Author Sidney Sheldon once wrote, “A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it is to be God.”
If blank pieces of paper go the way of the dodo in a world of continuous, artificial intelligence, industry, progress, how will human beings make their mark?
Thank you. A beautiful piece. One that balances emotion and rationality. I feel the way I feel that (apocryphal?) music ensemble did playing their final piece on the Titanic. What else could we do but that we believe is our best expression in face of that we can't control, nor even really understand? I'm "pro-AI" and all the things it enables, even as I know it could (will?) wipe us all away, potentially not even surviving as historical footnotes, and sooner than we think. Technology is the only thing that affords us the chance to meaningfully change our circumstance. Also dogs are the best; we'll suck as pets, failing even that.
Hay algo mucho más poderoso que la tecnología que nos permitiría de verdad cambiar nuestras circunstancias.
Se trata de la utilización social de la capacidad de reflexión que nos concede la inteligencia a los humanos. Una reflexión colectiva inteligente para cambiar las cosas que nos oprimen y que hacen que nuestra vida, demasiadas veces, parezca no merecer la pena.
Somos seres doblemente disociados, de la naturaleza a la que pertenecemos y de nuestra condición social. El motivo no es otro que el egoísmo desaforado de unas élites que solo disfrutan con el poder y el dinero. Y que desprecian a la humanidad y todo lo demás que no sea ellas mismas.
Es el individualismo despiadado que nos aísla como personas y que nos conduce a relacionarnos socialmente como si fuera un combate a muerte. Y es el instinto de depredación de todo cuanto hay a nuestro alrededor hasta el punto de poner en riesgo nuestra propia existencia.
Desde hace siglos la hegemonía de esas élites que gobiernan el mundo se basa en nuestra dejadez para pensar y en nuestra pereza para actuar. Y siempre la 'solución' tecnológica ha sido es y será un espejismo. Solo hay una solución y es la solución humanista.
Thank you for taking the time to comment on my post, Javier. I agree that the only real opportunity to transcend is a different way of thinking, of being, societally. It is because we don't have those institutions, those practices, the consciousness as it were, that I fear for the worst. The motivations and necessities of surviving, and our behaviors and practices of isolationism and polarization, the unwillingness to entertain or encourage different beings and opinions thoughtfully, with reflection and patience and integrity. I know I'm naive in thinking technology might solve problems we create. I guess it's intentional, hoping that if technology eliminated some of the needs for survival and pushed us higher up Maszlow's hierarchy of needs, we'd find a better way to be.
Fear alone produces nothing. Simply denying the future because it frightens us won't help. Now that a world where humans are no longer the central protagonists seems inevitable, it's more constructive to think about how we can collaborate with AI.
Humanity has faced similar paradigm shifts before—like the fall of geocentrism—where our self-centered view of the universe was overturned by science. Each time, we ultimately rose to new heights. I believe this time will be no different.
Thank you for writing this. It confuses me, too: "Why—especially among those who know what’s coming—is there so little hesitation, so little dread? A destiny so unsettling it invites denial as much as death itself—yet they embrace it with pleasure and willingly push us all toward it." It unsettles me, and it makes me distrust the embracers even more. Being a pet would be much more tolerable if art were left to us.
Were I not a Christian, I would be gripped with despair. AI, on our current path, promises to end the world and disempower humans in the meantime. But for Christians, the end of the world is--though frightening--a good thing. And for Christians, humans "main character" status never came from our *power*. It is because God--infinitely more powerful--made us in His image and wants a relationship with us.
I have to keep this truth before my eyes to ward off misery. When I'm not doing so consciously, when I slip into a secular, dispassionate, forecasting frame of mind--as I do for my job studying the effects of AI--things seem grim indeed, and twitter's cackling e/acc cheerleaders made it all the more alienating.
Looking at the work of Luke Drago is how I envison this but I plan on writing more very soon. I generally thought my analogies are fairly pedestrian but after some conversations, it seems I have something to offer.
I will go with the ecological example, though. How would an anaerobic bacteria survive when the atmosphere is turning into poison?
