What Will We Do With All That Free Time?

AI and the meaning of life.

A few weeks ago,

Ross Douthat

of the New York Times interviewed Daniel Kokotajlo, a former OpenAI employee who has become an AI safety whistleblower. After leaving the company, Kokotajlo co-authored a report outlining how an artificial intelligence could conquer humanity by the year 2027.

Towards the end of the interview, Douthat asks Kokotajlo to think about a happier future: a future where AI is aligned with human purposes, and humanity and AI coexist peacefully:

Douthat: In a world where what you predict happens and the world doesn’t end — we figure out how to manage the A.I. and it doesn’t kill us, but the world is forever changed — and human work is no longer particularly important, what do you think is the purpose of humanity in that kind of world? How do you imagine educating your children in that kind of world and telling them what their adult life is for?

Kokotajlo: It’s a tough question. Here are some thoughts off the top of my head, but I don’t stand by them nearly as much as I would stand by the other things I’ve said, because it’s not where I’ve spent most of my time thinking.

First of all, I think that if we go to superintelligence and beyond, then economic productivity is just no longer the name of the game when it comes to raising kids. They won’t really be participating in the economy in anything like the normal sense. It’ll be more like just a series of video-game-like things that people will do for fun rather than because they need to get money — if people are around at all. In that scenario, I guess what still matters is that my kids are good people, and that they have wisdom and virtue and things like that. So I will do my best to try to teach them those things because those things are good in themselves, rather than good for getting jobs.

In terms of the purpose of humanity, I don’t know. What would you say the purpose of humanity is now?

I do not have much to say about the credibility of Kokotajlo’s predictions: I am not an engineer or a scientist. But it’s striking to me that, in Kokotajlo’s mind, the question of the purpose of human life can be distinguished from the task of preserving the human race. For his part, Douthat says that he himself has “religious answer” to the question of human purpose, but he doesn’t elaborate, saving it for “a future conversation.” In his answer, Kokotajlo suggests that some things have value in and of themselves, regardless of whether they have practical utility. He says that wants his children to become “good people” who cultivate “wisdom and virtue and things like that.” These ideals, Kokotajlo implies, are not merely practical or useful things to believe in. They are intrinsically good — that is, “good in themselves.” These intrinsic goods give life a purpose.

Kokotajlo’s response suggests that, once all practical needs are met, human beings will be forced to reckon with virtue and wisdom and other fundamental concepts of philosophy. Until then, however, we still have to work, and so these concepts are at the moment less important than they will be once AI obviates the need for human labor.

Yet labor also seems to be a major source of human purpose. At least, both Douthat’s question and Kokotajlo’s response suggest as much. Once AI has ushered in a utopia where human labor is no longer needed — both men seem to agree — the question of the purpose of life will become even more pressing than it is now. In this utopia, humans will no longer need to work in order to survive, and therefore will no longer have something meaningful to do with their days. Moreover, in this utopia, AI will be able to do everything that we can do, but better. This includes both work that is essential for human survival (like growing food), as well as work that adorns life (like craft, architecture or music). So even painting or poetry will have lost its allure, because AI will be able to do them better.

In broad terms, both men agree, it seems, about what gives life purpose. First, both seem to believe that intrinsic goods give life a purpose. Kokotajlo argues that what gives life purpose are intrinsic goods like wisdom or virtue. Douthat, for his part, seems to agree — his “religious answer” probably includes virtue and wisdom (as well as the Good).

Second, both men believe that once AI makes human work unnecessary, then human beings will be faced with a void of some sort, which will severely test their sense of purpose.

So, what is the purpose of human life in an AI-enabled utopia?

At first blush, this seems like a question that can be postponed, at least until utopia arrives. But maybe postponing the question is — or has been — a fatal mistake. (Kokotajlo asks Douthat: “What do you think the purpose of life is now?”) Consider this counterfactual: what if in the last century, we had worked and developed our technologies under a different idea of what the purpose of human life is? If we had, would our tech today be any different? We have built hardware and software, apps and AI, with the idea of making it easier for us to accomplish our work. But what if work is not the only thing we should be thinking about?

Put another way: if we had labored under the idea that the purpose of human life is the pursuit of, say, beauty (rather than work), would technology look different today? Would buildings looking any different? Would society as a whole? We have had an implicit understanding of the purpose of human life, and it’s this: the purpose of our lives is labor. Labor for the sake of what, exactly? The answer is unclear. But the fact that we can’t imagine a meaningful life without work suggests, at the very least, that we have a lot of thinking to do.

The philosopher Frantz Fanon once summed up his political beliefs in one elegant sentence: “That the tool never possess the man.” That phrase remains, I think, a worthy guide. But what do we do once we have in our possession the most powerful of all tools? What will we do with all that free time?

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