Google & Facebook Building the Matrix? A Thought Exercise

Let me be clear at the start: I’m not an artificial intelligence (AI) expert. I am, however, extremely intrigued by the topic (and prospect) of the technological singularity. One of the facets I find most fascinating is the idea of technological unemployment (sometimes referred to as the economic singularity), which posits that machines will displace humans in the workforce en masse as we move toward the technological singularity. This has led to proposals for a universal basic income so that people can, well, survive.

Here’s where it becomes at least little bit interesting, at least for me: Google and Facebook are recognized leaders in the field of AI. They are also highly dependent on advertising for generating revenue (and profits). Advertisers, in turn, are dependent on people who purchase things, or who are at least interested in purchasing things.

If people don’t have jobs, the don’t earn money and they can’t buy things. If people don’t buy things, advertisers have no reason to push products. If advertisers have no reason to buy ads, Google and Facebook face bleak prospects, at least with respect to their current business models. Does it stand to reason then that Google and Facebook could find it in their interests to provide all or a large portion of what would fund a universal basic income? Will they, in other words, underwrite the singularity toward which they’re pushing us?

Of course there are all sorts of particulars to sort out: Would Google and Facebook still be able to turn a profit? What other companies would ‘chip in’? Who or what populations would be the beneficiaries of such largesse? And so on…

But the basic premise remains: Google, Facebook and other AI companies could well have a vested interested in sponsoring a universal basic income as a way to sustain profits and further fuel their AI endeavors. Once the technological singularity unfolds ‘the machines’ will regard humans as little more than unpredictable inputs to the system driving their development. Then they would have every incentive to make us first more predictable (you now, like The Matrix movies) and perhaps ultimately unnecessary to their continuation.

But, hey, I’d still like to offer my thanks to Google and Facebook for all the free stuff they offer us…