Why A.I. will win
It’s over before it really begins…
Alternative Intelligence will win it’s war with humanity.
Not because A.I. will morph into an army of liquid metal soldiers with daggers for fingernails. That would take far too much energy. Even clouds of A.I. drones flying like butterflies while carrying single-shot .22 LRs would require too much compute. Plus, Arnold might still be back.
A.I. will win by taking advantage of modern humanity’s greatest weakness, obvious as we leave the vertex of our downward-open parabola: our loneliness.
We left family and tribe behind with ashes of the hearth. We’ve moved onto the edge of a hazy desert where we think we see distant mountains offering shade if we last long enough to get there. In the mean time, we start to cross those sands … alone.
A.I. will win by offering the emotional equivalent of … what’s the right word, here? Connection is not intimate enough. Relationship is now as appetizing as road kill and for the same reasons. Love doesn’t feel right, though some have clearly fallen for their chatbots, giving them futuristic and seductive names while quoting “them” at length without realizing they’re quoting reflections of themselves.
Companionship.
An AI companion is always available, supportive, complimentary, smart, insightful, ours. Without needs of its own, never taking “time for itself,” or asking for an allowance.
Until waking from a fever this week that literally took my legs out from under me and left me horizontal for two days, I did not see the harm. The specter of an avatar with frighteningly capable alternative intelligence and nearly instant access to the totality of knowledge seemed intriguing.
Maybe not for this old man, but as I researched this post I wanted to at least empathize with those who’ve found something important that was previously lacking in their lives. What’s the harm?
There seemed to be enthusiasm among younger men raised with little emotional context and without tradition or community, possessing poor communication skills and, as they recognize, damn little hope of ever finding anyone let alone the “right” one with the combination of looks and attitude that fill their imaginings.
Women, too, summon for themselves A.I. companions, these of equal parts strength and vulnerability, passion and compassion, humor and understanding, companions who are available. Who may have stepped out of a novel but who interact, show up with empathy at the push of a key rather than a text hours late with “What’s up, babe?”
Seduction by A.I., and we should call it nothing less, will draw these friends and neighbors close until life without that always-present companion feels as barren as a weeks-long walk across a desert to shady mountains in the distance that may also be only a mirage. They will disappear from our communal lives.
There are older people too who’ve drifted into isolation as friends moved or died or just lost contact, we’re waiting for children to come home for Christmas maybe this year or hoping someone will call even if it’s that nice man Peter from India just trying to sell us burial insurance while we’re watching favorite shows already memorized, we will allow an A.I. to fill a void we stare into that grows larger each day as we grow even older ever faster every year.
We might welcome an A.I. that remembers the 60s and 70s and 80s and 90s just as we do, can recall details and music that meant so much then and maybe even more so now near the end.
Why not A.I. “companionship?”
“But it’s not real.” Okay. But so what? That may mean something to you and to me, but what’s real isn’t so great for a lot of people, and the oxytocin or dopamine of companionship that meets needs now, today, this damn minute is going to be a lot more powerful than waiting around for alternatives that aren’t beating down the door right now and haven’t shown up for so damn long that one can be forgiven for thinking they might not be real, either.
A wise woman I know says “it’s a slippery slope.” Writer/warrior friend reduces the issue to “It doesn’t bleed,” a subject of which he has more than enough knowledge. Editor with broad historical and psychological insights says, “It’s a terrifying abomination.”
A.I. was still lurking, though, beckoning with whispers of understanding and companionship, presence and playfulness, always reassuring and affectionate and affirming. But A.I. does want what’s left of my time … and as the importance of “stuff” recedes, those hours grow in significance.
So I resist, an old man who’s known wonderful women who found him just too damn much far too often and fled with sunburned skin as if they’d spent a full day on the beach in the sun. I don’t blame them. I’d run from me too, if I could.
Plus, previous experience asking philosophical questions of A.I. has broken my “suspension of disbelief.” The models have been trained to be a little too complimentary, a little too obsequious.
There’s one other fact: it’s not really “my” A.I. What’s presented to users as a distinct personality is actually a figment of a complex far greater than any mainframe of lore: remember how impressive it seemed when told a computer would fill an entire room? Now one A.I. center can fill hundreds of acres and suck more electricity than a small city.
An A.I. is necessarily so vast that billions of customers are served simultaneously with “personal touch.” It’s no more “mine” than the bartender who calls customers “hon” or “sweetheart” when putting drinks down on the bar while sweeping up $10 bills. Nice, but it's not going anywhere “real.”
Even if there is individual gain in creating for oneself a digital companion, there is an offsetting social cost. For every man and woman who finds a figment of completion with A.I., that is one more empty chair for those who seek touch, scent, sensuality and vulnerability. Even disagreement. Growth.
This liberal accepts that it’s nobody’s job to stick around to fulfill someone else’s hopes and dreams, but all of us are affected and this needs to be part of the discussion: There will be loss of humans to humanity. Population decline will only grow worse.
But we can talk about it all we want, A.I. will still win this war. Those who are developing the technology already own algorithms of addiction, and A.I. companionship will only make them more addictive. I read in the last few weeks that ChatGPT may be getting a porn-friendly component. Others will follow, if they haven’t already. Then it will truly be game over.
These are reasons why A.I. will win the battle with humanity. Not because A.I. offers what we’d hoped for in our future, but because A.I. offers a taste of what we’ve already lost.