You shouldn’t worry about AI. What you should worry about is class inequality.
We should be moving towards French Revolution 2.0
This is a quick note I couldn’t go without publishing. There are things I see coming which I think everyone should benefit from knowing.
Every time a new technology emerges, people panic: “will my job be replaced?” — I saw that in the early 2000s when the Internet became a widespread thing, and I’m seeing it once again with AI.
Guys, first of all… No, there is no such thing as an apocalypse of the machines. That’s because the creature can never replace the creator, and yes I can say that without a context because it wasn’t even me who relied the original message. So, forget that. I know a lot of people have that fear, which in fact is wishful thinking (yes, I said what I said. Your fear is WISHFUL. It comes from a fantasy of finally meeting some kind of “parent figure” who can look after humanity because you reached adulthood and realised adults didn’t have everything figured out, and panicked. But I regret to inform you this will never happen. So stop trying to make it happen). We are responsible for our own salvation. We, human beings. Not aliens, not machines, not even gods or guardian spirits. Just us. I know it’s scary and intimidating, but it’s the truth. So, stop crying like a baby, stop looking for mammy, and accept the responsibility you now have.
AI, just like any tool created by humans, is here to bring us all a new opportunity to figure out who should be given authority and who should obey this authority. Ever since humanity started, since the dawn of human History, we’ve been grappling with this dilemma: who should lead and who should follow? In which contexts and occasions?
I mean, seriously. Look at literally every conflict ever — the stories change, the locations and identities change, but at the root they all have something in common: disagreements about who should “steer this ship”.
It will be no different with AI.
Currently, we’ve been giving this power to money. Money steers the ship. So, if you have a lot of it, congratulations; If you don’t, good luck. That’s Capitalism. “Oh but we elect our leaders”, yes, that’s true, even in the right-wing and centre, that tends to be the case, but in the end of the day, who controls these politicians’ decision-making? Do you think they’re all-powerful? No, they’re not. The way things are now, most politicians are guys next door earning as much as you. People with money control them, it’s that simple. This is more or less true, depending on a country’s level of adherence to Capitalist antics.
Attempts have been made at other systems, such as Socialism — but it repeatedly fails, no matter where people try to implement it, because it ends up functioning like a monarchy, minus the birthright part: yes, socialist leaders are elected, but… What EXACTLY do they have that any other commoner doesn’t have? If Socialism has a motto that basically boils down to “everyone is equal because we said so”, then why should specific people be the leaders, and not some random guy whose name was drawn out of a hat? Honestly, tell me. Every time I ask Socialists this question, they deflect. This is why I’m not far-left and never will be. “Oh, it’s just democracy, the majority vote elected our leader”, say far-leftists. Okayyyy… but why? On what grounds? What convinced this majority? Anything measurable, concrete? Or just propaganda and promises?
You see, this is where we’re at. We haven’t yet figured out how to pick our leaders. Ever since pre-History, we have this problem. And I gave you a political example above but I’m not just talking about politics.
Love it or hate it, the reason the world is the way it is, with corporations controlling what happens where and everybody else feeling powerless… Is not because of some conspiracy. There is no conspiracy. There’s just Capitalism. We have all bought into it, not because we’re “dumb”, but because we’re scared. We’re afraid of our personal power. We would rather give power to something abstract — like money — than admit that we don’t know why some people lead and other people follow.
I’m speaking in general terms because THIS IS a big-picture issue. It affects every aspect of human life. And technology doesn’t escape it:
Back when the Internet was invented, it was no-one’s land. You could make videos using whatever content your heart desired without worrying about copyright, you could dox people without consequence, you could pass anyone’s work as your own, you could do a lot of things that today are unthinkable. I’m not endorsing these things… I’m just saying they used to happen. All the time. I was there, I experienced it myself.
Now, there are rules. And why are there rules? Because we’re “collectively evolving and ascending, uwu, wholseomeness and glitter and unicorns?” No. Take off those rose-tinted glasses. It’s because of humanity’s original dilemma: “who is in control? Who is the boss? Who is daddy?”. We always come back to it. Can’t you see?
AI will have the same fate. We’ll go from despairing that AI is “stealing jobs” to marvelling at AI because “it helps me in my job”, to… lamenting that corporation X now owns all the important AI programs, and if you can’t pay, too bad.
I’m not saying it might happen. I’m saying it WILL happen, and I give you no more than 5 years. The only way out is to please, for god’s sake, I beg you, stop panicking about the novelty of AI. Less panicking and more owning. More patents. More bureaucracy. Grab it while you can and make the corporations jump through hoops to get it. Distribute it among as many small owners as humanly possible.
And then maybe, just maybe, after several millennia, we will have made SOME progress towards *real* democracy.
