The advent of Artificial Superintelligence (ASI)—perhaps, it is the Promethean moment of our era in which, to some extent, Homo sapiens have assumed the roles of gods, data thieves, and beneficiaries, or perhaps even those doomed to face the consequences of it all. We might be metaphorically chained to the edge of the digital frontier, beyond which humanity as we know it may cease to exist. On the other hand, it might be the moment of crossing the Finisterre, the point beyond our wildest imagination. However, behind the Finisterre is just another sea and yet another land, one of new opportunities and challenges, the waters of prosperity and oppression—as it happened to the people who crossed the European Finisterre in Spain and to those they sailed to—historically considered the end of the world (Herrero, 2009). Today, it is just another place on the map, a reminder of our limitations, fears, and daredevils who did not ‘buy it’ that it is the Finisterre. Perhaps the story of the digital transformation is just that of crossing the Finisterre—we know there is unknown; we fear. What is just out there is the usual whole new world of opportunities and challenges, oppressions and profits. We just need to cross the Finisterre to know—and hopefully not commit the mistakes of the past of inflicting genocides on ourselves or others.
The Existential Question
The progress of technology does not preclude the regress of society as a whole, or at least its elements like democracy or callous and nefarious treatment of certain groups and minorities (Arendt, 1968, 1993).
In 1956, when the Dartmouth Summer School gave theoretical birth to AI, W.O. Henderson and William Henry Chaloner worked on an English translation of Frederick Pollock’s The Automation: A Study of its Economic and Social Consequences, published the following year (Pollock et al., 1957). Pollock discussed the nature of society where attachment to the Ricardian value ascribed to labor diminishes.[1] Today, we face a creation of a whole new society, which would no longer be based on labor and a value ascribed to it. As many of us work nine to five, doing things we may not necessarily fancy or find fulfilling—it is our labor that we can give in exchange for our well-being or at least an attempt to attain it. Nevertheless, when this aspect, this incredibly essential staple of humanity we know, from building pyramids to feudal farming to writing grants for a nonprofit—labor (free or unfree)—becomes obsolete, so might the organization of our societal structure. The chilling part of removing the labor equation from society comes with the question—what if most of us become obsolete as well; what will ‘Philosopher-CEOs’ in control (if it can be controlled) of ASI decide to do next? What checks and balances will be out there to prevent potential unethical solutions to overabundant, overcrowded, and mostly unneeded humanity?
In a current societal model, everything that is obsolete gets restructured—into a large part that is discarded and into a small one that is preserved as a relic for posterity. Robert Malthus, an economist and demographer, cautioned us about overpopulation (Malthus, 2012),[2] but what if most of humanity becomes’ unnecessary’ over a span of few years in that overpopulated world? What if someone very powerful will go with the switch to deem most of humanity obsolete indeed… For the authors of Automation, the very process that became the title of their seminal work meant displacement and inequality. If David Ricardo is not needed, so are Adam Smith, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, John Maynard Keynes, Frances Perkins, Friedrich von Hayek, or perhaps you and me.[3] Believing that we will suddenly become Thorstein Veblen’s leisure class[4] raised by the Universal Basic Income might only be wishful thinking. As much as the discussion on the Fourth Generation of Human Rights seems to be a ‘low-cost scholarly endeavor’ at this very moment, we may soon need it to revamp the entire structure of our society and its welfare, retirement, or stock market, or simply we may need it to continue to exist. Perhaps the new social contract might be as desired as never before because even in feudal or slavery times, every human had some ascribed value. However, what should we do with billions of people who do not fit a new reality where each and every one of them is not required for a successful economic, societal, and political enterprise? In fact, I am unsure if even either of these ‘enterprises’ would be needed per se.
[1] David Ricardo (1772-1823), a British classical economic theorist, in addition to his work on comparative advantage and the distribution of income—argued that the value of produced goods is determined by the labor required for their production (the labor theory of wealth) as people in exchange for income provide their work (1821).
[2] Robert Malthus (1766-1834), an English economist and demographer, influenced popular thinking with an outlook on population growth and its relationship to resources (1809).
[3] Adam Smith (1723-1790) and his idea of the invisible hand (1776), Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) with their historical materialism (Marx, 1904; Marx & Engels, 1872), John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) and perspectives on governmental intervention in the economy during the periods of recession (2016), Frances Perkins (1880-1965) and her contribution to the New Deal (Downey, 2010), or Friedrich von Hayek (1899-1992) and his understanding of, among others, the impact of trusts and monopolies on free market and economy (1980).
[4] Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929), an American economist of Norwegian descent, coined the concept of the leisure class, contending that persons in ‘higher social classes’ engage in consumption and leisure to display their wealth and status—having implications on the economy (1912).
Digital Kallipolis 