There is "uproar" over Sam Altman's comments comparing the energy usage of AI services to human energy use, where he argues things like in order for humans to do simple calculations, it takes twenty years of resource consumption first etc. While he seems to be about the most ineloquent individual on earth, the "outrage" is misdirected and takes what is said in the worst light. Best intentions is no longer a thing in public discourse and instead it is worst intentions to score self-satisfying metrics of relevance and importance.
This aside, I have my reservations of AI.
For those that read me often, they will know I have a pretty strong bias toward human wellbeing. This doesn't mean that I see no value in technology, despite the many times people have called me a luddite in various forms. What it means is that as I see it, there is no point to innovating our technology unless it has improving human wellbeing at its core function.
Unfortunately however, most technology developed today is to increase wealth, even when it reduces wellbeing of the majority, lowering the mean, and racing toward the bottom. Artificial intelligence has a lot of potential because it can quickly perform a multitude of tasks far faster than a human, but this gained efficiency isn't being used to more effectively improve human wellbeing, rather, it is about more effectively improving profits, by reducing reliance on human activity.
Altman also mentioned that investment should turn toward improving clean, cheap energy supply, which I strongly agree with. The goal ultimately should be to have "free and unlimited" energy, because that means that our creativity can expand with a massive limitation removed. However again, this is highly unlikely because of profit models, where instead of moving toward clean and abundant energy, we keep employing a resource scarcity model to the field, so that those who are selling what we have now, can keep on making profits at our expense. And the expense isn't just the monetary cost, it is the cost of destroying the very living conditions we need in order to survive as a species.
Over the decades there have been lots of what is essentially "Country First" initiatives, with things America first and Buy Australian, in order to try and protect the local economy. However, while this speaks to a national pride base, ultimately, these are just more mechanisms used to make a minority of people wealthier. More money in a country, doesn't necessarily mean a better life for the people within those borders.
Money doesn't equal wellbeing.
And this is especially true when the wealth is in so few hands, because there is zero economic incentive for the wealthy to care about the wellbeing of anyone other than themselves. Sure, no rich person wants to live under constant threat of kidnap in a world where violence, war and all kinds of crime run rampant on the streets, but devoid incentive, they will choose that if it means they can have more wealth.
As I see it, the shift that has to happen at all levels of our activity, is that we need to go Human First on everything we do. This doesn't stifle competition, nor does it reduce innovation in areas like AI, it just shifts the purpose of why we are innovating, and what kinds of products and services we create. And when I say all levels, I mean all levels.
The incentive for a corporation is to make profits, but significant profits should only be made through human first activities. The same with governments, where centralised initiatives like tax aren't there to attract votes or balance books, but to empower humans to be their best. Remove many of the corporate tax deduction incentives and shift the tax deductions to people. Have rebates on gym memberships and social classes like dance or music. Make people's lives better and incentivise people to make their own lives better.
Yet, as a species we keep falling into the trap we have been conditioned to fall into; money equals wellbeing and let the market decide. But the market is no longer a good mechanism for what is good for our own wellbeing. The market has been influenced, twisted and warped over the last decades by people who understand the market, behaviours, and how to manipulate both to the point that the generalised "we" are no longer able to come close to making decisions in our own best interest, let alone in the interest of our species. This warping of our behaviours has not only made a tiny fraction of the population extremely rich with a growing wealth gap, but it has made the rest of us accept it and even defend it as the way it has to be.
It is not the way it has to be.
It is only the way it is right now, because of decades of manipulation that has been reinforced by the very mechanisms we support, that are benefiting from us holding the line on the status quo. And we can see how effective and efficient the mechanisms are, because they truly have a "fly wheel" situation that keeps increasing the speed of extraction of value from the rest of society.
I was going to write "humanity" there, but I am increasingly sceptical to its existence in the culture we have built.
We as a species could be brilliant, but instead, we have organised ourselves into competing factions that are irrelevant to our wellbeing. As the saying goes, "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes" is absolutely true in how we are behaving, with the prizes being war, famine, conflict, anger, depression, loneliness. You see, human wellbeing is affected at the individual level, because the focus of most of our resource activity goes toward global conflict at the government and corporation levels. Activity that doesn't need to happen, but does because that is how the incentive is designed. Humanity gets the scraps, cursory attention and just enough to keep the stupid games going to optimise for increased wealth for the few.
Rather than being a boon for humanity that empowers us to be our best, artificial intelligence is instead going to be used to optimise wealth further under the guise that "one day" it will help us all. It is an obvious lie, because that is not how the incentives are aligned. But we keep on believing it because it is more convenient for us right now. This is more of the influence that comes from our conditioning from those who know us better than we know ourselves.
I know what the answer is, but it is unlikely to ever happen, because of the conditioning of society to keep supporting an economic model that is designed to push wealth to one extreme, while the other end shifts continually downward. We as a society will get worse and worse, even as our technological innovations, corporations, and government mechanisms get better and better at controlling us to our own detriment. And we happily keep buying into it, because we as individuals feel we can't do anything about it. Maybe that is true.
And if it is, the end is inevitable.
We will be the first species to choose to make itself extinct.
At least Humans will be first at last.
Taraz
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