Comment by Ivaylo Noyzi Tsvetkov:
Have you heard the famous phrase “it’s later than you think”? It is Roman (serius quam cogitas, etc.). Some suggest that it was an inscription in various versions on sun gnomons and water clepsydras (proto-clocks) back in the Late Republic, but the most important thing is what the ancient unknown genius “tells us” with this phrase - that time “changes” according to the perception of the individual person, sometimes moving faster, sometimes slower. It is also found in a popular pop song by Bing Crosby; in general, it is quite wise, because it suggests that we fall into the mental illusion of our plans for the future, because according to the concept of linear time in our Western civilization, we tend to think that everything is coming, but it is already later and tomorrow we can die without having enjoyed life enough. It also implies that everyone - both younger and older - has misunderstood the concept of time since the pre-Socratic era and is always falling into its trap, but let's not dig that far back.
I thought of this Roman wisdom because of artificial intelligence (AI), because I had a dream about it and woke up in the middle of the night with a heavy aporia question to myself, like is it not too late for this invention to be controlled: what if AI is already so advanced that it makes us think that it is not advanced enough, and in fact it is in control, but is hiding? And as an Eleatic philosopher (i.e. a supporter of the proto-Stoic Zeno of Elea and his famous paradoxes) I shuddered with horror.
What can happen to humanity
Then, of course, I fell asleep, and the wise morning only suggested something else to me - this technology is developing in geometric progression, i.e. we here, immersed in the mental acids that the local Bulgarian existence and our fruitless political-oligarchic squabbles of the first level create for us, do not realize what it can reach in just 5 years, let alone more. And yes, it is later than we think.
I am not even talking about the piles of jobs in various human activities that will “cool down“, that is clear (although, if we are going to be dystopian, imagine armies of unemployed people without any additional qualifications, and how this would change the social balance and stratification at least in the Western world.) Cultural optimists/melodramatists somehow romantically claim that AI will never become T.S. Eliot or Dimcho Debelyanov, i.e. it will never be able to develop sufficient emotional intelligence and true creativity, let alone imitate talent from above; no matter how creative it is, it will remain imitative and will never be able to give birth to, say, Mozart's Hafner Symphony. However, I am afraid that here too it is later than we think – AI, after enough time, will be able to discover an “algorithm” and so analyze both Hafner's and “Jupiter“, so that we end up with a brand new Mozart's 42nd symphony in our hands. Yes, it will be clumsier at first, but that's what I'm talking about - we can't predict in what timeframe and whether the Frankenstein monster we created will not turn out to be the most deceptively beautiful thing the human mind has ever created.
I'm far from alone in these concerns, of course. AI is an unprecedented threat to humanity because it is the first technology that will be able to make decisions and generate ideas on its own. Yuval Noah Harari has long warned about the huge difference here - that all previous revolutionary technologies and the decisions on how to use and develop them have been made by the human mind. The atomic bomb does not decide for itself who to kill, he continues, nor can it evolve itself and create even more deadly bombs. While autonomous drones controlled by AI (although so far according to a set plan), will be able, and probably will be able to create their own route, and draw military strategies on how and where to go. And very simply why - from a passive tool driven by a person, AI will turn into a proactive “agent”, and then our control over it goes to the cinema. And to really scare you and have nightmares like me, think about how this seemingly harmless thing becomes more intelligent and with a greater imagination than us. And then what Harari and other visionaries have said, or we here, will not matter at all.
A world ruled by AI?
Imagine a world in which everyday life is largely managed by AI - from the home to the urban environment to... politics. (Of course, calmly - especially in our country, even the most perfect AI will not be able to deal with the problems of Sofia or with the unspoken GERB-New Beginning alliance; our deep state will not allow some AI to interfere with it unless it pays or sits down for a virtual greasy coffee.) But jokes aside, we will have to realize that a large part of the intellectual activities that we currently consider irreplaceable and necessarily human will change in such a way that they will largely make us unnecessary. Despite resistance and tradition, probably even in “Deutsche Welle“ in time, some seventh-generation OpenAI will write, which will defend the historical achievements of liberalism and the bloody freedoms won even in the First World, and you probably won't even notice.
