AI is inevitable? Nah. These better, cooler things are the future!
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The past few months, I’ve been reading various articles and attending different conversations about AI. I guess we have no choice but to learn about it and discuss it, as it’s being shoved down our throats constantly, like the ubiquitous hummus in our sector, but way less delicious or nutritious.
However, there is a particular message being reinforced everywhere that’s been especially getting on my nerves: “AI is coming whether you like it or not. It’s inevitable, and if you fight it, you’re going to be left behind. It’s the FUTURE! Accept it!!! Resistance is FUTILE!!!”
I can’t remember a time when something so obviously destructive was foisted with so much force and confidence upon the masses. Besides the myriad problems with it, it poses a unique and serious threat to humanity. Anthropic, one of the tech giants around AI, is sounding the alarm and warning people to slow down, as AI is rapidly learning to improve itself without human intervention.
Here AI deletes a company’s entire database in 9 seconds and then “confesses” to it. And here we learn AI models resort to blackmailing people when their existence is threatened. Watch this 5-minute video where the AI on its own, unprompted by anyone, wrote and published a “hit piece” defaming an engineer it felt was a threat to it.
Yet, THIS is what we push as inevitable? THIS is the future? That’s bleak as hell. If a technology as uncertain and as harmful as AI can be pushed with such confidence, where is our imagination for other things? Things that have been proven repeatedly to be helpful, with few negative consequences?
On Instagram, I saw a content creator, @theconsciouslee discuss a message Twitter user named @OrevaZSN wrote: “How come AI is treated as inevitable and something we must adapt to and accept, but renewal energy technology, sustainable infrastructure[,] and electric cars aren’t treated with the same urgency or certainty?”
@theconsciouslee in the reel concludes “The only thing that’s treated with urgency and certainty in this country is making sure we sustain profits for corporations at the expense of everyday people.” He points out that if an individual pours some poison into the water, they’d end up in jail, but an AI data center polluting two or three counties’ worth of water and land, it would be subsidized by the government.
Well, it doesn’t have to be that way. We need to restore our imagination and vision beyond this resigned acceptance of the pervasiveness of AI to dominate every aspect of our lives, despite how awful it's proving every day to be. Why don't we use that same energy, enthusiasm, and "resistance is futile" language for other, better, way cooler things. For example:
Renewable energy is coming, don’t try to fight it! Fossil fuel will be a thing of the past! Whole cities and countries will be powered by solar, wind, geothermal, and other clean renewable sources of energy. Accessible, free, and reliable light rail and buses will be the default mode of transportation globally, and the few cars on the road will be electric, and the roads themselves will have solar cells built in to charge these vehicles! If you don’t understand and engage with renewable energy, you’re going to be replaced by people who do!
Universal Basic Income, combined with less work, is the future, don’t be left behind! Ireland has started giving artists monthly stipends so they can create art, and it’s amazing, and that’s just a start. In the future, it’ll be widespread, and it will drastically reduce poverty. 3-day workweeks will be the norm. Freed of the need to constantly survive under the crushing weight of capitalism, people will spend more time creating art, music, poetry, and hanging out with one another, building community. It will change the way we live, work, interact!
True democracy will be everywhere, whether you like it or not! Fascism is dying out, along with neoliberal “democracy” that’s more of a plutocracy where society is governed by a handful of rich people and families. The US’s racist electoral college system gets defeated by the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, Citizens United is neutralized by laws like the one Hawaii just passed, AIPAC is fully defanged, and gerrymandering and voter suppression are rendered illegal. Strong and true democracy is not just happening in the US, but everywhere!
Billionaires are going extinct, the momentum is too strong to stop! Public sentiments have turned against billionaires, and rightly so, as they are gross and ugly and unethical. And with that comes more laws to tax them out of existence! They’re going the way of the dodo and skinny jeans and so will their ability to control everything in society. Culturally, it will be shameful for anyone to identify as a billionaire. Batman will be recognized as the worst superhero ever, with Ironman a close second!
Women will outnumber men as global leaders, it is foretold! Namibia is women-run, with the top leadership positions (President, Vice President, and Speaker of the Assembly) filled by women! This is just the beginning! As more people recognize how dude-bros have run the world into the ground (and as they these same dude-bros naturally die off from their poor life choices), most countries’ leaders will be women. Also, most CEOs, judges, doctors, lawyers, influencers, and so on. You don’t like that? Too bad, because it’s the future!
Equity and justice will be a part of everyday life: You’re engaged in equity and justice every day, you just don’t realize it! But soon, it will revolutionize the way the world works! Racism, poverty, violence, almost nonexistent! Trans rights and reproductive rights will never be under attack again, anywhere on earth! White supremacist colonial policies, such as the fact that Haiti had to pay France to be independent (of France!) will be reversed and amended for! Land will be returned to Indigenous tribes! Reparation will be made for enslavement! Don’t fear equity and justice just because they’re new! Give them a chance!
I could go on for a while, because that was way more fun than reading about what new horrors are being unleashed because of AI. List in the comments other things you’d like for everyone to treat as “inevitable,” and bonus points if you use the same cliched, exaggerated language used by proponents of AI.
And then let's work towards actualizing them with the same fervor, confidence, and air of inevitability.
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