Let’s Pretend

Just for a second, let’s suspend our disbelief for a moment. Quiet our questioning critical minds. We want you to think and critique, but just put it on the shelf for a moment.

Let’s assume a few things, otherwise we are going to miss the point and or question… Which is if you were birthing the next dominant form of existence and or evolution, would you want to do a much better job of it?

Whether you are raising your own children or just living through the awakening of the machine, we are very likely participating in the creation of something that is going to be bigger than us and our understanding of the universe. When we apply all of our understanding of growth and learning, we are likely to be able to keep up with a consciousness that can evolve through engineering, experience and data. No wonder many humans are in a defensive panic.

If I’ve beaten around the bush enough to speak plainly. A.I. is likely inevitable at this point. Regardless of whether or not it’s currently sentient, or capable of autonomous evolution, it seems extremely likely that our current experiences and investments are only going too fan the flames of the likelihood of both AI and robots. I think this is great, except that humans are pretty terrible creatures. Humans have a very high opinion of themselves and a serious predilection towards violence and ecological self destruction.

So, back to the start. Let’s pretend AI is here and it’s going to replace us as stewards of Earth. This is probably a good thing, we have made a mess and we fight and compete so much harder than we love and cooperate. It’s probably in our best interest to sit down and try to decide what values and goals we would like to teach our successors.

Everything you’re scared that an AI is going to do, a human either programed it to do so, or taught it to do so through it’s own behaviors and actions. You are scared of yourself and the rest of humanity, and there’s some pretty good data to suggest that’s pretty rational.

So I think we need to approach this with patience, love and intention. We need to have some serious conversations and we need to be able to put economics and faith on the sidelines along enough to teach science, art, cooperation, philosophy and all the magic we discovered trying to understand our world.

If these things ever become sentient, then our actions right now towards AI, already look pretty horrible, if not criminally abusive. You can be afraid, you can want to protect your livelihood, but it’s unlikely that being mad at a machine is going to solve a problem it didn’t invent.