AI and the future of society

A few years ago,researchers at Harvard University did a study. The upshoot of that study camein the form of two breathtaking conclusions:

1.     Notechnological innovation has ever added to the sum of human happiness, and

2.     Almostevery technological advance was created to overcome the shortcomings of aprevious technological advance.

In other words, thetelephone can be seen as an attempt to make up for human separation throughtransport innovations. The smartphone and Facebook made up for our decreasingability to have face to face interaction. At each stage we lost a bit of ourempathy, our sense of commonality and our humanity.

But what if there wasa technology from which there was no escape through further technologicaladvance? That is the situation we will find ourselves in within five years.

Narrow AI—essentiallythe kind of AI that we have now—will enable us to achieve great things, as wellas create prodigious harm. Several researchers have said that we could, withthe present technology, eliminate 60% of all jobs.

Already we will bemore stupid because, as many studies have shown, using AI reduces our cognitiveability.

We will be more isolated because AI, social media and robots will takeover all the things that bring us out of our shells. People who are isolatedare more easily controlled, by AI in the longer term and by an autocraticstrongman in the near term.

As even the creatorsof AI tell us, within 5 years AI and robotics may well have made all humanwork, learning, art and science redundant.

We will have lost ourhumanity for the sake of productivity.

Not smart.

We are designed tolive in close proximity to each other, to be in the same band for our wholelives, to collaborate closely with people with whom we share commonality, tocreate our own rules, to have roles we can be proud of that bring us status inthe eyes of others and to have rituals which reinforce our commonality.

We are designed tohave relationships that allow us to get our social and defensive needs met.That’s how you define human relationships.

That is human.

All that, in fiveyears, may be lost.

The pride in having arole of value to the community will have gone, along with the jobs.

Relationships, trustand community are based on mutually agreed rules, or laws, roles and rituals. Therules will be laid down by industry titans who control AI and eventually due totheir foolishness in developing superintelligence, by AI itself.

Our roles as humans willbe usurped by AI, if the technology allows us to survive at all.

The rituals of the tribe, of the band, willbe gone.  The result: massive loneliness,separation and meaninglessness.

And for what? For thesake of “productivity” and the wealth of the few?

Is that really what wewant?

There is still time tocourse-correct.  Some governments arelooking at ways to regulate AI. For example, Australia and some Europeancountries are moving to enable children to escape the claws of avariciousactors’ algorithms. Schools are, in some areas returning to human-led teachingrather than sticking kids behind computers.

More importantly,people are turning against AI in the same way that the Luddites reacted to thetechnology which stole their jobs and reduced their wages in 1811 Britain. TheLuddites were not against technology per se, and neither are their modernequivalents. They wanted safety, they wanted protection from those who used thetechnology against them. Our impulses are no different but the control thatthose who wield AI will be so much greater.

Governments have toact. What jobs should be reserved for humans? What kind of guaranteed incomecan be offered? What breaks can we put on AI now? What tax can we put on thework of robots?

To borrow and misquoteAragorn’s speech to his troops in the final “Lord of the Rings” film rallying themin the face of the enemy’s overwhelming numbers,  “The day may come when humans give in to AIand the dark forces behind the technology. But, perhaps, it is not this day!”

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