Messy Thinking, Chaos Living
I spend a lot of time with Artificial Intelligence and it messes with my head.
What happens for humans when ‘full’ AI begins? Artifical General Intelligence (AGI) will — in theory — mean that any job with a logical sequence or programmable outcome will be instantly redundant, in that AI will be able to do it faster and better.
As a writer, that’s not great.
Our boy Elon has proposed a universal basic income. Not a new idea, but Elon is saying that we’re all screwed and will need to be paid by the state in because none of us will have jobs.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m here for that. See you at Starbucks.
But is this true? Sure, AI can already create a new Rembrant and compose an original symphony, but can it replace our ‘human-ness’ and what is that exactly?
I read a lot of weird stuff. I love occultist works (The Kybalion is my bible…along with the actual Bible) and self-help books. Michael Singer’s seminal work ‘The Untethered Soul’ and his follow-up ‘Living Untethered’ (which I consider to be the stronger book) talk about surrendering to the flow of life. Singer speaks of the arrogance of humans in thinking they can change what has existed for billions of years and how it’s far more intelligent to live in flow with the river of life, rather than trying to fight it.
The river of life doesn’t follow a logical or programmable outcome and so, for the average human, appears to be chaotic and messy and random. But, according to Singer, once you stop trying to fight it and just lean back and float, you become part of the it and what used to appear as chaos becomes unthinkably beautiful.
There’s no way to ‘explain’ that and therefore there’s no way to program it, or set up variables to allow for it. Allowing for chaos is an oxymoron. AI can’t do it.
For the few million years humans have been on earth, we’ve fought for control. We’ve seen our key strength as our ability to build a dam, or create a new housing development or predict the weather. We’re the dominant species on this planet and we’ve proven it.
But maybe it’s time for a change. Perhaps, as we create a tool that is going to challenge our identity of who we are, it’s time to lean back and embrace chaos as no machine will ever be able to.
Maybe we should stop rewarding structure and treat life as more of a jazz band jamming in an empty bar at 10am and not caring what they sound like as long as they’re in the moment. For example, let’s embrace the inherent messiness of our own brains. The randomness of thought. The nonsensical pathways we forge internally to get to an outcome that might just be insane enough to work.
The time we’re entering has the potential to be a new Italian Renaissance. The Renaissance followed the late middle ages and maybe our ‘middle ages’ is the late industrial stage we’re now in. The darkness of this period of greed and ambition could be followed by a time of art, discovery and openness to different things that could make Raphael, Michelangelo and Monteverde seethe with jealousy.
As we stop rewarding ourselves for working. As capitalism evolves and the means of production are centralised under AI and most likely states (whatever they end up looking like) scramble for control, it’ll be time for humans to become their authentic selves. Flawed. Curious. Chaotic. Embracing of just how temporary organic life is and realising how these attributes, seen as things to fix for thousands of years, are what make us human.
Imagine what we will create with this new way of thinking. Freed of the need to work and make money, what will our lives will look like. How will real freedom feel once the shackles of ‘growth’ and ‘improvement’ are removed?
The great artists of Europe never strove for control or power over their fellow man. They were endlessly curious and challenged their own thinking and tried new things. Not for the credit, but because, deep down, that is what sparks joy in us as a species; thinking, creatin and facing life with optimism and fearlessness. Because the worst case scenario is that we die — and that’s going to happen anyway.
Let’s think messy, be chaotic and remember who we are. God’s weird, freaky, flawed and most extraordinary creation that, when being ourselves, no AI can duplicate.