That's an interesting answer actually. Hadn't considered that despite knowing the stories about ketamine or psychedelics (in case you're not joking, which is another possibility lol)
I am not joking. I do have a more substantive answer but yes, a large part is disassociation with the species. As writers and artists, we are particularly associated with romantic notiona.
Drugs, especially stimulant types, suppress empathy. This disruption further favors self-interested or even sadistic models toward others.
Thank you for your piece. I share the same feeling. I took part in a seminar on AI at a religious university with a solid intellectual reputation, and I perceived reactionary and defensive stances, supported by arguments that felt somewhat childish and outdated—but above all, rather naïve, with that wishful undertone of hope and supplication you point out.
The progress of AI might reveal that we are, in fact, mere biological mechanisms capable of reproducing emergent stochastic behaviors that have proven adaptive, and which have been wrapped in simulacra like the self, consciousness, or the feeling of agency and freedom. And that frightens us more than the idea of losing our jobs—because it unravels our identity, our most basic intuitions.
In case it’s of interest to anyone, in this article in Spanish (language barriers are barely relevant in the age of AI), I developed a detailed critique of the weaker arguments we often rely on from that reactionary perspective, advocating for elevating the discourse and the reasoning. It speaks well of the university that they agreed to publish it: https://revistas.comillas.edu/index.php/razonyfe/article/view/21442/19145
It does feel as though humans undying faith is one of our defining traits. The hope that pulls us forward even into uncertain futures, keeps us living and surviving even when we don't understand what our path holds for us. However, that sense of hope and resiliency wasn't forged in an environment with such dramatic shifts that could profoundly change our way of life as a regular occurrence. This is new. Humans haven't had to face this type of challenge before. We are quite frankly, underprepared to defend our humanity. I may just be tapping into that innate hope within me, but I do believe there's a chance that humanity takes ownership its of our shared future. I'm willing to work for that.
How about this sentence: "AI will never ... get three from the sum of one plus one"? This conversation assumes that intelligence is a single infinite uniform medium, like speed or mass or energy. There aren't many things like that. My experience -- reinforced every time I attend a dinner party -- is that there are many different kinds of intelligence, some of which conflict with each other and some of which are inherently limited. AI is very good at what it is good at but I for one do not expect it to come close to improving on all human issues and interactions. I expect its limitations will become clearer by the end of the decade. I understand not everyone thinks about intelligence the same way. We will see.
I have no answer, but I have a response, and that is that I've been needing to stop internalizing certain failures. In therapy, I discovered a connection between internalizing failures, and am identification with my successes that I thought was in the past.
My grades. I'm talking about grades. I got great grades that I barely studied for.
Now, in my agéd wisdom, I know that the grades were not meaningful measurements of merit. In trying to debug the internalizations of failures that were causing me pain, I fantasized about a school in which being at the ass end of the bell curves of performance were seen not as a measure of merit, but a measure of unusualness. And I'm this school the ultra-weirdos would be put together and learn from one another. The kids with reading comprehensions would be together with the kids who could not seem to grasp addition. We would learn about our strangenesses together. Not all the mutants have cool powers you know, some just get transparent skin or telepathic links to tomato plants.
Can you think outside "better than" and reach "uniquely so"?
I mean, maybe I’m missing something, but let me know when AI creates something actually original. The biggest success story so far has literally involved ripping off the house style of a beloved animation studio.
Take comfort in live moments, in theater, music, community - those spaces where humanity doesn’t necessarily need a machine.
Author Sidney Sheldon once wrote, “A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it is to be God.”
If blank pieces of paper go the way of the dodo in a world of continuous, artificial intelligence, industry, progress, how will human beings make their mark?
My thoughts: https://www.whitenoise.email/p/remembrance-of-tasks-past
Thank you. A beautiful piece. One that balances emotion and rationality. I feel the way I feel that (apocryphal?) music ensemble did playing their final piece on the Titanic. What else could we do but that we believe is our best expression in face of that we can't control, nor even really understand? I'm "pro-AI" and all the things it enables, even as I know it could (will?) wipe us all away, potentially not even surviving as historical footnotes, and sooner than we think. Technology is the only thing that affords us the chance to meaningfully change our circumstance. Also dogs are the best; we'll suck as pets, failing even that.
