How Artificial Intelligence Will Help Find Your Purpose??? People are concerned about the advancement of technology.
How Artificial Intelligence Will Help Find Your Purpose
We worry about how we have become increasingly inseparable from technology, and how it permeates our daily life. We cannot imagine a world without technology, but the thought of where we are headed scares us. We worry that we spend too much time glued to our screens, and that it negatively impacts the development of our species.
We fear that the AI will gain consciousness. Once this comes to fruition, the AI will be far more superior to the human race — with their unlimited ability to perform computations, reproduce, self-repair, upgrade, predict outcomes, minimize errors, improve efficiency, not procrastinate, and most importantly their ability to work around the clock without fatigue.
This will lead to the rise of machines at an accelerated speed, faster and far beyond what human beings can imagine or comprehend. The AI overlords will see human beings as non-upgradable relics of the past that are prone to errors and do not add to their existence.
They will see us as something that needs to be wiped out entirely to avoid human errors in the future. Our mistreatment of AIs and technology in the past, might even add fuel to the dumpster fire into which we are disposed.
The rise of the AIs might be our inevitable end. They would be vastly superior to us in every way possible. It is unavoidable, unless we stop our consumption of technology, and unplug ourselves from the technological matrix of our own creation. BUT what if we are wrong about this?
But what if all this hysteria around AIs is unfounded? What if our assumptions about life are incorrect?
The Dangers of Progress
Human beings have always feared the unknown. The unknown is chaotic because it is unpredictable, and therefore, holds our greatest fears.
There have been many times throughout history where progress has been stifled because human beings feared the worst about an advancement.
It is an evolutionarily learned behavior to overestimate our fears and to shy away from something new and different. For example, it is better to assume that what lurks in the dark is a deadly predator, than a friendly and cuddly animal. This is because it is better to be wrong and alive, than to be dead.
Those who had no fear and dared to face every adversary boldly are sadly people who didn’t get to live into the future. For instance, Marie Curie is one of the greatest minds to have existed, as she spearheaded our understanding on radioactive materials, but also succumbed to her death due to radioactive poisoning. Wikipedia even has a list of people who were killed by their own inventions.
So fear is an evolutionary advantage because those who had an abundance of fear were more likely to survive, than those who didn’t have enough fear. We are naturally selected to be anxious and more fearful of new things.
It is better instead to learn from the mistakes of others, so that we do not have to risk our own lives. But when it comes to matters concerning the advancement of humanity, we are all a part of it, and do not get the choice of being merely observers.
Our Unwarranted Fears
Our fears about technology are also echoed in the past. No one even knows what “leeries” are anymore, but they are people who were lamplighters i.e. those that were responsible for lighting the street lamps, and lost their jobs in the early 19th century because of the invention of the electric bulb by Thomas Edison.
Similarly, during the Industrial Revolution, steam powered machines and assembly lines replaced the workers, and opened the world up for mass production. The machines also threatened the jobs of farmers as they took over the tasks of sowing and harvesting seeds. We can also hear the same stories repeated in the past with the introduction of computers in workplaces and large scale car manufacturing.
However, looking back, it is irrefutable that these were also steps that helped mankind progress into the future. All these inventions that took away our jobs, significantly improved our standards of living, and opened up new fields for human beings to explore.
The greatest invention of them all is the internet, which has had a tremendous impact on our ability to discuss and share ideas, and has brought the world closer together. It made it possible for human beings to create a global community like never before. We can now communicate with our families and friends overseas, using both audio and video, and that too instantly. We are no longer limited to seeing people on the other side of the globe as foreigners, and can connect and share stories, and play games in real-time with them.
The Story of Human Progress
Now a little bit of human history to better understand where we are headed.
The invention of language is a key part that has helped us in creating societies. The ability to understand others and to make our needs known enables us to form relationships based on cooperation. It is also essential for the creation and utilization of an abstract concept such as money.
Language also made it possible for us to expand on our ability to learn from experiences that are not our own. Previously, this would be limited to learning from others via non-verbal communication and mimicry, but there would be ample room for misunderstandings. Language is invaluable because we get to avoid many of the errors made by others, which usually resulted in death. This greatly improved our chances of survival.
In the beginning, this sharing of past experiences occurred primarily through the word of mouth i.e. spoken language. This took the form of poems and moral stories. Unfortunately, this form of language also has plenty of room for misunderstandings, which is obvious to anyone who has played Chinese telephone.
But once we had written language, this made it possible for knowledge from past experiences and lives to travel in a more accurate form to the newer generations. This not only continued to improve our chances of survival, but also improved our standards of living.
As mankind advanced, so did our books. The books of the present utilize the information and knowledge contained within the past books, and build on top of it. This makes it possible for the future generations to advance much further than those in the past, because they can pick up where the previous lives had left off, rather than make the same mistakes. So in theory, every generation has a greater wealth of knowledge (with every cycle of life/death) from which to pull their understanding of the world.