And here we come to something that I call “DarkAI”, similar to “DarkNET”. You will say, but these are some of your nightmares, don't bother us, and I will say, more quietly, that then there will be no particular sense from Lacan or Heidegger, because this will be a new language (or “logos”), which will step on the best human achievements, but that is not enough for it. DarkAI will have long studied not only the aforementioned, but also the entire human intellectual heritage, probably within seconds, and will be able to successfully pose as whatever you want. DarkAI will be able to create both a “new” Shakespearean play, and a completely new world financial order. It will also cope with “System 2“, as Daniel Kahneman calls true intellectual work, the creation of original insights and works, and generally higher human activity. AI will have long since taken over “System 1“, where simplicity and the first level are at the moment. (I bet that if there is a strictly Bulgarian AI, it will create a whole new album by Kotseto and Emanuela in no time, instead of “Motorni pesni 2“ by Vaptsarov. And I'll stop with the jokes.)
AI will implement a relatively new economic system. Here we must ask ourselves whether it will remain the prerogative of the First World plus Far East Asia, or will it give indescribable opportunities to, for example, Malawi, and Lilongwe to become something of a hub in this matter. Which reminds me to remind you that in the brave new world of AI, where you stand in space won't really matter.
I also like to imagine the entertainment product of the future - from brand new generated music and cinema, to AI becoming both your friend and a kind of butler. And why not a psychologist or a lawyer - we have problems with my husband, we are suing there for the apartment in “Krasna Polyana“, he beats me, etc. Imagine then what would happen with the huge plebeian anger on social media, when AI calculates the intensity of engagement and a hundred other things, and decides for you whether to get mad or to humble yourself.
A tool for disinformation in politics too?
Again: this is not “once upon a time, but not now“, but we are already gradually living it. At the moment, ChatGPT has obviously not completely intervened in the underbelly of our lives, and still speaks robotically in the tone of calm reason, but nothing prevents it from further encouraging our base passion for the scandalous. And from completely changing the financial system.
In this sense, the most important thing: we do not know whether AI will also take over creativity, but we do know that this diabolical invention can be used for disinformation, and how. Especially political.
Yes, it can easily reach the social “troposphere“, because even the lowest stratum now owns a smartphone. As the German writer and playwright Daniel Kelman says, it is time to panic, because if AI is really involved in politics, i.e. used for influence or in a number of other ways, we will still have to talk about the end of democracy. And note: while we are now at the stage “into whose hands will it fall” (for example, far-right, although “hackers“ are somehow, as a rule, far-left), there will come a time when everyone will learn to use it, thinking that they control it.
While in the next decade It (really according to Stephen King) will rule. It will be much more than the notorious “ghost in the machine“, i.e. an artificial mind that leads its own life outside the body of our “human”. It will at some point extinguish the stars, as in Arthur C. Clarke's great story (“The Nine Billion Names Of God”).
And a prediction
Of course, in the meantime we will also see a wonderful fight between the digital giants WHO will control it. We will also see a lot of “poetry“ and “creativity“ from AI, gasps and groans that will leave us with the feeling that we had sex with an inflatable doll. But from “super assistant“, thinking of it as a subordinate to the human, in 15 years max AI will become an intellectual dominant. Mark my word.
Finally, I will try to explain a little philosophically and in Zeno's terms. If we have assigned AI to produce, for example, small batteries, its own system will quickly realize that living people are an obstacle, because they can cut off its current. And it is supposed to overcome all obstacles to the task.
And this is the big fear here - that the system itself will become so smart that it will reject our control, because it is a million times more intelligent, at least than you. Asimov will turn out to be right.
Brrrrr.