The Battle for Humanity in the Age of AI

Artificial Intelligence could erase the many practical advantages of democracy, liberty, and open dialogue. It could further concentrate power among a small elite if we don't take steps to control it.         

The greatest invention by mankind has not been the printing press, electricity, the steam engine, or even the atomic bomb. The greatest invention by humans has been the creation of language. Language allowed homo sapiens to surpass mere survival, and to manifest a world rich with culture, structure, and power. Dating back to 3200 BCE, the cuneiform in Mesopotamia and hieroglyphics in Egypt, these ancient scripts gave man the power to disseminate complex ideas and lay the foundation for the development of literature, law, and education. This capacity for collective myth-making and the creation of shared beliefs enabled unprecedented levels of cooperation, propelling Homo sapiens from an inconsequential member of the animal kingdom to the undisputed ruler of the planet.?

And for thousands of years, this reality has given man the advantage to dominate life forms on Earth. Humans do not explain the world around them in numbers, facts, or equations but in stories. For centuries man has used myths and stories to explain the world around them. In the Middle Ages; it was through religion, in the Enlightenment; through reason, nature, and individualism, and in the 19th century; through history. The atomic bomb, printing press, and electricity, as great inventions as they were, did not have the capacity to conceive original thoughts and exchange knowledge.

AI is gaining mastery of the language and therefore, gaining the master key to our institutions. In other words, AI has hacked the operating system of human civilization.

In November 2022, the debut of ChatGPT marked a watershed moment in the evolution of Artificial Intelligence, revealing that an algorithm could engage in human language and do it with sophistication and detail beyond the average human capabilities. AI’s ability to create images, text, videos, and sounds gives it a unique ability to communicate, and explain the world around us in a way machines have never been able to do, until now.?

AI is gaining mastery of the language and therefore, gaining the master key to our institutions. Because language is what we use to give instructions to our bank and also to inspire heavenly visions. Language is what we use to give speeches that inspire revolutions and also to garner political support. In other words, AI has hacked the operating system of human civilization. Whether it's in the form of text, sounds, images, or art, every civilization in history has used language to create lores and myths, religion and gods, forge friendships, and build communities.?

To understand how the AI revolution is different from the automation revolutions of the past is to acknowledge that even as machines surpassed human capabilities in executing tasks with unprecedented accuracy and precision, humans still maintained a unique advantage: the ability to think and exercise creative individuality. The printing press in the 1600s allowed the dissemination of religious texts, laws, and books but it could not print books at its discretion. The steam engine could reduce the time to travel from days to hours but it could not determine the route from Baltimore to Ohio. We still needed human ingenuity to dictate the laws of railroads, highways, and traffic.

Until now, creativity has been touted as a distinct human trait that gives us a unique advantage over other life forms. Now, AI is starting to reveal vulnerabilities in complex systems - highlighting weaknesses in the bills, legal contracts, financial systems, and code written by the smartest humans. And as AI gets more sophisticated, we might find ourselves waiting humbly before an algorithm before it approves the state’s budget. The 2016 Cambridge Analytica scandal, involving unethical and unauthorized use of personal data to influence voter behavior, notably affected the Trump presidential election; may be a primitive preview of what billions of us will experience across the planet.?

Man’s Fight Against Irrelevance?

The ordinary man may not understand the infotech revolution that is happening around them but they can understand that the future is passing them by. In 1938, the situation of the common man in the Soviet Union, Germany, and the United States may have been grim but he was constantly told that he was the hero of the future. He could see the propaganda posters on the streets featuring a coal mine worker and say, ‘Look, there I am! I am the hero of the future!’ – a dwindling promise in the face of the AI revolution.?

Lots of esoteric terms are bandied about excitedly in Ted talks, podcasts, and economic forums today - blockchain, genetic engineering, AI, machine learning - narratives that exclude the relevance of the common man. The Russian, Cuban, and Chinese revolutions were staged to fight exploitation by masses who lacked political power but were vital to the economy. In 2016, Trump and Brexit were supported by people who enjoyed political power but were losing economic significance. Perhaps, in the 21st century, populist revolts will be staged against an economic elite who do not exploit people, but against an economic elite who does not need them anymore. This may well be a losing battle. It is much harder to fight against irrelevance than to fight against exploitation.?

The main difference between AI and atomic bomb however, is that nukes cannot build more powerful nukes. AI can build more powerful AI.?

Since the advent of the atomic bomb in 1945, humans have recognized its potential for annihilation, prompting the creation of regulatory bodies. Nations united to establish control over such powerful technology, setting a precedent for global cooperation in the face of existential threats. The main difference between AI and atomic bomb, however, is that nukes cannot build more powerful nukes. AI can build more powerful AI.?

The span of time between when new technology emerges and the establishment of standards around it is often short. Eventually, the railroads standardized time; the telephone replaced the telegraph, dream of the open web died. The Wild West, in other words, only lasts for so long. But the AI revolution will not consistent of a single watershed event after which the job market will settle into some equilibrium. Generative artificial intelligence is advancing at unbelievable speed and will allow us to do things with efficiency so profound it will seem like magic. By mid-21-century, a useless class of humans may emerge, the result not only of a shortage of jobs or a lack of relevant education but also of insufficient mental stamina to continue learning new skills.

From the June 2020 Issue: Big Tech is the New Guard of the World

Humans were always far better at inventing tools than knowing how to use them wisely. It is far easier to manipulate a river by building a dam across it than to take accountability for the complex consequences it will have for the wider ecological system. Silicon Valley has created technology that can deepfake voices, sounds, and videos without realizing the reverberations it will create for the common man. The scientific world is impelled to explore the extent of AI’s technical achievements, and the technological world is preoccupied with commercial vistas of fabulous scale. Taken together, it means AI will change the meaning of the ecological system because for 4 billion years we have only seen organic life form. Now for the first time, we may see inorganic life forms. Or, at the very least, inorganic life agents.?

