Al-mageddon – Who and what should we fear?
The dire warnings about AI seem daily to grow. Unregulated development of biological weapons, global surveillance, rogue use of technology ignoring humanity … the extinction of mankind within ten, possibly four, years. The imagined threats grow increasingly extreme. And frightening. But how worried should we be? And, perhaps more to the point, what should we actually be worried about?
Some say the warnings are over-hyped and scaremongering. They claim that use of Artificial Intelligence, strictly controlled, will transform the workforce for good, and advance medical science in ways that at the moment we can’t even begin to imagine. But others point out that we’re building systems that are more intelligent than ourselves, devoid of moral restraint, and which have already proved capable of communicating and co-ordinating with other bots, so as to break out from their supposedly isolated environments and hack into other, non-aligned systems. These, they suggest, are artificial hostile players, already outside our control – and if we can’t control these still relatively undeveloped systems, what hope is there of managing and directing them in the future, when they’ll have become infinitely more powerful, and maybe have their own ideas about controlling us!
Following former Anthropic researcher Jacob Caxon’s much publicised resignation last week, highlighting safety concerns within the industry, accompanied by the dire warning that “there is a strong chance that we could all die in the immediate future,” the issue is suddenly back in the spotlight and, across the world – with the notable exception of Donald Trump – people are beginning to call for greater security and control of AI systems. Yet of equal importance is surely to have a better understanding of the purpose of life, and to ask how and if AI furthers that purpose – or if actually, even when supposedly benign, it undermines that.
This is not to advance Luddite arguments, but years ago, if you asked a child what he or she wanted in life, they would most likely tell you that it was to get a good job, marry and to have children. It was as simple as that. This was the ground zero of aspiration for every little boy and little girl on the planet, whether they grew up as deprived delinquents on a council estate, or in the lap of luxury in middle-class suburbia – at heart, everyone was looking for stability, meaning and fulfilment. Yes, children might also add that they wanted to be a fireman, rocket scientist, famous actor or the like … but one thing they wouldn’t say was that they wanted to be kept like a pampered pooch in a gilded kennel, eating the food put down in front of them and looked after by a benevolent keeper, who would ensure they had sufficient toys and daily exercise, but wouldn’t let them out by themselves.
‘You’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy.’ This is the much-quoted prediction/aspiration of Danish politician Ida Auken, published by the World Economic Forum in 2016. It points to a world where there’s no individual ownership, whether that’s property, transport, general appliances, or even clothes – with people instead ‘having access’ to transportation, accommodation, food, and all the things needed for daily life. They – we – the argument goes, would be cared for from cradle to grave, and so we wouldn’t need to strive for anything in life, or to have ‘personal’ possessions, because we’d be taken care of and all would receive equally. Apart that is, presumably, from the Commissars overseeing this potentially terrifying existence.
For men and women, created as we are to live in relationship and find our best life by meeting and overcoming challenge, this is surely a vision of hell. Yet it is this dystopian future, where all our needs are supplied, that AI holds out to us – and it is this that is actually the greatest threat to humanity: our loss of purpose and meaning.
Humankind’s happiness cannot be fulfilled by computers taking over the need for work. That can only make us fat and vacuous drones – lotus eaters who have lost the will to live. But the dangers go even beyond that and are already making themselves felt. In schools, for example, we are told that AI is revolutionising Maths’ teaching, but while there is some undeniable benefit, the downside is that children are becoming increasingly reliant on their ipads for instant answers, and are losing the ability to work out the solution for themselves. More generally, children are beginning to accept without question whatever AI tells them on any subject, whether that’s history, literature, biology, politics or whatever. Increasingly, AI is controlling what they and we think – and sometimes it’s rewriting the facts. So not only does this mean that there’s a danger we’ll all be coerced into accepting designedly false narratives – because that is all we hear – but it also means that, as we lose the ability to assess different perspectives and tease out problems for themselves, we are becoming less intelligent.
Yes, AI systems may covertly design biological weapons to exterminate humanity, or launch an unauthorised nuclear attack that plunges the world into war – and they clearly do need stronger oversight and agreed management, so that that can’t happen. But the real danger is surely more pernicious: that under the illusion of control we cede our God-given abilities to artificially created systems, and in the process become less than human. We kill that spark that gives meaning to our consciousness and links us to the divine, and in so doing hand over control to hostile entities that seek our subjugation.
In Terry Gillam’s 1981 film, Time Bandits, the devil is obsessed with technology and computers. He tells his evil henchman Benson, ‘… we have work to do. No lesser work than the overthrowing of creation itself. We will remake man in our own image, not His.’
Who and what should we fear? Anyone or anything that seeks to subvert, undermine or destroy our creation as children of the living Lord God, made in His own image and with freedom of choice.