Tell the poet that she's wrong

AI me this. Why do we want AI at all?

Human endeavor. Passion for small innocuous things. Human powered and human centric. Not anymore, evidently. I've recently asked myself - could this really just be a trend like any other, and where does this take us? And the following essay is just one of many responses I have to this.

So few of us ask ourselves the really profound questions. Or spend much proper time thinking about the answers. Life is often just so full of other stuff!

However, many at the moment are debating the inevitability of more financial polarization as a result of AI and how we perhaps build a "universal income" to support the erosion of earned income in the general populous.? These aren't easy debates to conclude, but they are great questions to ask ourselves.

In some cases, like solving cancer, this new wave of AI tech feels like a huge under-invested opportunity. And it is. Or in other cases where we can free huge amounts of human capital it all seems very reasonable. And in this regard examples of new value potential flow freely. At this point though, in a lot of cases, we look more likely to create very averaging outcomes with AI, that erode value in some cases, and in other cases don't better the human condition at all.?

So, as a strategist I'm also as interested in the next likely over hyped revolution that will inevitably turn into an evolution. So I can help plan for the best likely outcomes. And sometimes I need to look far into unlikely futures to work back to more likely ones.

And in that sense I see the next big step post AI is a complete rethink of what we value most.?

The potential for value erosion, a break down of distinction and a reduction in aspects of human-value will all likely mean that the non-valuable stuff will be the machine stuff. This will be the lowest order of commodity. We will therefore eventually premiumise humans again.

And I'm not talking about human in the loop or human in control, or even being more human because the AI creates those human to human moments. I am talking about how chic off grid, human and physically co-located interactions will likely become - the one thing we all look for and value.?

Even products with chipped and flawed edges, circular things that aren't mathematically circles, bits that fall off. This rustic, crafty, people made charm. It will arguably be increasingly valuable.?

At first this "human made" phenomenon will likely dominate the luxury sector (arguably already is), but eventually we will want it in everything. And it could solve true netzero where we undoubtedly need to consume less, consume things closer and consume things circular. The three ways we save humanity is really all about people coming together. A human ecosystem to save the planets ecosystem.

The real revolution of pushing out machine capability made of maths and neurons replicating humans could be to reject any machine input whenever we feasibly can.

Brands promising human based and human lead experiences will be the battle ground for differentiated value. We will seek out experimentation beyond mathematical certainty, failure, awkward silences that tell us more than words, real smiles, real tears, laughter in the face of pain and a world where the quirks and neurotic behaviors that really make up what it means to be human can't be replicated by a machine in the way we want. They just aren't human!

I do this common test still. A machine is driving, it can drive into a wall and kill you (the passenger), it can run over an old lady and kill them or it can hit a crowd of people with likely multiple fatalities. It calculates all this in a nano second and knows breaking won't work as it's already engaged this. What should happen??

The answers come in, but the conclusion is often the same in the end. The machine shouldn't really make that choice. How do we ensure that the "math" is not corrupted, the machines are already corrupting their outputs and statistics, and showing how minimal this is won't cut it. Could some people buy cars that would never harm them, always taking the other options? How would we validate the decision the machine took? What if it did commit a "crime" in the way it took that decision, who or what is accountable and in what way? How will judicial systems be allowed to keep pace with this? Does that use AI or will a human system always reside over these legal matters?

There's never going to be the same forgiveness for the machine in this example, and there's no ethical rationalisation, not to the mother, father, son, daughter, brother, sister or friend. We can accept human failure in this context after a long hard fought journey, but could we ever accept our loved one was at the sacrifice of a mathematical conclusion, that a machine got to choose their fait. And that we simply had to trust this. Not for most of us.

Put it another way, would you put your loved ones in a car that you knew was mathematically programmed to kill you all given the right conditions, or would you want to remain in control?

Of course the real answer is it will fly over the whole scene and avoid any calamity. But that's the point, that's a human response that would shape autonomous driving and transportation.

And here's the other thing, I like driving, and if I'd never done it I'd want to try. So in a world of machine autonomy does my own autonomy and choice become the precious commodity I seek the most?

I read poems, in fact I'm always reading and writing them. Most are rubbish if I'm honest. My own, and the others. However, there's always a snippet, a poem out of the blue or sentence that changes you. And it's immediately attached to a human in my mind or as I would see it, my heart. It makes it special, profound and relatable. Will machines replace this? We will try to get them to, we already are. And maybe that's a journey we need to take for lots of reasons.

Will we ultimately let this persist? For a bit. We seem desperate to outrun our flawed organic form. Our endless curiosity. The likelihood of failure. And the magic this brings.?

In the end though I'm not sure you can outrun yourself. Perhaps not without dying. And that's coming to us all anyway.

- Rory Yates

Footnote:

This essay is designed to provoke thought. It doesn't conclude AI is bad, or not needed, or even that it's necessarily dangerous. It does open up the debate about the humanity we want and how this picture will likely form over a longer period of time. And that, in the end, being human is all we've really got!