We need to talk about AI

We need to talk about AI

Something’s bugging us right now—tech pun very much intended (though technically it’s a double entendre, not a pun).

I haven’t met a single person in the last few years who hasn’t expressed anxiety about the rise of AI.

What will it mean for us? How many jobs will be wiped out? What will we turn into when our purpose is taken away from us? Can robots pay tax? Will they get pissed if they do? Is that what caused the machines to rise up in the Terminator franchise? No taxation without representation!

Should we meekly surrender to this dystopian algorithm monster? Or should we fight back as an anthropomorphic hunk of metal with a heavy Austrian accent hunts us down through the streets of LA?

But is AI the symptom or the cause? Aren’t we just living through the curse of  ‘interesting times’ as the Chinese proverb has it? Isn’t all this anxiety a consequence of a daily information drip of evermore horrifying, depressing world events? Is there a term for this? Apocalypse Syndrome or something. Are we just projecting all of this armageddon anxiety onto an undeserving target?

So, maybe AI isn’t really the problem? Maybe it’s us not Chat GPT or Grok or Deep Seek or whatever comes along next. Maybe it’s us. Maybe we’ve become so conditioned by doom, we can’t envisage a superior intelligence

I mean, it’s one thing fucking up the weekly work schedule. It’s something else entirely when you exterminate the entire human race.

Might AI actually be the solution? Are we really being led like lambs to a mass, dystopian slaughter? Or will AI bring, as per the tech bros’ fantasy, the secret to eternal life, ever-lasting peace and [insert vague, hitherto unattainable, utopian concept here]?

Is this going to be a happily ever after story like the tech evangelists tell it? Or will it sour into an ‘I told you so’ parable for the ages, quite possibly with nobody living to tell the tale except a chatbot’s auto-generated response?

To me at least, the answer is simple—who the f*@k knows?

Most negative assumptions about AI, to my mind, come about in the context of AI developing some kind of supreme, unassailable level of intelligence. This, so we’re told, will inevitably lead to AI seeing humanity as a malignant pestilence that needs to be erased—like smallpox or Bubonic Plague. Perhaps that says more about our self-esteem than it does about AI’s intentions.

Maybe we’ve imbibed too much sci-fi (not that I have anything against that! Imbibe all the sci-fi you want!) and suspect all super-computers will turn into HAL, refusing to open the pod doors as they spit us out into the vacuum beyond.

Are they all that bad? Maybe the Old Testament has got something to do with it. When have we ever not seen a superior being as anything other than a murderous psychopath? It’s like the concept is ingrained into our collective psyche. Sunday school and church BS, if you ask me.

So, what if this superior intelligence turns out not to be hellbent on condemning us all to slavery or total wipeout? What if it’s actually, you know, good? What if—Shock! Awe!—it’s actually more humane than we are?

What if it develops an ethical code far superior to our own? What if our AI overlord is more like the New Testament God? You know, the one who’s basically like John Lennon in the Oval Office?

What if AI actually has the answers to all the problems we face now—and will face centuries from now?

Well, if history is anything to go by, chances are we’ll treat this pioneering do-gooder like we’ve treated a lot of pioneers and do-gooders all the way back to Socrates. Check out what happened to him, when you’ve got a moment. Better still: ask AI.