Hay algo mucho más poderoso que la tecnología que nos permitiría de verdad cambiar nuestras circunstancias.
Se trata de la utilización social de la capacidad de reflexión que nos concede la inteligencia a los humanos. Una reflexión colectiva inteligente para cambiar las cosas que nos oprimen y que hacen que nuestra vida, demasiadas veces, parezca no merecer la pena.
Somos seres doblemente disociados, de la naturaleza a la que pertenecemos y de nuestra condición social. El motivo no es otro que el egoísmo desaforado de unas élites que solo disfrutan con el poder y el dinero. Y que desprecian a la humanidad y todo lo demás que no sea ellas mismas.
Es el individualismo despiadado que nos aísla como personas y que nos conduce a relacionarnos socialmente como si fuera un combate a muerte. Y es el instinto de depredación de todo cuanto hay a nuestro alrededor hasta el punto de poner en riesgo nuestra propia existencia.
Desde hace siglos la hegemonía de esas élites que gobiernan el mundo se basa en nuestra dejadez para pensar y en nuestra pereza para actuar. Y siempre la 'solución' tecnológica ha sido es y será un espejismo. Solo hay una solución y es la solución humanista.
Thank you for taking the time to comment on my post, Javier. I agree that the only real opportunity to transcend is a different way of thinking, of being, societally. It is because we don't have those institutions, those practices, the consciousness as it were, that I fear for the worst. The motivations and necessities of surviving, and our behaviors and practices of isolationism and polarization, the unwillingness to entertain or encourage different beings and opinions thoughtfully, with reflection and patience and integrity. I know I'm naive in thinking technology might solve problems we create. I guess it's intentional, hoping that if technology eliminated some of the needs for survival and pushed us higher up Maszlow's hierarchy of needs, we'd find a better way to be.
Agreed. So well said!
Fear alone produces nothing. Simply denying the future because it frightens us won't help. Now that a world where humans are no longer the central protagonists seems inevitable, it's more constructive to think about how we can collaborate with AI.
Humanity has faced similar paradigm shifts before—like the fall of geocentrism—where our self-centered view of the universe was overturned by science. Each time, we ultimately rose to new heights. I believe this time will be no different.
Hope you're right
Thank you for writing this. Agree wholeheartedly with Edward Norton.
Music and arts are so important to our spirit and humanity. We can choose to support artists who are human and stay away from AI stuff.
Personally, I only pay attention to AI and how it relates in the business world. I don't see any value in it in my personal life.
Thank you for writing this. It confuses me, too: "Why—especially among those who know what’s coming—is there so little hesitation, so little dread? A destiny so unsettling it invites denial as much as death itself—yet they embrace it with pleasure and willingly push us all toward it." It unsettles me, and it makes me distrust the embracers even more. Being a pet would be much more tolerable if art were left to us.
Were I not a Christian, I would be gripped with despair. AI, on our current path, promises to end the world and disempower humans in the meantime. But for Christians, the end of the world is--though frightening--a good thing. And for Christians, humans "main character" status never came from our *power*. It is because God--infinitely more powerful--made us in His image and wants a relationship with us.
I have to keep this truth before my eyes to ward off misery. When I'm not doing so consciously, when I slip into a secular, dispassionate, forecasting frame of mind--as I do for my job studying the effects of AI--things seem grim indeed, and twitter's cackling e/acc cheerleaders made it all the more alienating.
Inspiring. But also a Christian I think we need to be less passive against what is genuine anti-humanity.
We can be a bulwalk of hope, and a future for us made in His image.
I wholly agree! I'm curious how you visualise this. I am still batting around too many ideas.
Looking at the work of Luke Drago is how I envison this but I plan on writing more very soon. I generally thought my analogies are fairly pedestrian but after some conversations, it seems I have something to offer.
I will go with the ecological example, though. How would an anaerobic bacteria survive when the atmosphere is turning into poison?
As a former pro-AI person, the answer is drugs.
That's an interesting answer actually. Hadn't considered that despite knowing the stories about ketamine or psychedelics (in case you're not joking, which is another possibility lol)
I am not joking. I do have a more substantive answer but yes, a large part is disassociation with the species. As writers and artists, we are particularly associated with romantic notiona.
