AI: What hath we done? Freed the Genie or opened Pandora’s Box?
Current sentiment around artificial intelligence is largely centred around loss. Lost employment. Lost control. Loss of the world as we knew it. Notice our cultural longing for 70s music, 80s TV shows and the seminal 90s when history was cleaved in two: the pre- and post-internet eras. Grunge music even marked the cultural inflection point.
Our sense of loss is driven by the chaos unleashed with the opening of AI’s Pandora’s Box. Chaos is, of course, the nature of change, and the rate of change fueled by AI is accelerating. Chaos isn’t inherently good or bad. It’s the process of creation. Chaos is the rawness of becoming. In Nature, the Creator guides the becoming. In our built world, tech bros guide the becoming. They took the wheel of the car while we blasted Nirvana, not noticing.
But AI is becoming what? The wish-granting Genie from the bottle or the flood of dark beasts springing from this freshly opened Box of Pandora? We’re already getting strong whiffs that it’s very much Pandora. At least with the Genie, we get what we wish for. With Pandora, we reap the whirlwind of opening the Box without knowing why.
It’s all stirring in the cauldron of our shared reality, and we’re not the ones doing the stirring. Representing nourishment for all, The Cauldron, actually known as Ting from the ancient Chinese tome the I Ching, suitably illustrates this situation in how it feeds and transforms, for good or bad. It depends on us.
As the I Ching counsels:
THE IMAGE
Fire over wood.
The image of THE CAULDRON.
Thus the superior man consolidates his fate
By making his position correct.
~ The I Ching or Book of Changes (Wilhem/Baynes)
In our shared cauldron, dystopian fears are dominating AI conversations in all expressions of current culture, from movies & TV to music, social media and news, of course, in all of its traditional and emerging forms, truthful or not. This is indeed a stew of fears, hopes and dreams, all wildly possible, and all very much out of our collective control. To be sure, we will seal our fate if we do not act out of ‘correct position’.
What wicked stew doth we brew? When it receives the Kiss of Divinity, will it be our doing or undoing?
So, what does correct position mean in the age of AI? It should mean alignment with truth, values and collective wellbeing.
But correct position is certainly not the case today, as this AI Cauldron is solely tended by the hands of technocrat billionaires. Our collective fate is set adrift in wildly oscillating forecasts of the future that regularly beach in the form of some tech CEO wearing a boom mic in front of a crowd, giving a speech or responding to planted questions in a forum or talk show. Every statement or sound bite often becomes headline news, boosting or crashing this or that stock. They’re all racing to win. And our hearts, souls and pocketbooks are the prize.
Those wishing to profit from the power and chaos unleashed by these tools are solopreneuring, or offering ‘consulting’ (in a space still governed more by hype than by clarity), or irrational doomsaying, all in a mob-like quest for more subscribers, more likes and more cash. This is very much like Jennifer Lawrence’s movie Don’t Look Up, but in this case, the comet is AI, and the expanding danger is unfolding every day, a slow-motion tsunami, while the hustlers are making a buck every which way they can.
The current dialogue could be summed up as this:
AI is simultaneously hailed as humanity’s greatest opportunity for abundance and innovation, feared as an existential threat to jobs and autonomy, and driven forward by powerful interests more invested in profit and control than in collective wellbeing.
~ironically yours, ChatGPT
The Cauldron is stirred by the wrong people for the wrong reasons. AI technology is being thrust upon humanity in the name of progress, but never before have we seen ‘progress’ (read disruption) on so many fronts, as our world careens ahead on a winding mountain highway with pretty much no guardrails.
Recall recent history; the arrival of the internet wasn’t permissioned. We weren’t asked if we wanted it. The internet just happened, quickly moving from an exciting but mysterious curiosity into a must-have resource for the modern world. Since then, it has infiltrated every aspect of our lives. We became addicted to it all.
Before our geese get cooked in the pot, we need to understand what meanings and impacts AI will have on us, not only this year but for the rest of our future history, so we can snatch the stirring spoon and put in our own ingredients. From correct position. Meaning humanity, not technocrats, manages the birth of this new era.
It’s kind of important. Entire livelihoods will be wiped out, or vastly changed, with systemic effects reverberating worldwide. Teenagers planning their post-secondary education are second-guessing everything now, trying to imagine what their contemplated career will be, or if it will even exist in the 5 to 10 years they have to complete their education. What meaning will money have when we mostly lose the ability to earn it? Solopreneurship is great, but not for everyone. Will we be saved by the rise of the zero marginal cost phenomenon? Universal basic income? Do you think any of that is on the radar of the current U.S. administration, or any other governments? Not.
They came for our attention in the 90s and monetized it to unprecedented heights. The most valuable companies in the world are testament to this fact. Now they’re coming for your jobs, your identities and your souls. If left unchecked, we will, forevermore, be fodder for their machines. The abattoir awaits us all.
So, the answer, of course, is we need to have our collective hands on the stick. The sooner the better. Because if we keep a hands-off approach, we will let AI happen to us, as it is now, rather than the other way around. We can’t put the Genie back in the bottle. We can’t close the box. But we can tend the Cauldron, with care, intention, and perhaps even love. And then we can have an intelligent conversation with the Genie about what our future will be.
The future is being stirred. Let’s not leave it in the wrong hands.
The next series of essays, foundational arguments for the Robot With a Thousand Faces publication, will explore both approaches to the Cauldron and how we may bridge the metaphors of the Genie and Pandora, if that’s even possible. From that place, we, as a human collective, can then become the activists for taking back control of AI and how it will impact us in the years to come.
Next in this series:
Choosing the Mythic Role to Live By
The Genie Out of the Bottle: AI as a Wish Granted
Pandora’s Box: AI as a Curse Unleashed
Bridging the Two Metaphors: a Fool’s Errand?
The Robot With a Thousand Faces 