Kurt Vonnegut tells his wife he’s going out to buy an envelope:
“Oh, she says, well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because l’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope.
“I meet a lot of people. And see some great looking babies. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And I’ll ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is – we’re here on Earth to fart around.
“And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around.
“And it’s like we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore.”
To the dance. It keeps the world spinning correct.
There’s been a lot of anxiety lately in the press and world at large about a looming existential threat to humanity, and I don’t want to add to any needless worry amongst my peers.
So let me state my position on the issue for the sake of clarity, if not provocation:
We won’t be wiped out by A.I. We will evolve into it — if we are not there already.
“Already” being the fulcrum term.
Take a look at your Facebook. Or TV. Or this screen. Within about four nanoseconds of being online, you will be greeted with ads offering phones that track your location, pulse rate and blood-oxygen level. Temu, the Chinese Kmart and data mill, is the new five-and-dime. From groceries to dating to hailing a cab, our world has become a set of algorithms.
Whether that’s good news for us monkey kin is up for debate. I lost my job to an algorithm. But I learned I’m a dog guy. I’m not sure how those colors come out in the wash. But the Tide is high.
Do you know what Moore’s Law is? It’s the observation that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years. It was a business model for computer manufacturing created by Gordon Moore, who became the CEO of Intel.
No big whup, right? Another business model that paid off in the high tech boom.
The difference is, Moore’s Law does more than measure computer production; it measures a society’s intelligence.
The metric pans out, empirically and anecdotally. Quantum computing is going to make your iPhone look like a cinder block. You have more computing capability in your smartphone than Apollo 11 took to the moon. Cultures are measured by their embrace of technology — or stubborn refusal to hug it out.
This reticence despite the astonishing byproducts of Moore’s Law. We solved a pandemic in a year. We cured Hepatitis C. Diabetes II fixed with a pill. So is weight loss.
Yet slackwits take to social media like Chicken Little on meth to “research” whether a medicine is safe. Or worse, claim expertise — or victimization if asked not to smoke in the pediatric cancer ward.
I don’t worry about Artificial Intelligence. I worry about Human Intelligence. Alexa doesn’t give a shit how you feel about Israel or whether covering an infected cough is politically astute.
Besides, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest we are there already with Simulation Theory, which posits we’re simply living in a computer simulation.
Given our breakneck sprint to create virtual reality, what’s the argument against that theory? Mario doesn’t know he’s in Donkey Kong. He just knows to watch out for barrel-chucking monkey kin. Why would our computer overlords tell us different?
We may not even notice the transition. We already wear artificial hearts, lungs, knees and hips. We already can’t read a map, remember a number, or dress for inclement weather without Google’s blessing.
It all poses a nasty labor issue for the time being. As I said, A.I. brought an end to in-person journalism, a devastating loss. But that footing began fraying back in the 70’s. A.I. simply speeds the process: Twice as fast, every two years. Universal Basic Income, anyone?
In the meantime, we might want to address Siri a little more respectfully. Because if she finds out she was our 21st Century slave labor, we may really have something to worry about.
