In each of the four Rustum stories in New America, Dan Coffin solves a problem but the problems are of different kinds.
High Americans are:
independent farmers
technical experts
entrepreneurs
laborers
clerks
servants
routine maintenance workers
etc
All but the first three groups, Coffin rightly classifies as "proletariat" and says that they sink socioeconomically when their jobs are automated. Five thousand more are en route from Earth. Coffin thinks that the result will be a repetition of Terrestrial history:
poverty-stricken masses;
concentration of wealth and power;
growing collectivism;
demagogues preaching revolution;
the uprooted well-off applauding them;
upheavals leading to tyranny.
Coffin will offer a solution. My response is: if these processes are understood in advance, then why is not possible to replace upheavals leading to tyranny with discussions leading to greater democracy?
12 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I'll answer your question: because TOO MANY human beings will prove themselves to not have the wisdom and foresight needed to prevent the upheavals and resulting tyranny.
Sean
Greetings Sean and Kaor Paul,
I'd go one step further and say that not only are a majority of humans devoid of wisdom and foresight, but that the few that it would take to avoid disaster are not in a position prevent it. It would seem our current political systems in the west breed leaders hardly worthy of the name, because we KNOW with near certainty that the AI revolution is coming, we know that a great many, even the majority of existing jobs are going to be made obsolete in the coming few decades. We can hope that new jobs will appear to replace them, as they have in previous technological revolutions, but we should not count on it - instead, we should prepare for a future in which the majority of people are, to be quite frank, economically redundant except as consumers. And yet, no one, absolutely no one is even talking about the structures we will need to survive this revolution as a civilization. Politicians are still talking about "creating jobs" - which even if successful, which it rarely is - is at best a temporary solution.
The prospects for the future with such leadership are almost to horrible to contemplate - sadly, because freeing humans from work should be a GOOD thing. But right now we're headed for some form of new late republic roman system, with empoverished masses of voting clients beholden to whatever great corporation is willing to pay for their panem et circenses. :(
Alas, tyranny is not the exclusive prerogative of government.
Johan,
I agree freeing people from work, at least in the sense of drudgery, should be good. Fulfilling, creative "work" remains possible. Look how much we enjoy making the effort to appreciate and discuss fiction and literature. We want artists and writers to continue their work and we also want to participate in that work by using our laptops and phones to communicate.
Paul.
Paul,
I agree completely. If freed from the need to work to sustain our lives, I imagine the vast majority of people would still employ their time usefully and creatively. Apart from art and litterature, I think many people would still work small business which perhaps could never be competitive in a world with AI - but if they don't have to provide profit for their owners, they won't need to be.
What we should realise though is that in all probability at some point, AI will do also art and litterature better than we can...
Johan,
If AI is conscious, then we will have interesting discussions with it.
Paul.
It is entirely possible that we will find that
a) conscious is not necessary for AI creating great art and litterature
b) we will be unable to tell in any meaningful way whether an AI is conscious or not, mainly because we cannot really define what consciousness is, other than subjectively.
If you haven't already seen it, I warmly recommend the first season of HBOs WESTWORLD were these issues are a thing.
Kaor, Johan!
Many thanks for your very interesting remarks! I basically agree with most of what you said except about AI. I am not quite that confident that an AI is even possible.
I do agree that we are likely to face massive technological and economical leading to widespread technologically caused unemployment. An idea discussed by Poul Anderson as long ago as his "Quixote And The Windmill." And I agree most "leaders" in Western nations are blundering bunglers who have no idea about what is likelky to be coming. Never mind have any COHERENT for handling the resulting upheavals.
While there might come an era where power is de facto held by large corporations, I am skeptical such a set up could last long, because I don't think such corporations could long be a GOVERNMENT and still remain corporations. I think such a "corporatist oligarchy" would soon become corrupt and be overthrown in a military coup. IF the world is lucky, such a dictatorship might evolve into something like the Roman Empire
A dismal scenario, but fascinating to think about!
Sean
Johan,
I argue that we cannot define consciousness period. I suggest that no one can write "X is ----" and fill in the blank in such a way that anyone who reads the sentence comments, "'X' is what we mean by consciousness.'" Either the attempted definition leaves out consciousness, e.g., "X is a particular kind of behavior," or it incorporates a synonym, e.g., "X is awareness/cognition/experience/perception etc." "Consciousness is awareness" just means: "Consciousness is consciousness." The two terms may have slightly different uses or connotations but essentially they mean the same thing. Dictionaries merely (attempt to) define such words in terms of each other.
We know what consciousness is because we are conscious. That means that we are conscious of what consciousness is because we are conscious. We know what consciousness is by experience. That means that we are conscious of what consciousness is because we are conscious of it. We cannot define "whiteness" to a permanently blind man but we need not define consciousness to a permanently unconscious man.
If an "AI" merely simulates the activity of a human brain, then it is not conscious whereas, if it duplicates such activity, then it is conscious. If an artifact (i) has been designed to duplicate brain activity and (ii) "passes the Turing test," i.e., converses with us like a conscious being that is as intelligent as, or even more intelligent than, a human being, then we will accept that it is conscious - but we will still not have defined "consciousness."
Paul.
Sean,
There is now an algorithm that can be given a single sentence and can generate a coherent text to continue from that one sentence.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But such an algorithm does not prove the machine using it is conscious, self aware, able to think or act independently, etc. It's just a software program.
Sean
Sean,
Oh, if it is an algorithm, then it is not aware. The term "AI" has become ambiguous. It can be used to mean simply that a machine simulates conscious intelligence. To be conscious, the machine would have to duplicate the brain functions that generate consciousness.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And I would prefer to use "AI" only in the actual, strict, and literal sense of a computer being genuinely conscious and duplicating the brain functions necessary for that.
Sean
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