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Two thoughts that help me stay sane

Posted by LaudateAgno on 2024-May-5 17:12:01, Sunday
In reply to How can we not be depressed by AI? posted by diogenes on 2024-May-1 09:06:15, Wednesday




Speculations:

For the sake of our [my] sanity we [I] have to remember two things.

First, we really have no idea how this AI trip is going to play out. It introduces a radical "recursion" into the human experience of its own technology that makes prediction impossible. We may have some idea of how some people and institutions will react to the changes in the very short term, but how that evolves into economics, politics, philosophy, the corner store -- no one knows. Chaos theory makes a good reference point: we will experience a year's worth of weather in a week, while the meteorologists can't predict much beyond the old-school week.

AI looks ready make tens of millions unemployed in no time. What sort of abreaction will ensue? There are so many nightmare scenarios you can imagine that all sorts of rebound effects become possible as well. Could the threat of complete technological enslavement incite the first major luddite revolution? Maybe. Local ones are going on with increasing frequency already (see second point). Will the technocratic elites be prepared? Maybe, maybe not. Almost anything seems possible.

But if almost anything seems possible, perhaps we needn't worry quite so much!

Second, think of the Amish. They have much to teach us. They try pretty hard not to spin along with the ever-accelerating techno centrifuge -- and they largely succeed. They have found a way to compromise without playing along. It is possible that our AI world will ultimately exterminate them too, but in the meantime, they certainly aren't getting depressed by it. They just sit quietly beside it and do their own thing. Maybe we can all do more of the same.



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