I am not convinced by these confident, fatalistic assertions regarding our lack of agency to prevent particular applications/widespread embrace of certain aspects of AI--especially when paired with the imaginings about how the world AI makes will enable glorious social reforms. We can't prevent AGI from radically disrupting human learning and education in any meaningful way, but imagine all of the leisure time we'll have in this new world where the same people cutting the social safety net now will be freed up to support UBI!
We have established pretty remarkable, if imperfect, regulatory regimes and norms to restrain the pursuit of human cloning. We have sophisticated infrastructure and effort deployed toward arms control and the nuclear weapons. I am not quite at the point where I'm willing to concede the basic inevitability of how this will all unfold. While we're talking about the triumphant return of the American chestnut tree, Congress is considering a ten-year ban on regulating AI. Interesting priority to have if all of this is going to happen regardless of what people actually want for their lives and our society.
The incentives for cloning are not very strong, I'd argue, so the effort to restrain it is basically a technocratic issue. And the arms control industry has been largely a failure; proliferation was largely hemmed in by free-riding in a bipolar system of superpowers, and continued for a bit in the American hegemonic age, but it's clearly on the upswing today.
I'm not convinced AGI is at all inevitable. But insofar as we think it exists, the incentives are for an arms race. And I don't see how you avoid that. You certainly won't regulate your way out of an arms race...
Another great piece. However, as I've written about on my Blog/Substack, I remain puzzled that the question is how to survive AI when, it seems to me, it's our aesthetic fate. Where are here to produce it and, assessing it like an independent agent, neglects to appreciate that it's literally part of nature. Perhaps we can try to survive it by beginning to appreciate its necessity
"the technological fruits of our ingenuity have always been sinister, promising “prosperity” but actually impinging on our humanity. They transform how we interact with the world, but with each turn of the innovation screw, they also shrink us as human beings and cut us off from transcendence, from beauty, from love."
Stunning insight yourself Damir.
I'll add: Humans are embodied creatures, so digital spaces are inherently less human spaces. Period. Take a walk people.
Couple thoughts...
1) First things... why technology? It's always to make our lives easier, more fundamentally it's an effort to overcome some limitation of our humanity, our finitude... this is sometimes at loggerheads with our creative instinct, also a fundamental part of our humanity. Which leads me to
2) Technology, while currently annoying, is not in and of itself sinister/evil/satanic. It's application certainly can be, with fallen humans who make it behind the wheel.
So much to unpack here, but I'll stick to my optimistic and frumpy guns and say that this AI junk is as overblown as the Internet was. A dot com bust is coming, but that doesn't mean AI goes away. Unfortunately, as Christine just described in the Times, mostly unsavory stuff will come from AI and most of it will be porn. Technology is so often disgusting, especially when robbing us of our humanity while stripping it off of others.
2) In 2023 and 2024, Klarna froze hiring and laid off 22% of its staff, opting to deploy an AI agent that it claimed did the work of 700 customer service reps.
But, earlier this month, Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said that the company began hiring (human) gig workers, since AI alone wasn’t enough to provide quality customer service.
I am not convinced by these confident, fatalistic assertions regarding our lack of agency to prevent particular applications/widespread embrace of certain aspects of AI--especially when paired with the imaginings about how the world AI makes will enable glorious social reforms. We can't prevent AGI from radically disrupting human learning and education in any meaningful way, but imagine all of the leisure time we'll have in this new world where the same people cutting the social safety net now will be freed up to support UBI!
We have established pretty remarkable, if imperfect, regulatory regimes and norms to restrain the pursuit of human cloning. We have sophisticated infrastructure and effort deployed toward arms control and the nuclear weapons. I am not quite at the point where I'm willing to concede the basic inevitability of how this will all unfold. While we're talking about the triumphant return of the American chestnut tree, Congress is considering a ten-year ban on regulating AI. Interesting priority to have if all of this is going to happen regardless of what people actually want for their lives and our society.
-Michael
The incentives for cloning are not very strong, I'd argue, so the effort to restrain it is basically a technocratic issue. And the arms control industry has been largely a failure; proliferation was largely hemmed in by free-riding in a bipolar system of superpowers, and continued for a bit in the American hegemonic age, but it's clearly on the upswing today.
I'm not convinced AGI is at all inevitable. But insofar as we think it exists, the incentives are for an arms race. And I don't see how you avoid that. You certainly won't regulate your way out of an arms race...
We need to stop worshipping the toasters.
Another great piece. However, as I've written about on my Blog/Substack, I remain puzzled that the question is how to survive AI when, it seems to me, it's our aesthetic fate. Where are here to produce it and, assessing it like an independent agent, neglects to appreciate that it's literally part of nature. Perhaps we can try to survive it by beginning to appreciate its necessity
"the technological fruits of our ingenuity have always been sinister, promising “prosperity” but actually impinging on our humanity. They transform how we interact with the world, but with each turn of the innovation screw, they also shrink us as human beings and cut us off from transcendence, from beauty, from love."
Stunning insight yourself Damir.
I'll add: Humans are embodied creatures, so digital spaces are inherently less human spaces. Period. Take a walk people.
Couple thoughts...
1) First things... why technology? It's always to make our lives easier, more fundamentally it's an effort to overcome some limitation of our humanity, our finitude... this is sometimes at loggerheads with our creative instinct, also a fundamental part of our humanity. Which leads me to
2) Technology, while currently annoying, is not in and of itself sinister/evil/satanic. It's application certainly can be, with fallen humans who make it behind the wheel.
So much to unpack here, but I'll stick to my optimistic and frumpy guns and say that this AI junk is as overblown as the Internet was. A dot com bust is coming, but that doesn't mean AI goes away. Unfortunately, as Christine just described in the Times, mostly unsavory stuff will come from AI and most of it will be porn. Technology is so often disgusting, especially when robbing us of our humanity while stripping it off of others.
A few silver linings:
1) https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chicago-sun-times-ai-reading-list/
2) In 2023 and 2024, Klarna froze hiring and laid off 22% of its staff, opting to deploy an AI agent that it claimed did the work of 700 customer service reps.
But, earlier this month, Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said that the company began hiring (human) gig workers, since AI alone wasn’t enough to provide quality customer service.
https://www.morningbrew.com/stories/2025/05/21/klarna-users-are-buying-now-but-not-paying-later?mbcid=39953901.478255&mid=5406958a13fac97a1abe582fda8133c2&utm_campaign=mb&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=morning_brew