I live in a smart home. It is not something that I would have done on my own but it is in keeping with my husband’s fascination with technology. In the long ago he proudly came home with a Radio Shack computer that did very little other than providing him with some silly games. Nonetheless he insisted that such machines would change our world and in that regard he was so right.
Eventually he upgraded to an Apple computer with two disc drives. He used that machine to create a gradebook for me that made my old paper one obsolete. He tied it to a weekly letter that I sent home to each parent outlining the up to date status of each student that even included a listing of missing assignments. It was revolutionary for the time and I had to get permission from the principal to use it.
Computers made my world so much nicer. I sailed through a Master’s degree using the Internet and writing papers with ease. I was able to communicate with my professors’ and they with me. I found myself wondering how we humans had been able to operate without the amazing machines that only seemed to get better and better over time.
I now drive a hybrid plug in car. Most of the time I am able to complete my errands without using a drop of gasoline. For longer trips thecar uses the charged battery before kicking into gasoline mode. I am averaging eighty miles per gallon of gas. Even better are the features that use cameras and radar to keep me aware of the traffic all around me. It is an amazing work of engineering that makes me feel quite comfortable as I drive from on place to another.
I have a robot that vacuums the rooms in my home. I can request music to be played instantly wherever I am inside the house. Lights go on and off at certain times of day. A timer waters my lawn even when I am away from home. All of these features have made life easier for me so that I have more time to read and write my blogs.
I sometimes imagine a time when elderly people will be able to live longer inside their homes with the aid of robotics and computer programming. Such ideas are exciting but the rush to artificial intelligence has me concerned. Perhaps the anxiety that I feel stems from the dystopian novels I have read in which humans are made slaves of a single way of thinking and living.
I watch edan interview with twenty eight year old man who has been working on artificial intelligence since his early twenties. He is quite obviously a very bright individual and he seems to believe that artificial intelligence will revolutionize how we behave and live as humans. He notes that there have been dramatic changes over time and AI is just one more shift.
I know that we humans began as hunters and gatherers moving from place to place. Eventually we settled down to plant crops and domesticate animals. People learned how to provide trades and societies thrived. Then came the Industrial Revolution when we began to use machines run by humans. From the end of the nineteenth century into the present time the inventions and innovations came more and more rapidly until we in many ways became one world communicating instantly with each other.
The new question is what the purpose of AI will ultimately be. The young man that I saw in that interview describes a kind of utopian world in which the computers are doing all of the work and the people of the world are provided with universal incomes and healthcare and housing. The machines and their makers will be theoretically make life better for everyor. Of course those modern day inventors will become wealthy in the process and will also determine how to delineate the information and the support for the rest of mankind. Work will no longer provide meaning for individuals. The machines will work for us and dole out our safety and security.
Such an idea is frightening to me. While we humans have a history of fighting for power and security, we also demonstrate over and over the glorious ascent of our humanity. The very idea that equalizing everything for people without their efforts or consent is not tempting. I find myself wondering whose version of utopia will win the race and force us to live in a ways that do not work given the incredible diversity of humans. What differentiates us from animals is our creativity, our ability to think. There can never be a one size fits all way of doing things. It is anathema to our very instincts.
Right now people are mainly complaining about the horrific misuse of land for data centers. They are loud and lit up twenty four hours a day. They gobble up resources like water and electricity. Once they are built the jobs that they create are minimal and worse than any of these things is the fact that they threaten to take aways jobs from humans.
Who wants a machine teaching our children? Who thinks that replacing counselors with programming is a good idea? Who actually wants to surrender to machines and societies that treat us like pets rather than the glorious and mindful individuals that we are?
I may be simplifying the promises of AI but right now I see it as a vehicle for enriching the already rich while quietly overtaking the work of humans. I believe that we need to slow down and determine exactly what to expect from the current rush to be first in the world to create this brave new world. If we do not do this properly we may find ourselves in a new kind of hell.
