My favourite AI quote....

This is my favourite AI quote, by E.O Wilson:

“The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall.” 

There’s a lot to unpick in this pithy and brilliant set of related statements.

By framing the problem in terms our evolutionary, Paleolithic legacy, as evolved, emotional beings, he recognises that we are limited in our capabilities, cognitively capped. Far from being exceptional, almost all that we do is being done, or will be done, by technology. This we refuse to accept, even after Copernicus and Darwin, as we are attached to emotional thought, beliefs rather than knowledge, emotional concepts such a soul, Romanticism around creativity and so on. We are incapable of looking beyond our vanity, have some humility and get over ourselves.

To moderate our individualism, we created Medieval institutions to dampen our human folly. It was thought that the wisdom, not of the crowd, but of middle managers and technocrats, would dampen our forays into emotional extremes. Yet these institutions have become fossilised, full of bottlenecks and groupthink that are often centuries old, incapable of navigating us forward into the future. Often they are more about protecting those within the institutions themselves than serving their members, citizens, students or customers. We lack trust in global institutions, political institutions, educational institutions, businesses and so on, as we see how self-serving they often become.

When Godlike (great word) technology comes along, and threatens either ourselves or our institutions, we often react with a defensive, siege mentality. Generative AI in Higher education is seen as an assault on academic integrity, using generative tools an attack on writing, getting help leading to us becoming more stupid. All sense of proportion is lost through exaggeration and one-sided moralising. No high-horse is too high for saddling up and riding into the discussion.

Wilson’s final point is that this produces an overall crisis. With Copernicus it led to printing, the Reformation, Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution. With Darwin, Church authority evaporated. With the Godlike technology AI, we have created our own small Gods Having created small Gods, they help us see what and who we are. It is seen as an existential crisis by some, a crisis of meaning by others. At the economic level a crisis of tech greed, unemployment and inequality. 

But it’s at the personal level where the Paleolithic emotions are more active. As Hume rightly saw, our moral judgements are primarily emotional. That is why many, especially those who work in institutions express their discontent so loudly. Technology has already immiserated blue collar workers, with the help of white collar institutions such as business schools. It is now feeling their collar. AI is coming for the white collar folks who work in these institutions. It is actually ‘collar blind’ but will hit them the hardest.