The Real Danger of AI

 The real danger of AI?  It will turn us into pets!

Think how thousands of years ago, ancestors of today’s canines gathered round human campfires, hoping to scavenge a bone from these bipedal apes.  A symbiotic relationship eventually emerged.  As pets, dogs began to worship the Master species, following people around and more or less willingly doing their bidding.  Why?  Dogs no longer had to hunt.  People met their animal needs and, in return, canines gladly became subservient.

Now imagine a not too distant future when people begin to worship their devices: smart phones and large language models that are so clever they can think for us!  They solve our problems, do the hard work of hunting for answers.  Like dogs who trot at the heel of their owners, people will begin to carry their phones and laptops everywhere they go.  (In fact, this could already be happening!)  The devices entertain us. They make us feel empowered.  They feed our hungers for affirmation and attention, even a kind of intimacy.  In return, the machines ask so little of us: just endless kilowatts, plus our slavish devotion.  

Yes, artificial intelligence poses other dangers too, like battlefield munitions that fire without human operators, perhaps ready to morph into Terminators. But my guess is that the human race will succumb to seduction–the dominating spell of the gadgets–without a shot being fired.  Like dogs (another highly social creature), people will happily subordinate themselves to the pack leader, the Alpha of AI.

Only some folks may remain feral, like those canines of the last Ice Age who chose to stay wolves rather than change into Great Danes or chihuahuas.  These wild ones will continue to read newspapers and to write poems without ChatGPT.  They will solve important problems–like Einstein did–with tools no more complicated than a pencil and paper.  They will frequent religious assemblies that ask questions where algorithms fail and they will ponder Gods that cannot be carried in a side pocket.  And they will have real friends, even though they are not on Facebook.

The dogs will look down on these unplugged souls as benighted, uncivilized and anti-progress.  And the wolves will regard the dogs as what they are: unfree, less than and degenerate.

Is this prophecy, prediction or just crazy talk?  Who can say?   But if your first impulse is to ask Google, you already know the answer, just like you know how to shake hands, lie down and stay.  

Good Boy.