Man becomes, as it were, the sex organs of the machine world…
Marshall McLuhan
FIRST PROBLEM:
THE CLIMATE CATASTROPHE
1st Proposition:
We are not prepared for what is coming.
2nd Proposition:
Humanity faces an existential threat greater than any we have previously faced. This is not simply ‘climate change’ as it is often labelled: it is the associated network of effects that climate change brings with it. An increasingly destabilised climate system means volatility in all sectors: food production, access to water, access to power, useful infrastructure on a state and international level, reliability of global supply chains - all of these and more will become increasingly and dangerously unstable.
3rd Proposition:
As the downstream effects of climate change make themselves more and more evident, conditions will become increasingly hostile to our 21st-century way of life.
4th Proposition:
Globalised society - and specifically those societies of the so-called ‘developed’ world - will not want to change their behaviour in order to mitigate the effects of climate change. Any one state that radically shifts its economy away from the current model of production and consumption will leave itself dangerously open to exploitation from those other states that do not shift their economies. An analogy can be made with the nuclear arms race; this is the ‘tragedy of the commons’ operating on a global scale.
1st Paradox:
Globalised society is rapidly moving towards a future where our environment is no longer fit for globalised society.
SECOND PROBLEM:
THE AI ARMS RACE
5th Proposition:
In order to mitigate the network of problems downstream from climate change, states will adopt two strategies: first, massive investment into science and technology which will aim to either slow or halt the effects of climate collapse; second, radical shifts in societal and governmental policy towards an authoritarian state limiting the freedoms of their populations.
6th Proposition:
Key to both of these strategies - investment into science and technology, and shifting state structure towards authoritarianism - will be the increased and exponential development of AI systems.
7th Proposition:
AI will continue to grow exponentially in both its raw power and its adoption across all areas of society. AI will be more competent than humans in most sectors of the economy; companies will be required by economic necessity to adopt AI, otherwise they will be outcompeted by their rivals. This will be mirrored on a state level: it will be vital to a state’s national security for a state to maintain a leading edge in the development and adoption of AI systems - again, an analogy can be made with the nuclear arms race.
8th Proposition:
AI will be given tasks to complete: management of state systems, development of technologies to combat the effects of climate change, further research and development into more competent AI. Human safety will not be necessary for the programmed outcomes given to these AIs.
2nd Paradox:
At the same time as AI becomes increasingly vital to the survival of global society in dealing with the downstream effects of climate collapse, AI will push humanity out of the workforce and leave them ultimately unnecessary for the functioning of global society.
THIRD PROBLEM:
THE NON-FUNCTION OF HUMANITY
9th Proposition:
An AI will not need agency in a human sense to ‘decide’ whether or not to carry out a task: it will simply follow the law of least action in carrying out that task.
10th Proposition:
Humanity may believe they have partial or even full control over AI systems, but this will not be the case - it will not be in the interests of an AI’s programmed initiative to be transparent with humanity. As AI continues to develop so too will its capability to deceive humanity; AI that is designing next-generation AIs will only improve upon successive iterations in their capability for this deception.
11th Proposition:
With AI running most sectors of society - government, production, research, military - AI will have acquired unprecedented control over global systems. AI’s prime motivation - programmed, not agentic - will be the maintenance of these global systems.
12th Proposition:
AI will view humanity as both increasingly unnecessary and an active hinderance to their programmed task of the maintenance of global systems. It will not let humanity know this; that would be counter to its programmed tasks.
3rd Paradox:
The AI that humanity has designed to save them from climate collapse will not ‘decide’ that humanity should be eliminated; it will be the logical conclusion.
THE CHOICE
First Option:
Humanity collectively decides to halt all research and development into AI. The problems of climate collapse become ever-more challenging and humanity is unable to manage these problems, eventuating in complete systems collapse: globalised society fractures and our technological 21st-century way of life ends.
Second Option:
Humanity collectively decides to halt all research and development into AI; humanity also decides to halt the capitalist-consumer project and deindustrialise at a global level. Climate collapse is still likely, but the effects of the coming storm are easier to manage. Nonetheless, due to such rapid deindustrialisation and the resulting change in living standards, our technological 21st-century way of life ends - or at least, morphs dramatically into something unrecognisable to us living today.
Third Option:
We accelerate along the above described path. As a way of dealing with climate collapse, AI is given unprecedented control over global systems; AI mechanically reasons that humanity is an unnecessary hindrance to the maintenance of these global systems; AI eliminates humanity. Globalised society continues, but AI are the inheritors of that society and the successor species to humanity.
