Fending off irrelevance in the Artificial Intelligence Age

@wwaycorrigan

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'I read an article the other day that explained just how bad alcohol can be for one's health. So I've decided not to read any more.'

Hopes of a life largely free of AI and Big Tech may be impossible in the coming years.

Yes, it's an old one. And if it were to be taken seriously, it's a prime example of shooting the messenger — if one with such a fondness for booze could actually aim accurately, that is.

Anyone able to think straight these days knows that drinking to excess is unlikely to lead to a long and healthy life. Ignoring uncomfortable truths does not make them go away.

Ignoring is bliss

Yet, not all uncomfortable truths are of direct personal concern so ignoring them may, somewhat paradoxically, improve one's overall health.

For example, some studies have shown that regularly consuming the news can be damaging to one's well-being. So while terrible things are happening all over the world, it's not always in our best interests to be aware of them, particularly if there's little to nothing we can do to make them better.

The counterargument is that the world is so interconnected these days that even a small positive action on our part could help to resolve a complex issue in some distant place. For example, deciding not to buy products from a particular company that is believed to engage in questionable practices or is ethically reprehensible. Nonetheless, to do such a deed doesn't mean one has to be engrossed in the news all the time.

It is said, too, that to have a more positive outlook on life it's important to surround oneself with positive people and to think positively. Seeing as how the majority of the news fed to us is negative, dining on it daily can't be good for our state of mind.

With total abstinence practically impossible for many of us, moderation is the goal — like it is for imbibing and many other guilty pleasures.

Disillusioned

While I find myself getting angry with the narrative of certain news items — see Living with unsettled and unsettling questions for an idea of some of those — stories about the rise of artificial intelligence often leave me feeling disillusioned.

Yes, AI comes with opportunities as well as challenges, yet I find myself drawn to its negative side. In general, this is to do with the possibility that AI will make billions of us largely irrelevant: irrelevant in our usefulness to society in any case.

In an April 2024 post, More artificial intelligence, less human intelligence, I wrote about some of my concerns in this whole area. In the intervening period, having happened upon a copy of Yuval Noah Harari's book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, first published in 2018, my fears have only grown.

'Biotechnology will provide our sustenance far more economically, sufficiently, and environmentally friendly than antiquated agriculture. Rewild rurality, hack humanity.'

As I touched on in a February 2024 article, Merging a life vacation with a vocation, I often feel that studying Humanities at university and the subsequent career path I've followed have left me particularly vulnerable to the aforementioned irrelevance.

In less disillusioned moments, however, I do at least think about areas where AI and Big Tech are going to have a harder time dominating human life. Yet, the relief from such ruminating is only temporary.

Biochemical beings

Take sport and physical activity in general, for one. While sports, as it is for most sectors of life, already use a lot of tech, we still fall back on the raw emotions — the blood, sweat, and tears — that are triggered when humans compete. How can technology provide such real, raw thrills and thus satiate both the competitors and the spectators?

Well, if we are in essence nothing but biochemical beings ripe for manipulation by advanced algorithms, then real physical sport could become obsolete, replaced by virtual contests that push all the right emotional buttons, minus the bumps and bruises on the body. Or even just replaced by some pill that gives us those feelings.

But won't we need to at least exercise so we burn off the calories to stay in shape? Again, medical and technological advancements could see staying in shape become a simple process, with one's metabolism kept at an optimum rate to be physically healthy without having to do rigorous workouts. (We already have the fat-fighting drug semaglutide — sold under the brand names Ozempic, Rybelsus, and Wegovy — that is apparently working wonders for some heavier individuals.)

In that scenario, those of us who dream of returning to a simpler, self-sufficient life living off the land, may find that such a practice is deemed damaging to society as a whole. Biotechnology will provide our sustenance far more economically, sufficiently, and environmentally friendly than antiquated agriculture. Rewild rurality, hack humanity.

For the Luddites/Luddite lites amongst us, the need for some human toil in construction does look set to continue for a while longer. (Although, being based in Colombia and seeing manual labourers still doing a lot of heavy lifting, my thinking may be a bit skewed on this. In high-income nations, machines are doing more and more of these construction chores.)

Of course, it's impossible to predict to just what extent AI and technology will further take over our lives. The inexorable rise of the machines doesn't inevitably mean the downfall of most humans.

There is also the power issue at play: the machines don't run on fresh air alone. Not yet, anyway. So as long as they rely on human-controlled sources of energy — and data — to function, we shall still have a significant role to play (some of us, at least).

Whatever lies ahead, we should focus on fixing and improving things in our present lives, as much as we can, that is.

Future issues are unlikely to trouble us if we can't get a handle on today's problems. We can ignore the unsettling news all we want but this doesn't make it disappear. Merely wishing it away is sure to accelerate our own demise.
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