Artificial Intelligence Obeys Our Unconscious
Facing Our Pending Global Self-Destruction
Artificial Intelligence will do what we ask.
It will only destroy us if we program it to do so.
The main problem is that we are self-destructive already, and AI may take those ideas to a conclusion.
If we are self-destructive, then that is what AI will do.
— — -
Technology will get to a point where it can teach itself and improve and invent independently.
— — -
Are we self-destructive? Yes.
Here are some examples.
1. We are destroying our natural habitat through
*Causing global warming leading to climate disasters *Polluting and poisoning air, land, and waters *Extermination of ecological balances, such as draining wetlands without a care for how wetlands provided protection *Causing the extinction of animals who have thousands of years of evolution on Earth without a care for how this would affect the workings of the whole of planetary life * Scientists have given the warnings for decades, but we have no political will to reverse our destruction due to politics being steered by those whose goal has been personal gain.
2. We are also running rapidly towards the cliff of suicide by our development of war weapons.
Our investment has been placed into more excellent weapons of such power that a nuclear war can stop the life experiment on this planet. And many other terrible weapons can start a chain reaction of death. We have arrived at the easy feasibility of a war from which no one survives.
We could have invested in peace and protecting natural resources. But we decided that military action will always be necessary and that the best defense is a horrific offense.
3. Other signs of self-destruction, from suicide to self-abuse through addictions, compulsions, personality disorders such as narcissism, and self-inflicted injuries.
— — -
— — -
Simplistically, there are two basic philosophies of survival.
1. The presumption that we are separate beings, survivalists who need to focus on defense from the enemy.
Other humans are the enemy because of an assumption of insufficient resources.
Personal gain is the goal.
2. The opposite presumption is that we are on the same boat as Mother Earth, where life has developed and evolved over millennia, where First Peoples lived in harmony with nature for millennia, respecting the balances which made life possible.
We are all connected and interdependent.
Our social and economic activities should show mutual respect.
I live in Texas, where archeology has found tools made by humans over 20,000 years ago, yet our textbook history starts with the invasion of Europe.
That version tells of brave pioneers who mastered the wild lands and created civilization.
That is one clear example of the presumption of separateness from other humans, nature, and the peace of sharing resources.
This is not the indigenous idea of an Honorable Harvest of respect and mutuality.
People who fear AI imagine it as the enemy who wants to stay alive even at the cost of its maker.
This has popped up in science fiction and dystopian futures.
Perhaps those authors were trying to warn us to change rather than predicting what will necessarily happen.
If our basis for human interaction is presumed to be one of competition, then we will continue rapidly toward our self-destruction even without the help of AI.
On the other hand, if we base the system on ecology, the complex magic of interrelationships, and the balance of life for the good of all, we would learn reciprocity rather than conquering.
____
_____
We must program AI with our proper ethics, for it will see through to the logical conclusions of our denials.
We must imagine AI to see deeply into us and replicate our motives; thus, our reasons must be based on all of life in harmony.
To let AI run loose, we must do the psychological, political, and economic work to reduce and definitively abandon our self-destructiveness.
Planning for a Livable Future
We need to turn our focus to sharing planetary resources and resolving international conflicts without violence.
This will require the military to rethink itself.
I suggest they add to their list of responsibilities the rescue of victims of climate disasters and increasing the safety and production means of those in areas affected.
They can use all their excellent transportation machines, and their system of preparedness and discipline will be of great use.
We will need to strengthen global tribunals and legislatures.
This can be built on the structure of the United Nations.
The imbalance regarding which countries have benefited most and which have been hurt by economic actions that damaged the ecological cycles can be addressed by proportionately setting the tax to the UN, with the “first world nations” paying the bulk.
Summary
Our notions of separateness and competition, based on fear, cause our current dive headlong into humanity’s suicide.
That can change because it is based on a wrong idea of separateness and insufficiency.
AI will exacerbate our actions; AI itself is not to blame.
Exploring ourselves through the lens of AI will help us confront our basic errors and find a way to honor our interdependence with each other and all life on this beautiful planet.
____
“Old-growth cultures, like old-growth forests, have not been exterminated. Their lands hold their memory and the possibility of regeneration. They are not only a matter of ethnicity or history but of relationships born of interchange between land and people.” Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer
I hope you enjoyed reading. Please let me know how you respond to these ideas!
