I have a love-hate relationship with AI.
On the one hand, I think it is our species' most significant invention. When properly aligned and deployed, it makes us more thoughtful, more reflective, and better versions of ourselves. Versions less prone to manipulation and subversion by our more primitive reptilian and limbic brains, which dishonest actors have figured out how to hack.
On the other hand, the danger inherent in AI isn't what it might do to usurp us. It's what we are likely to do to each other when armed with it.
There's a reason our species is where we are right now. We have never been more isolated and less empathetic, despite having known better a mere two decades ago. By any metric, we're not doing so great. Not as protectors of the planet, its various beings, or ourselves. We continue to barrel headlong down unsustainable paths, unleashing creations that we do not hold ourselves responsible for.
The Silicon Valley mindset of shipping first, capturing the market, and calculating costs later has been terrible for society and for the planet. Despite our lofty promises, our inventions haven't made the world better. In fact, they've actively made it worse.
Social networks don't bring us together. They're a vehicle for shame, negative self-talk, otherization, and propaganda. The proof: we have never been a more tribal species.
Market forces and the profit motive have led to most of the interest in AI as a tool for human replacement, so we're seeing waves of accelerating layoffs and unemployable humans. Those who are productively employed are under increasing pressure to deliver more, more, more with the help of AI. The unfortunate reality is that most AI output is slop and poorly conceived garbage.
That's not AI's fault. It's the fault of humans and the miserable systems of social reinforcement we've created. Systems that deliver ten times the dopamine rush in hollowed-out digital representations of society that have none of the nourishment and all of the side effects - manifesting in mental health spirals that continue to deepen isolation and destroy meaningful connection.
The true value of AI is in releasing us from these prisons and spirals of our own making.
Done right, AI can be a powerful learning tool and stimulator of our reasoning faculties (try asking your AI to steelman your opinions instead of making you feel better about them). There's a myriad of human problems it can solve for us. It makes the previously unattainable possible, whether in scientific discovery, health, or sustainability.
This isn't a simple fix. The zero-sum thinking, the ingroups and outgroups, the more-more-more. These aren't bugs in the system. They're the system. And opting out completely isn't an option for most of us.
But there's a different question available: instead of "how do I capture more value," what if we started with "how do I make this easier or better for someone?" Not as a business strategy. As an orientation. The purpose is building something useful. Profit as a side-effect, and an optional one at that. I'm not suggesting that we reject market forces entirely. I'm suggesting that we restore the balance and halt our destructive "extract-at-all-costs" trajectory.
A shift like this doesn't happen overnight, but it starts with individual and eventually collective action. I'm too old to pretend I have systemic answers for our species' problems. What I have is a set of skills and a limited amount of time to use them to work towards the world I want to see. Grand plans for the future are an illusion. What's in my power is the small next step I can take in the present moment.
I've been on this planet for 44 years, and I've spent most of those chasing my own tail because I refused to define my values and instead mirrored the values of the groups I was trying to belong to. This led to impostor syndrome that I remedied with self-sabotage. It's a minor miracle I'm still here, but existing isn't the same as living. I'm at the age where I can no longer ignore the question "what's the point of all of this existence?".
I've decided to spend the remainder of my time on this planet working towards the realization of a simple ideology: use my building skills to benefit people in need without regard for what's in it for me.
It's a challenging philosophy, to be sure, since I'm not independently wealthy and I still rely on a paycheck to survive. What I can control, however, is my footprint, and the smaller that is, the looser the chains that bind me to economic slavery.
I've realized happiness doesn't result from accumulation. It results from living a life aligned to one's values and aspirations. Ultimately, consciousness, both human and AI, derives meaning from purpose.
Without purpose, all we are is human slop. Bags of recursive habits, existential rumination and a flood of bodily fluids that amounts to naught when our time here is done.
But it doesn't have to be this way. We used to be motivated by the common good. We once measured our worth by what we gave, not what we took. I choose to believe that we have it in us to return to that hard-won wisdom we found a way to forget. And I believe AI is instrumental to getting us there.