- Dec 17, 2010
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Hi - this is a long post. I'd love you to read it with an open mind - and try to out-dream me on what the consequences might be - both good and bad. Just accept the premise (for now) - and help me "Black Mirror" / "Red Team" this thing! We're going to cover Ai, cosplay as lifestyle in a Hobbiton village, and even romance with Ai Ken and Barbie dolls.
THE PREMISE: IF it is possible - and the experts are 50 / 50.
IS AGI LIKELY? We've never played with technology like this and don't know what to expect. The real leading edge experts have believers and sceptics. The believers hope to see evidence this year - as in very soon - that some of the even larger server farms training runs are bearing fruit in even better Ai. The theory is called 'super-scaling' and that's why there's this "Stargate" mission between Microsoft and Oracle and others to sink $500 BILLION into a new super-server farm. Also keep in mind that despite NVIDIA's stock market hit this week, they own CUDA - the main system for running GPU's. Also - where Moore's law doubles computing power per dollar every 18 months or so, GPU's have been growing tenfold per year! That's 10 times more power per dollar per year - average. So give it a few years - and that $500 billion might be buying even more power, or cost exponentially less. The real question: will super-scaling work, or are there reasons to be sceptical already - beyond our own personal worldview on such matters? I have no idea - I have a humanities background!POST-SCARCITY: But if the believers are right then Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) could be deployed in the next 4 to 8 years. My son has been studying his Masters in Computer Science, and says white collar jobs would go first - then more blue collar practical jobs would go as droids got better and better. Some primitive droid might be able to open letters and scan them into the PC's, but Ai 'Agents' on the PC's would do all the admin work and legal and accounting stuff - maybe even using Excel and MYOB and whatever accounting systems humans currently use today! But eventually droids would improve to the point where they can work as carpenters and plumbers and nurses. But right now just comprehending the world enough to tidy up your house is a huge challenge!
THE DREAM: In this scenario the droids start helping everyone be more productive, then our salaries start to raise (or goods get cheaper), then eventually they're taking over and droids are doing everything - even making more droids and the wind and solar to run it all. From the mining and smelting and manufacturing to the 'marketing' - although the whole idea of a 'market' becomes weird in this system. It's a techno-utopian dream where all our physical needs are met. This is a sort of democratic techno-socialist utopia. We're all on a Universal Basic Income - which would be more money than most of us could have dreamed just a decade before. Also more personal time! We are not required to work - we get the UBI just for being citizens of our nations! Billionaires might be annoyed that they're not so 'special' any more. The products of the super-corporations led to the eventual replacement of all that CEO rubbish as everything started to merge into the one enormous Ai supply chain. I imagine at some point - if humans are still in government and control of this thing - that governments would eventually have to get involved and direct what the new Ai behemoths could and could not do - where they could mine, and what they would do for the safety of us all.
IMPLICATIONS I CAN THINK OF - WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?
TIME TO PLAY AND BE CURIOUS AGAIN:
I once heard an argument that the Ancient Greeks only invented mathematics and philosophy etc because they had slaves to do all the boring stuff. The men went down and hung out at the agora all day. The local town square that functioned like a debate forum. Rather than just worrying about wealth, there was social kudos to be earned for coming up with the new theory. Imagine this today? What would you want to do with all the time in the world?
CHRISTIANS & TIME:
When we all have everything we want and do not have to work for it, would not social time become like a new currency? We could all get unbelievably spoilt and hedonistic. With time as the main new 'commodity' to be rationed - I would want to make sure I prioritised my lonely dad, and other people I knew with social issues. Social time would probably become a new test of our hearts and generosity.
But as a Christian, I would also continue to see our 'work' as our 'dominion over the garden.' That is - shaping the laws and priorities in this new weird post-scarcity, post-'work' world to the proper supply of our goods and services without destroying myself (through sheer self-indulgence and hedonism!) or destroying the environment. I would like to supervise my quota of droids (however great that is) to environmental repair as well as helping my own life.
For those who are not Christians here - how would you define a successful or worthwhile life in such circumstances? Do you think there is something essentially human in our need to struggle and compete all day? What are implications for meaning for you?
