for being utterly terrified. The Moore’s Law-ification of everyday life has made prominent the modernist anxieties of Baudelaire. During the Industrial Revolution, when man encountered the first machines (that were powered by steam/electricity) the anxiety and the terror and the fears of replacement and upheaval were rooted in something somewhat superficial. A physical irrelevance is something that many human beings have faced. Not being able to lift heavy things, have the physical capabilities to build things or do what other stronger humans can do, is a perfectly human sense of displacement. It happens with age, with injury, with disability. This is what the first machines represented, a replacement of human beings in a physical world.
This second wave of replacement anxiety, some 150 years later, is a replacement of human beings in the analytical, intellectual world, and also, shockingly, in the creation of art. The questions raised in this wave are far more complex, deeply shaking and weird than the industrial revolution. This Artificial Intelligence Revolution (trademark pending), is asking us much harder questions about how to value humans. If something can crunch numbers faster than us, analyze information faster and more accurately than us, create similarly to us, then who are we? Are we losing our grip at the top of the food chain? Have we created our own replacement? These kinds of oedipal questions are exceedingly thorny and are becoming more imminent by the day.
I think it’s almost impossible to not acknowledge that Large Language Models and their content based counterparts (Midjourney, Dall-E) are the single biggest innovation since the internet. It is the natural progression of the internet in fact. When I was a boy, and my father explained the internet to me while connecting our Windows 95 desktop to the dial up internet, I had nightmares of a gigantic wall of information that was impenetrable. Something about its infiniteness was terrifying to me. Endings felt natural. This did not.
But hear me again; who are we if we are not the smartest creatures on the planet? Let that sink in. The problem with this question is that it is completely oriented around a myopic, capitalist interpretation of human value. You are only as “good” as your value. You are only as valued as your intellectual ability. Is that true? Does that feel true? The system and flow of capital, and the organization of the world around this mode of living, has depleted humanity’s perception of itself. We have reduced ourselves, and ironically made ourselves more computer-like. We have robotized ourselves. How do we stop AI from deepening wealth inequality, devastating communities and stripping humans of their sense of purpose?
Alright, let’s game this shit out…
This will be the greatest opportunity for government to prove its worth as an essential component of life in human history.
This is the time for a group of brilliant people to write a new Magna Carta, a new raison d’être for the human species beyond contributions to a community via productivity. We began as hunters & gatherers, then became the agricultural inventors of the village. The villages grew, organized themselves into an order of socio-politics, and geo-political power, with competing value systems. We began to look at the stars, consider ourselves and think of ways to improve life, out of this came medicinal practices, the printing press, ways to codify and unify global best practices of how to live. Capitalism and the American century will mark the end of the Scientific Revolution and the beginning of a new one where we structure society around a different value system. The American ethos of productivity will eventually lead us to the famous cataclysm predicted by Karl Marx. We will have the means to produce everything humanity needs with the actual physical contributions of a very limited amount of humans.
We are within sight of the automation of all work. Government will be needed more than ever to guide us towards a new purpose. They can fulfill their fundamental duty as leaders of our civic communities.
Liberated from tedious tasks, our brains will develop to become MORE HUMAN. Our intellectual lives will grow stranger, more open, less analytical or straight forward. We will suddenly have all of the time in the world. With time will come doubt, and fear, and terror. As the world hurtles towards this existence, planning becomes impossible which leads to anxiety. Global happiness is in decline, suicides and drug overdoes are spiking everywhere because the order of the average human life is transforming. How are you meant to plot out your life and imagine happiness when your dream life may not exist in 5 years? You can see this in the dystopian ads for antidepressants or mindfulness apps. The pace of change is forcing us to reconsider how we consider ourselves and our futures.
But I am a professional optimist. The answer is not the American adapt or die mentality, the answer is to demand government oversight to provide a soft exit from one age and entrance to the next. Without work will come a loss of purpose, government must train its citizens about pleasure, about reading, about becoming human. Education will become less informational and more meanderingly philosophical or hedonist. Learning how to enjoy the planet will be the educational focus, as it always should have been. The transition to a world of post-work will take time, and humans will be the ones dictating the pace of change either with their dollars or their votes. But the change is happening.
Perhaps the biggest optimistic upside is that within one hundred years, we might be able to ask our Artifical Intelligent creations to teach us how to transcend our own intellects and become a more evolved species. We are living in science fiction, but we are alive on our planet, and our intellect is not even 10% of what makes us human.
And hey if this time next year AI has gone the way of Cryptocurrency, I’ll write a 1200 word apology.
Before you ask if I’m writing this on Mushrooms, a quick WGA Strike update:
This isn’t ending anytime soon, and now the tenor of DGA and SAG press releases are becoming more aggressive as if WGA is spreading strike fever.
The framing of this argument around AI and technology is what SHOULD be happening from all unions, instead of the quota, and demand for work guarantees that the WGA have also pushed. I remain fairly convinced that the practicalities of maintaining a strike are going to sink in soon. The social media gratification will eventually fade. Striking is currently like an Ice Bucket Challenge for writers, it will fade out. The DGA and SAG are psychologically and demographically much different organizations than the WGA, and will be more difficult to organize effectively. I’d expect any such strike to be relatively short-lived. We’re still months away from an elder statesman bringing everyone to the table. Book that July holiday.
What I ate…
Pop’s Bagels on Fairfax. Sorry California, you still have no idea how to make a fucking bagel. Mediocre and depressing.
LA is a taco town, and Taqueria estilo Tijuana is slinging absolutely delicious al pastor across the road from Bar Henry in Silverlake. Somebody will bring the bagel here. Somebody.
What I heard…
I’ve been on a Carole King kick, which I swore was old lady music, but it turns out its more like music for the coolest chicks of 1971 who happen to now be old ladies. Firm rec.
What I watched…
Bon voyage 76ers. I am no longer a fan of the organization and Joel Embiid should demand a trade tomorrow. Disgusting capitulation in the 3rd quarter, couldn’t make a bucket and completely broke mentally. How many times does Doc Rivers have immolate in the playoffs before people stop regarding him as a great coach?
See you next time.