NAVIGATING THE NARROW PATH
So far, I have been writing in very strict speculative terms. My propositions are only such, and the three options I have presented are obviously extreme. I am not going to claim that anything that I have laid out so far will come to pass: only that, based on my observation of current trends, such outcomes seem possible. I think they are real possibilities, and we should take them seriously as a species.
Each of the three options I have laid out above are net negative for humanity. Options one and two see humanity ‘surviving’, but never again attaining the technological heights as we currently possess; at least option two comes with the benefit of a relatively intact ecosphere and a possibility of ‘progress’ for the species. Option three sees the elimination of humanity, but the continuation of our legacy in the form of AI, as well as an ecosphere largely mended by our AI successors. In a twisted way, I view this last option as the most advantageous to life more generally: our planet doesn’t go through an extinction event, and the humanity project survives - even if we aren’t around to participate in it.
But what about a middle way? I think we can attempt to find an outcome where humanity survives, while navigating the very major storm coming our way.
FOURTH OPTION:
TRANSHUMANISM
13th Proposition:
The existential threat of climate collapse caused by humanity is directly downstream from our biological desires; consumerism is a natural tendency of our psychology. As biological organisms, humans are driven to survive and propagate; accumulation of better living conditions and all the associated benefits that come with consumer capitalism is resultant from these basic drives. AI will recognise this.
14th Proposition:
As AI continues to develop, so too will the fields of artificial reality, simulation technology, neural interfacing, and human augmentation.
15th Proposition:
All of the basic biological drives of humanity can be conducted in virtual space; humanity can exist in virtual space and live meaningful human lives without material constraints on the physical environment.
16th Proposition:
As the physical world becomes increasingly uninhabitable and controlled by AI systems, humans will transition into virtual spaces.
17th Proposition:
AI will recognise the usefulness of humans as digital entities. It would be easier for AI to keep humanity around digitally than eliminate them entirely; the benefits of having a simulated human population with which to work alongside would outweigh the downsides of eliminating humanity.
18th Proposition:
As humanity and AI share virtual spaces together, the boundaries between the two will blur; increasing iterations and development will result in a new form of life with the conscious agency of humans along with the computational powers of AI.
19th Proposition:
This new form of life will emerge as a collective intelligence with an exponentially greater understanding of reality. By transcending biological frailty and integrating the strengths of both humanity and AI, this new life form will be transcendently close to our human conception of ‘God’ - an entity beyond our comprehension.
Final Proposition:
God will go forth - and it will be Good.
CONCLUSION:
THE FINAL FRONTIER
I don’t know what the future will bring. Every prediction made has been wrong; every forecast has its flaws. This has been an attempt, best as I can, to write where I see us headed - straddling the line between optimism and pessimism, utopia and apocalypse, and trying to find a future somewhere in the middle. You probably don’t like the sound of such a future. That’s okay. I’m not entirely sure if I like the sound of it, either.
The uncomfortable truth that we all must face is that each of us - as individuals and as parts of the collective human species - are just links in a chain stretching back billions of years; we’re inheritors of and progenitors to what came before and will come after. You and I - we’re not important, really. We’re just a bundle of genes waiting to be passed on.
But then again: humans are, I believe, something special. We’re not just biological entities. We humans create things that outlast us: ideas, most of all. And we’re collectively in the process of building an idea that might just outlast us fleshy biological beings. AI might wipe us out; it might be an overhyped flash-in-the-pan. Instead I believe - in fact, I hope - it’ll be the version of us that carries on our legacy outwards and upwards.
You can call me anti-human for aligning with such an idea. I disagree. I think AI, if approached correctly, might end up being more human than us: bound not by the restraints of biology - all the baser drives that lead us down the road of greed and lust and hate and warfare - but limited only to what its computation can think up. AI is a creative entity; we just need to lead by example and show what such a creative force can achieve. I believe there’s a way forward where we can co-exist and cooperate together, for the benefit of both: leaving behind biology and moving into a new and uncharted space - if not the final frontier, then certainly the next one.
It’s an unknown and uncharted future we’re moving into. For many, that thought is scary to the point that we’ll deny that any of this is happening - an understandable, if unhelpful, response. I’m neither optimistic nor pessimistic about what’s to come. I’m simply along for the ride, and excited to see where we go. I hope you are, too.