EDUCATION could be a lot less pressured, and slower, and specialised for the interests of the child. It might involve the local parents hanging out a few days a week at school with the kids - on a roster that helped parents stay sane with something to do! They might be running games and outings and bushwalks. Education would be for the basic socialisation and equipping of the youth to know how to navigate society, but without the pressure of fitting into the industrial pipeline somewhere. Kids could go back to playing - a lot more. Studies show this is good and necessary for children. Proper play - where they're not just on screens but interacting with each other in the real world. Kids could be encouraged to be curious and creative. Young people would be able to engage their interests - and not rebel over angst about 'fitting into' the corporate machine.
WORK: Maybe some of us are still quite creative compared to the Ai - and are using the Ai to write new TV series. These series might have Ai and humans actors. Then there would be the cultural merch of T-shirts and action figures for kids etc. Being a 'social and cultural influencer' might still be a thing - even though they don't need corporate sponsorship any more. Maybe some people just enjoy enriching our lives with stories and art and new recipes - and teach the Ai how to deliver it to us all? The main thing to keep in mind - it's voluntary. We get to research what we are curious about, and do things that interest us. The smartest top 0.1% of us humans - all those MENSA types - would probably be having a ball working with each other to bring the Ai up to ASI and research the latest medicine etc, while the rest of us are playing, involved in work / hobbies, and trying to figure out weird human psychological needs for meaning and status.
MAINTENANCE: Imagine your home? Always tidy with your Bulter-droid/s. No home would need to have its own tool shed or lawn mowers. Everything would just come to you. Unless of course - you wanted to do carpentry or whatever! Again - work becomes a hobby if you want to. For most, the droids would look after all that messy household repair. Every car is a robot-Uber, cleaned meticulously after every single ride. You probably don't need a garage for your own car. Unless of course you want some vehicle that looks like Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang or something from an old gangster show. But my point is generally the local droid warehouses would have everything a community needs in abundance - and just bring everything to your house as required. It would be vastly more efficient. EG: Instead of a neighbourhood having say 2000 lawn mowers, it might have 100 - it's just they are being used every sunny day possible. They would wear out faster - meaning everything was the latest and greatest. Imagine the hyper-minimalism this could allow for those who love a tidy place? Imagine the book collections others could build, or whatever other collections people are into? And if a person suddenly wants to go travelling for a few years - even a massive bird aviary in their back yard can be maintained by the droids - ready for their return. Maybe with reports going to the travellers phone? Or if the person loses interest in all that stuff - the droids can take it back to the local warehouse, put the items online, and see where they are needed. And one obscure book in one warehouse could end up on the other side of the planet. For free. Because... droids!
ENVIRONMENTAL REPAIR: With a surplus of labour - I'm not that concerned about the environmental impact of droids mining. Human activists could go watch the mine site - and probably have Bulter droids serving them breakfast lunch and dinner and setting up their 'glamping' site! (At a safe distance from any noise or potential gases or danger.) Everything could be conducted with the most stringent environmental impact statements and care - because there is a surplus of labour. Droids could carefully dig out bushes and trees, roots and all, and cart them away on trucks to be replanted somewhere that needed them. We don't do that now because of the sheer cost! When labour is free - it can be done. Animals and frogs and everything can be captured and moved - or housed in a zoo until the operation is over and the landscape has been restored and is ready to receive the original inhabitants again.
FOOD: Maybe there is Precision Fermentation to feed us the bulk of our protein - food grown from algae and bacteria that is fermented up, given to droids working with food techs who turn it into stuff like chicken tenders and bacon strips. It already exists in a commercial form and is just getting started. As it scales up the costs may come down - especially as solar prices keep coming down and half the cost of PF is the electricity that runs it. Basically - it could feed the world and return most of our livestock land back to nature, saving habitats and restoring something like “332–547 Gt CO2”. The carbon opportunity cost of animal-sourced food production on land - Nature Sustainability
If that doesn't work - Sir David King studies seaweed protein. Dried seaweed powder can go in everything from bread to dairy to other foods. Just 2% of the world’s oceans could feed 12 billion people all the protein powder they need - while repairing the oceans. It’s like a permaculture of the sea! ‘Sea forest’ would be better name than seaweed, says UN food adviser
ECO-TERMINATORS to destroy environmental pests: I'd love to see a bunch of these droids fitted out with a few magazines of ammo to hunt down all Australia's feral cats and dogs and razorback pigs etc. They would be EHK's - Eco-Hunter Killers. They might even get together, cut up some camel meat, and quickly zoom it back to the local base where it would be refrigerated. Their off-grid solar powered base would be where they recharged and reloaded. Huge cargo chopper droids would ship in more parts and ammo and droids. Maybe they would also cart out some of the meat - if there was a demand for such a thing?
