When modern civilization voted away monarchies, we collectively sought to get rid ourselves of leaders that were psychopaths. Yet here we are today.
When optimization is the primary driver of civilization, we structure our lives as if we are cogs in a great machine. As a consequence, our leadership also treats people as if they were also machines.
The fear of AI is because they replace us as cogs in the machinery. Thus we lose our relevance. We cannot stomach the possibility that AI replaces our psychopathic leaders. Thus we lose our agency.
The danger of AI has more to do with how we organize our civilization and has less to do with its growing competence. If we remain collectively confused as to what it means to be humans, we will inevitably create a civilization that ignores our humanity.
What advanced technology affords to humanity is the luxury of time. When we are given time, we can pay attention to what it means to be human. It is only when we collectively are given enough time that we recognize why we are relevant.
History tells us that people who inherit the luxury of time have the most revolutionary breakthroughs in understanding and improving the human condition. The affairs of humanity are sufficiently complex that it is easy to get lost in the trees and overlook the grand forest.
The most valuable of all technologies are the kinds that open up new perspectives of understanding. AI is this kind of technology just as the internet and literature that came before it.
We can either wield this new technology to drive greater disinformation (see: selling sugar water) or employ it to better understand what makes us human.
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