Drugs, especially stimulant types, suppress empathy. This disruption further favors self-interested or even sadistic models toward others.
Scary that they are the ones in charge of these efforts then...
Yes, lunatics in charge. Now the question is - knowing this, what can we do about it to have a future? Human meaning and dignity is essential to life.
I am working in this. Will connect soon, my friend.
Thank you for your piece. I share the same feeling. I took part in a seminar on AI at a religious university with a solid intellectual reputation, and I perceived reactionary and defensive stances, supported by arguments that felt somewhat childish and outdated—but above all, rather naïve, with that wishful undertone of hope and supplication you point out.
The progress of AI might reveal that we are, in fact, mere biological mechanisms capable of reproducing emergent stochastic behaviors that have proven adaptive, and which have been wrapped in simulacra like the self, consciousness, or the feeling of agency and freedom. And that frightens us more than the idea of losing our jobs—because it unravels our identity, our most basic intuitions.
In case it’s of interest to anyone, in this article in Spanish (language barriers are barely relevant in the age of AI), I developed a detailed critique of the weaker arguments we often rely on from that reactionary perspective, advocating for elevating the discourse and the reasoning. It speaks well of the university that they agreed to publish it: https://revistas.comillas.edu/index.php/razonyfe/article/view/21442/19145
And in this post, I extracted my wager: that we make our fragility, our vulnerability—our very wretchedness—our stronghold against AI: https://newsletter.ingenierodeletras.com/p/saberse-miserable
Thank you, as always, for your reflections. It would be a pleasure to meet you.
Gracias por el comentario detallado Javier! Tenemos la misma sensación, estoy de acuerdo (por cierto, de dónde eres?)
De Madrid, como tú, creo. Buen día!
near-future AI will truly complete the Copernican revolution.
Agree. And this is why I subscribe. No one else I've seen is writing pieces like this.
It does feel as though humans undying faith is one of our defining traits. The hope that pulls us forward even into uncertain futures, keeps us living and surviving even when we don't understand what our path holds for us. However, that sense of hope and resiliency wasn't forged in an environment with such dramatic shifts that could profoundly change our way of life as a regular occurrence. This is new. Humans haven't had to face this type of challenge before. We are quite frankly, underprepared to defend our humanity. I may just be tapping into that innate hope within me, but I do believe there's a chance that humanity takes ownership its of our shared future. I'm willing to work for that.
Prioritizing short term monetary and selfish interests over a longer term impending doom for humanity explains the conundrum.
These are my thoughts exactly
Thanks for putting it out with so much clarity
How about this sentence: "AI will never ... get three from the sum of one plus one"? This conversation assumes that intelligence is a single infinite uniform medium, like speed or mass or energy. There aren't many things like that. My experience -- reinforced every time I attend a dinner party -- is that there are many different kinds of intelligence, some of which conflict with each other and some of which are inherently limited. AI is very good at what it is good at but I for one do not expect it to come close to improving on all human issues and interactions. I expect its limitations will become clearer by the end of the decade. I understand not everyone thinks about intelligence the same way. We will see.
I have no answer, but I have a response, and that is that I've been needing to stop internalizing certain failures. In therapy, I discovered a connection between internalizing failures, and am identification with my successes that I thought was in the past.
My grades. I'm talking about grades. I got great grades that I barely studied for.
Now, in my agéd wisdom, I know that the grades were not meaningful measurements of merit. In trying to debug the internalizations of failures that were causing me pain, I fantasized about a school in which being at the ass end of the bell curves of performance were seen not as a measure of merit, but a measure of unusualness. And I'm this school the ultra-weirdos would be put together and learn from one another. The kids with reading comprehensions would be together with the kids who could not seem to grasp addition. We would learn about our strangenesses together. Not all the mutants have cool powers you know, some just get transparent skin or telepathic links to tomato plants.
Can you think outside "better than" and reach "uniquely so"?
I mean, maybe I’m missing something, but let me know when AI creates something actually original. The biggest success story so far has literally involved ripping off the house style of a beloved animation studio.