I often wonder about where my philosophy lies between e/acc or transhumanism or extropianism and whatever the opposite is (Hobbesians, EAs, decels, wordcels?, others.?). The techno-optimist manifesto floating around in the ether space is a worthy read, and it’s a view point that I want to align myself with, but maybe it’s the middle-class ethos in me that really wants to stick with a non-aligned movement such as pragmatism versus e/acc or e/a paradigms.
The fact that technology is a two-edged sword isn’t lost on men. And yet, the fact that we do live a considerably better life than the richest of the lot a few centuries back make technology look like the savior we all needed to provide us with this new default way of life that we all now take for granted.
All techno-historians subscribe to the view that, all in all, technology has been a force of good. Sure, there have been collateral damages along the way, but that looked at it rationally, the momentum for humanity has been accelerated beyond our ancestor’s wildest dreams.
The common argument here is that while the progress has been significant, and useful for humanity, in our hubris and selfish pursuit of species’ goals, we have relegated the idea of this world as a system with many different elements that are interconnected with each other to an extent that we still have not figured it out, and that furthering the agenda of a single species cannot be the ultimate purpose or goal of this system. The habitat, the ecological system, the social system, the cosmological system, all are part of us and we are part of them.
The argument here goes that we are, in our ignorance of things we do not know, taking shots at things we don’t entirely understand and breaking the equilibrium of things that have taken eons to establish. The little blip in the overall age of the world, where all this technology and progress have happened, is nothing short of a flash in the pan, and if we are not careful, this flash could end up dissipating the hard-won freedom from the ravages of nature, the hard-won odds in a hugely cosmic probability game.
I have heard mention of the new age of AI being that of a probabilistic universe versus the deterministic one that the world of computers, code, algorithm, and web heralded. The logic is that the LLM-based systems that have taken the world by storm, are at their core, a reasoning engine based on probabilistic algorithms and increasingly, as systems based on these LLMs take center-stage in our lives, we will all be driven and nudged and propelled by the probability calculations these models drive, unbeknownst to us and to their makers too.
In a sense, we are the children of a war that we won away through sheer probabilistic good luck. And now we are keen on playing a game where we shape the world around us through probabilities. Hallucinations maybe a quirk, a bug today. But with advancements in AI systems, and in its applications, they would soon become a feature instead of a bug. The fact that these AI systems can generate/cook something entirely their own, un-familiar to humans, can herald a new age of active experimentation for these systems to throw up something radically new, and yet correct. A million monkeys typing on the keyboard are likely to type up something resembling a Shakespeare, and so goes the logic with these LLM models as well. The hallucinations they cook can, in the future, be new ways of thinking, new paradigms of scientific voyage, or new perspectives on looking and understanding the world around us. There is an exciting, unknown door that will lead us to unfamiliar territories.
We should not be scared of this voyage and neither is it right to condone those who do. We have embarked on a perilous path of endless technological progress, without which, it does seem like, our civilization may not survive. A kind of civilizational rat race we are competing in with only ourselves and the deep, dark forest out there.
But e/acc isn’t the right way about it too. Or maybe it is, who knows. And that’s where the buck stops. Nobody knows what this new paradigm will wring upon us, if anything at all. And to put brakers on at this stage seems foolhardy. Maybe this new technology will be the savior we have been hunting for, the big bang that will lead life into a new, promising territory. Or maybe the technology will run rough-shod and break a lot of things including some fundamental understanding of the world around us. At this point it seems absurd to even consider the possibility of singularity. But we are getting closer, and the danger is, that a wrong foot here can lead to perilous outcomes. And I am not talking AI-takeover. Heck, doomsday will look nothing like the AI-overlord scenarios that sci-fiction relishes in.
The reality will look a lot similar to the social media infested world we live in today with completely new occupations cropping up, a new lifestyle taking hold, and an explosion happening with content that may well be fodder for the AI-driven world we foresee for our future. The reality is, most likely, more humdrum than we would like to believe and it will impact people differently. Those impacted negatively will be “collateral damages” in our relentless pursuit of technological abundance.
This brings up the age-old question of agency and ethics. Are we better off not doing anything, resting on our laurels and advancements, and instead de-growth our way into a calmer, more deliberate world? Or are we fated and morally obligated to hunt for the elusive technological frontier that will eliminate human labor, make inequality moot, and unlock abundance even if it comes with a healthy dose of megalomaniacal ethos?
I wonder if we can rely on the wisdom of the sages of ancient years, or the writings of the scriptures, and believe in humanity’s preference for taking action. Which means doing what we can to continuously improve our lot and take/accept the rest as they come. For in movement lies the ultimate reality.
Jargogled Impressions. 