First came the bomb. Then came the power plant. So if ever there was a case of beating swords into plowshares … But usually it’s the other way around. Is that what the Chicken Little-ers are worried about? That AI is being put to military service? Of course it is. What technology hasn’t been? So no, it’s not that it’s going to kill our enemies. It’s that it’s going to kill us!
Severally or collectively? It makes a difference. Look, that each of us is going to die some day is not the same as we’re all going to die on the same day. Being the misanthrope that I am, I think I’d prefer the latter. But even as the philanthrope I’m not, that we’re all going to die is the least of our worries. Rather it’s what life is going to be like in the meantime. And that, it seems to me, is what the Chicken Little-ers are worrying about.
Will we have plenty to eat? Probably more. Will we have a roof over our heads? Gas in the tank? Sex dolls in our beds. All of the above. Ah, but will we have movies? Yes, better and cheaper, because the studios won’t need actors. Or sets. Or lighting. Ah, but will we have live theatre? Yes, just as soon as robots pass the three-dimensional Turing test. Music? Art? No experience or talent needed.
But what about sports? Spectator sports no problem. Participaction? Knock yourselves out. It’s true that AI will soon be able to tell us whether chess is an automatic win for white, for black, or an automatic draw. But so what? We already get paired at tournaments by rating.
In short, until and apart from killing us, which will be for the same reason we swat pesky mosquitos, AI is going to give us a brief taste of the heaven none of us is going to see in the non-existent Hereafter. It’s win-win all around. Except for …
Well yes, some people would prefer a life of creative struggle to this short-lived taste of heaven. Something to do with authenticity, I’m told, though I’ve never quite understood the concept. So I have no doubt there’ll be Neo-Luddite communities, living underground out of the Matrix, fighting the good fight that only they want fought. In some of this dystopian literature the resistance finally wins. But when they do, these stories end at the victory. They seldom talk about the woman who now has to worry about breast cancer, or the incel who now will never get laid.
I have it on good authority that at the time there was a huge kerfuffle in Rome about the introduction of the flush toilet. Something about authenticity. I guess it’s plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.
Categories: Everything You Wanted to Know About What's Going On in the World But Were Afraid to Ask, Humour
Paulosophical Vimplications 
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