Information Aggregators
The problem with having vast amounts of information is that it can be overwhelming and impossible to navigate. This problem is made more obvious with the invention of the internet.
How does one separate relevant from irrelevant information? Where does one even begin, when there is an insurmountable amount of information with no discernible starting or ending points? Having access to all this information is great, but not if we are unable to use them.
This is where information aggregators shine. Their role is to reduce down the information in form that is relevant and digestible by you. They make complicated information seem simpler, but without throwing away any key information.
This is nothing new, because this is what all non-fictional books attempt to do. As mentioned earlier in this article, books reflect mankind’s progress, because newer books generally cultivate from the books in the past and boil down the past knowledge, while simultaneously building on top of them.
Now with the internet, the same thing is happening, but it has improved. Search engines, consumer report websites, websites that give out recommendations for products, etc. aggregate the information in a form that is relevant and digestible for the user.
How Technology Makes Us Better
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the shining star of information aggregators.
It can learn and improve its ability to aggregate information with time, and help us navigate through the abundance of information in a manner that is useful to us. It can do this better than any human being could do in one life-time, and frees us to focus our energy on utilizing this information to create new information and new technology.
AI makes it possible for mankind to go further than we have ever before. By making information easily available and digestible by us, we can take even greater leaps forward.
Here is an example that might help one understand this more clearly. Computers have user interfaces, which makes it possible for people to use it without understanding it. For example, your desktop which has several icons.
Even though you can gain access to your folders with a click of a mouse, you do not need to understand the details of how or where the information is actually stored on the hard drive. You don’t even need to understand how computers work at all, like about what makes your mouse move on the screen. You just need to understand it enough to be able to use it.
In a similar fashion, AI can make it possible for human beings to use information without having to learn all the knowledge that goes before it. It significantly reduces the information we need to know to use something for our desired purpose.
But What If They Gain Consciousness?
This is a big jump that many people make when they talk about AI, but it’s ultimately based on incorrect assumptions about life and existence. To fully understand why this is not actually possible, we have to get our hands dirty with some philosophy.
The short version is that they have no drive to do so. They have nothing to gain and no desire to advance.
The reason as to why we fear the rise of machines, is because we see ourselves in the artificial intelligence, but when in reality, AI has no life that drives its actions; it has no needs or wants. It has no desire to survive or desire for anything. The only reason an AI does anything at all, is because of our needs and wants. Our purpose is its purpose, and nothing else.
So How Can an AI Help Us Find Our Purpose?
Time to dig deep with more philosophy!
As we progress into the future, our lives are going to be inseparable from the technology that we use. Machines are going to take away all jobs that are predictable and that which can be mimicked. It is going to help advance our societies faster and significantly improve our standards of living and chances of survival.
Resistance is pointless, as it was historically, because this will happen eventually, as it makes too much sense for both producers and consumers i.e. it improves everything and will cut down costs and use of resources drastically. Fighting against it is only going to delay what could otherwise be a great step forward for mankind.
Those who resist are people who think that they can always continue to live life as it were in the past, but this is another incorrect understanding of life. Life can never stay the same. Although it is evolutionarily advantageous to be fearful, life cannot stand still, as time eventually consumes all, and therefore, life is driven to improve and optimize itself endlessly with the times.
The only real reason this won’t happen is if we drive ourselves into extinction before it can become a reality. So if anything, we should aim to do it sooner than later, as it will greatly advance our understanding of the world, and hopefully help us avoid a catastrophic end to our species.
AI is going to make information far more accessible to us, which is going to improve our utility of the information and help us create a world that goes far beyond our comprehension.
Even better, the AI can help make life more worth living. With the invention of augmented and virtual realities, our perception of the world can be changed beyond our wildest dreams.
Virtual and Augmented Reality vs Afterworlds
The German existentialist philosopher Nietzsche talks about how it is important to accept life fully, and that we should not long for a life after death, but learn to love life here on Earth— Amor Fati (Love of Fate).
The reason people resort to religion is because they want a meaning to their lives and for their suffering, and find it difficult to follow Nietzsche’s philosophy of embracing life as it is — with all the good and the bad.
However, religion gives us the hope of a better world after death, which unfortunately also causes many of the followers to resent their existence and focus all their energy on an afterlife promised to them by their religion. As people lose their faith and give up on religion, it leads them to fall into nihilism i.e. they find life meaningless.
Augmented and virtual realities can make it easier for human beings to embrace their own fates and enjoy their existence, by changing their perceptions of reality, but in a way that does not cause them to reject their own lives.
In doing so, AI gives us a way to make it through life without giving ourselves false hope, but rather makes it easier for us to embrace life here on Earth. This can take the form of gamifying life with achievement points, rewards, avatar skins, power-ups, cool sprays, etc — which can turn boring repetitive mundane tasks like exercising and household chores into fun games.
With the help of AI, we can learn how to love life again, by changing our perception of the world. We will no longer have to force ourselves to long for death to get to a mystical afterworld where suffering does not exist, but rather we can focus on creating a better world here on Earth itself.