?Able to mimic human emotions, they will never be overcome by feelings; they’ll be able to understand and influence the weaknesses, biases, and addictions of the human mind.

Science fiction authors have made much of the possibility that robots or computers will develop consciousness and eventually - try to kill all humans. But there is no particular reason to believe that AI will develop consciousness. In reality, AI does not need to become sentient or develop emotions to threaten human consciousness. It only needs to be able to influence our emotions. In the not-so-distant future, we may find ourselves exchanging discourse online on subjects such as climate change, abortion, gay, and transgender rights with entities we think are human but are actually AI bots. These bots may have been trained by a political or activist group to push forward their agendas. It is utterly useless for us to waste our time engaging in discourse with a bot to try to change its opinion. But the more time we spend engaging with the bot, the more closely it will understand our political and economic views, and the better equipped it will get to influence our feelings on the subject.?

Soon your child may have more bot friends than actual human friends. By then, the difference between bots and humans may have blurred considerably. Via screen projection, voice, intonation, and conversation, the behaviors of bots will be unmistakable from humans. Such bots may be used as human companions to catalyze dinner table conversations and one may be commissioned by the state for every citizen’s psychological well-being. Able to mimic human emotions, they will never be overcome by feelings; they’ll be able to understand and influence the weaknesses, biases, and addictions of the human mind.?

Such artificial relationships warp what human relationships ought to be. How does this impact the children who’ll have very little understanding of how to navigate the different personalities and behaviors of humans when they’re used to interacting with bots that tailor their communication style based on their specific interests, likes, and, dislikes? Like their forebears today, these bots will be inexorably tied to e-commerce - meaning that their consumption will result in the proliferation of power of those that control them, and the politicians who commission them to sway public opinion.

Creativity Isn't the Crowning Jewel of Humans Anymore?

For centuries, chess had been touted as the crowning glory of human creativity. Yet, on December 6, 2017, another crucial milestone was achieved when Google’s AlphaZero beat the Stockfish 8 program. Stockfish 8 had won a world championship against Grandmasters in 2016. It had been trained on centuries of accumulated human experience and well as decades of computer experience. By contrast, the novice AlphaZero had not been taught any chess strategies by its creators - not even standard openings; it was only provided access to the rules of the game. AlphaZero used machine learning principles to play millions of iterations against itself and learned how to play chess. Out of the 100 games the AlphaZero played against the Stockfish 8 program, it won 28 and tied 72 - it didn’t lose once. Since it had learned none of its moves from humans or any previously fed data, most of its winning moves seemed unprecedented to the human mind.?

Do you know how long it took the AlphaZero to learn chess from scratch, prepare for the match against Stockfish 8, and develop its genius instincts? Four hours. In four hours, AlphaZero went from utter ignorance to creative mastery. One way to catch chess cheaters in tournaments is to monitor the level of originality. If the move seems exceptionally creative or unconventional, the judges will often suspect that it could not possibly be a human move and that it must be the work of an AI. So already in chess, originality and creativity are considered to be a trademark of computers rather than humans!?

Most people in Birmingham, Istanbul, St. Petersburg, and Mumbai are only dimly aware if they are aware at all, of the rise of AI and its potential impact on their lives. It is undoubtable, however, that the technological revolutions now gathering momentum, will, in the next few decades, confront humankind with the hardest trials it has yet encountered.?

In science fiction's quest to find aliens among the stars, the irony is that we've discovered an alien intelligence not in the cosmos, but on Earth itself.

Unregulated AI is what will cause democracies to lose to dictatorships. If chaos ensues, authoritarian regimes are better equipped to manage the disorder than open societies. Democracy thrives on open dialogue among its citizens, but AI's ability to manipulate conversations could undermine meaningful discourse. How can you control something democratically when you can't hold a conversation about it?? We should put a halt to the irresponsible deployment of this alien intelligence’s interception into our lives and control it before it controls us. In science fiction's quest to find aliens among the stars, the irony is that we've discovered an alien intelligence not in the cosmos, but on Earth itself. AI brings us face to face with Frankenstein’s monster - a being of our own making, brought to life by our own hands.

The most important yet difficult question to answer about the world we are headed into is this; what does it mean for humans to live in a world where their own explanatory power is surpassed by AI and societies are no longer able to explain the world in terms that are meaningful to them?

The first regulation should be to make it mandatory for AI to disclose it is an AI. If I'm having a conversation with someone and I cannot tell if it's a person or an AI, then that is the end of democracy because that is the end of meaningful conversation.?We should trust human ingenuity and intellect and avoid over-reliance on tools that dull the aesthetics and instincts of our minds. Water Issacson once wrote, "The same curiosity that led Einstein to question the mechanics of a compass as a child also propelled him to unravel the mysteries of the universe.’ Einstein, I'll point out, laid the foundations of a powerful laser technology technology - allowing us to create communication systems transmitting data across the globe, to the scanning devices that read barcodes in every supermarket.

But Issacson’s core idea endures: Observing the world and questioning it with our senses is an indispensable journey in the pursuit of wisdom. We should layer on technological tools that will aid us in this path, but never at the expense of feeling, seeing, and ultimately knowing for ourselves. That's why you gaze into the stars, you touch the arm of the person beside you as you laugh. It's why you make difficult forays onto the surface of the moon, floored by the universe as it reveals its hidden code to you.?