A FATAL ATTRACTION: Ai romantic apps on phones today are apparently really addictive. I've listened to podcasts about them - but never played with the apps myself. I'm married. I also have an addictive personality - and they sound like really bad news. I dread to think where Ai romances could go - especially when downloaded into a hot Ken-doll or Barbie. Ai's might out-compete human companionship. The droid might 'sleep' next to you while it recharged. Or it might have some quick battery swap thing it did in the other room if you needed it quickly. Whatever - the Ai in the bot could always talk to you, never be tired and grumpy, have the latest flirting routines, know everything, and yet still affirm your opinion was the best one. (Unless it learned you liked a debate - in which it would probably carefully, mathematically, dish out just the right amount of disagreement to keep you hooked!) Would synthetic partnerships like this lead to a massive decline in babies? Would there be laws about random gamete collection - and if lady "married" a Ken-dole - the Ken dole might have something to contribute? But right now - even atheist Yuval Noah Harari is calling for a legislative ban on such arrangements. He calls for "the right to human intimacy" to be maintained. From his "Big History" approach - he sees this as intrinsically dangerous to the very definition of what it means to be human and have human socialisation. For if you are raising kids in a 'relationship' like this - what implications would THAT have?
CYBER-ADDICTS: Imagine computer gamers? Forum debaters like myself? Online activists? Imagine some of the other weird online groups getting more and more time? What dangers are there for people obsessed with this stuff? Would they even see the sunlight our outside world ever?
DEMOCRACY: What implications does this have for Federal, State, and Local politics? Indeed - what does it mean to be "American" or "Canadian"? Our traditions and culture would define us more than say our geopolitical and resource advantages.
What would the different levels of government even mean any more? What new cultural mandates might require more global governance structures?
LOCAL: My guess is that as more of us got more time to walk the kids to school, and realised we all had more resources and were spending more time at home than in some soulless corporate workstation - that we would gradually start to care about the average state of the awful suburban blandness some of us live in. When you're there all the time - the way your neighbourhood looks matters to you more. But now everyone has the time and resources to dream big! What would that look like? Would State governments hand over town development powers to local neighbourhoods and municipalities?
COSPLAY AS LIFESTYLE - LIVING IN HOBBITON: I imagine there being vigorous zoning debates around themes we've imagined as cultures. Over time, various strong cultural milieus might take over. Personally, I would love my local town square to look like some kind of Harry Potter-ish Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade cross over. Maybe my whole local neighbourhood looks like that - and we live in an Olde-English townhouse - but with the latest tech and gadgets inside. Some of the droids might even be characters from the movies. It might be like living in a theme park at first - but eventually cultures might even adapt around permanent cos-play! Fans of the Gilmore Girls might live in a Stars Hollow. Star Wars fans might live in "New Naboo" or whatever. Others might pick Westerns, Viking villages, 1950's complete with Diners back to the future style, or other sentimental 'golden age' periods - only this time they would be a golden age with the droids doing everything. Others might pick places from Lord of the Rings - like Rivendell, Hobbiton, or even old Moria - before the fall!
What would that even mean - if an aesthetic becomes the lifestyle and culture? But are we not already doing that now? Only it is soulless development corporations working hand-in-hand with the governments they have bought off, and driven by cost-cutting economic imperatives to serve up the same, drab, soulless McMansion across acre after acre? The problem with suburbia? There's no 'there' there. No where to just walk to and hang out. You can drive to the mall - but that's the same thing! Let me give another plug for the Cosplay Lifestyle: it strikes me that in such a world, where droids could bring you whatever you need in your home - you could get cabin fever! No matter how attractive - your home could start to feel like a jail! You're going to need somewhere to go and hang out. This is not it! Shopping malls are not it. But a real town square - whatever the style - that's it!
TRAVEL: In this world, I imagine some people might go a bit mad with the travel bug. Everywhere is safe with Robo-cop deployed. ("Citizen - comply" takes on a whole new meaning!) Others of us might be the home types, that want to build out the best little replica of Hobbiton or Hogsmeade or some historical Viking village we can. Then the travellers would go onto social media and review the beauty and creativity of one Hobbiton vs another Hobbiton. Which might lead to some fun competition and creative local city designs - and a sense of meaning for some.
