I have spent the greater part of my time the last several years trying to think of how I could help make AI go less bad for everyone. But in the end, I could think of no certain way to prevent catastrophe. On the one hand, alignment research seems unlikely to advance enough to prevent the creation of a misaligned superintelligence, and in fact hastens its arrival. On the other hand, governance, which could allow us to pause development or put up safeguards, plods along much too slowly—and of course concentrating power could be disastrous in itself. Where is one to turn?
I now believe this entire line of thought was misguided.
Upon first reading Paul Kingsnorth’s Against the Machine, I found it defeatist. I did not (and still don’t) believe that we must opt out as much as possible from interacting with the steely tendrils of the Machine, lest we be ourselves co-opted for its purposes. However, the more I have reflected upon it, the more I have found wisdom in its conclusions:
If we don’t have an endgame—‘saving the world’, say—then everything gets easier. The earth still turns. There are churches. Prayer works. Nature gives and takes. The sunset is astonishing. there is poverty and death and injustice. There are miracles and there is some strange, saving love. It’s all still here. (“The Raindance”)
Or as my friend Sam said, “those who don’t go crazy are destined to inherit the earth”. While I do not think we have the luxury of sitting on the sidelines, I also do not think I, or most people, have any say in what is happening. However many words I write, they’ll still build it. And we all know what happens then. You and I are peons in this game. Those who move the world will make their decisions, and God will judge them, and us, a nation turned to Baal once again.
I think the most you can do in this situation is play Cassandra, and hope to be wrong—proclaim the folly you are witnessing and leave it to God to either harden or mollify Pharaoh’s heart. And like Cassandra, you may well be killed—if not in the sack of Troy, then at the hands of Clytemnestra.
This does not mean abandoning all hope. It means abandoning hope that you can do anything yourself. We are out of the realm of man and into God’s territory. Practically, this means continuing to labor, but out of love, not fear. Some now are seeing how their dream of technology is about to become a nightmare, and race desperately to find some way to salvage it. Others have not yet caught on, and hurry us all over the cliff to oblivion. Let us not be either. As Eric Voegelin said, “No one is obliged to take part in the spiritual crisis of a society; on the contrary, everyone is obliged to avoid this folly and live his life in order.” (Science, Politics, and Gnosticism, “Science, Politics, and Gnosticism,” Introduction) Let us cast off this malaise and work in joy. Whatever God ordains is right.
Much of the wisdom of Christianity is contained in these words: all is vanity. All we do shall pass away. If this crisis is averted, there will be still others. I have puzzled much over this mystery: one must care not about the things of this world, and one must care very much. Life is vanity; life is precious. The difference is in the word “care”—in the first instance, it is worry; in the second, love. To worry over the things of this world is not to love them. It is to assert your right, your control over them, and to be scared of losing that control. However, to love them is to respect their own God-given essence. It is to know the whole world is a gift from God—and to know nothing can be truly taken away from you:
You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars: and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than so, because men are in it who are every one sole heirs as well as you. Till you can sing and rejoice and delight in God, as misers do in gold, and Kings in sceptres, you never enjoy the world. (Centuries of Meditations, I.29)
To love what is, properly, is to love God, the source of all being.
This is why my initial search was faulty. We must not worry about how to save humanity from AI. To do so is to assert your sovereignty over God. As Traherne puts it, it is “the lowness of your base and sneaking Spirit, that make you ignorant of His perfection.” (I.38) It is to deny the possibility of faith, and in so doing, it is to reject the gift of the world and establish in its place a fairy tale. Again, invoking the words of Voegelin, it is to “fall from uncertain truth into certain untruth” (“Ersatz Religion”).
Some will go without end to reject enjoying God’s goodness, vain as we are and uncertain as it may be. According to Solomon, a man with great riches and many sons but who does not enjoy them is worse off than a stillborn child (Ecc. 6:3, ESV). How much more so he who has no possession but his worry.
Instead, I try to focus on the work in front of me, out of love for the world, out of wonder at its greatness. This is no easy task. Just as with Israel, it takes continual reminders of just how small I am. I hope God may use me as some small instrument—but Thy will be done. I can still see the evil—but I recognize it was never in my name that it could be cast out.
