Two things are buzzing about in the air at the moment: decline and artificial intelligence. Douglas Murray and Louise Perry have written recently in these pages about social desuetude: Murray on the five million or so Britons who seem to have opted out altogether of economic activity; Perry on the worrying lack of new humans being born. Could AI get us out of these holes?
It’s tempting to scoff at new tech and the alternating warnings and promises about what’s coming down the line. Many of us in the demographic bulge of older citizens will recall the heated clamour of the early 80s. We remember how the auguries about the microchip revolution turned sour when we found that toilets still had to be cleaned and bins still had to be emptied. A common meme contrasts the promised Jetsons-style future of flying cars and ultra-gadget convenience with the realities of twenty-first century living.
When tech has indeed changed things out of recognition, it has ballsed them up in ways that nobody saw coming. Having kids seems like a heck of a lot of bother and expense. And why put yourself forward for a grotty, low status, low-paid job? Import someone else to do it. Successive governments have enabled and encouraged this unsustainable model without even noticing, using the sociological theory known as ‘something will probably turn up’.
It’s deeply symbolic that San Francisco, the home of all that fabled silicon innovation of the 80s, has become a flyblown dump
Meanwhile the internet has ripped out the heart of our mass culture, the great consolation of modern life. Social media has polarised and atomised us into tribes and silos, and trashed the mental health of many of the young who grew up with it.
We in the west now have the chicken and egg situation of accidie – sloth and negligence – and anomie because of a lack of commonly held standards and expectations. We behave like this because we can, because the superficial ease provided by tech allows us to. Nobody factored in that we need meaning, purpose and companionship.
It’s deeply symbolic that San Francisco, the home of all that fabled silicon innovation of the 80s, has become a flyblown dump. Squeaky clean progressive Canada is also leading the way: 60 per cent of its 18 to 34 year olds think the disabled should have access to euthanasia; 41 per cent think the poor should have that option. Happy days!
But if tech, at least partly, has landed us in this sink of despondency, maybe it could get us out. Pessimism and alarm about AI is rampant. Apparently it is quite difficult to simply programme it not to destroy our race. It can already identify and remove half a second of any Beatles song from YouTube, easypeasy, but requiring it not to kill all humans is too much of an ask.
Unlike many of the downsides of tech, we can’t say we haven’t been warned about mega-computers that try to wipe us out for messing up its plans. That has been a staple of science fiction for decades; a cliché so ubiquitous that it’s hard to take seriously. One feels silly just talking about it. It would be a terrible irony – not that anybody would be left to appreciate it – if we discounted an Armageddon scenario simply because it was really corny, only for the machines to blow us all to bits.
The idea of trying to control something that’s much, much cleverer than you, and which can anticipate your every move months before you even think of it, is a scary one. You begin to see why the cliché became a cliché, and why some scientists and theoreticians have been having sleepless nights.
Nobody ever wonders if that very cleverness of AI and robots – if imbued, somehow, with an understanding and care for us – could save us. On the immediate small scale level, for those at that economic sharp end, AI could do the tiresome, time-and-money consuming nuisance work that the corporate world forces us to do; cancelling unwanted subscriptions, or dealing with the endless harassing state correspondence you get when you’re poor or old or disabled. In the future, maybe not so far ahead, AI doctors and perhaps even robot carers could step in and take some weight off the NHS. Or empty those bins and clean those toilets. Maybe even give us the time and the space to have kids and to raise them with the attention and resources they deserve. I’m not sure if, ethically, handing care over to machines is a paradise or a nightmare, but it’s probably better than reducing us all to atoms.
Human beings are designed for struggle and drama and if struggle and drama are removed for a life of convenience and plenty we do not become lotus eaters or lilies of the field. Inevitably we create some new and spurious struggle and drama. AI could be our redemption: it could set us challenges without us even knowing, keep us stimulated and alive and feeling that life was worthwhile. We would be its pets, yes, but well-adjusted ones. This feels instinctively as if it offends our human dignity, but then we may not have much choice in the matter. Would we still be human?
Are we still human now, in our age of comparative ease and accompanying existential diminishment? Perhaps, like cats, the best we can hope for is a responsible owner. Alternatively, maybe it’s safer just to pick up a hammer and smash the machines, before they get any big ideas.
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