AI has filtered into most aspects of our lives- seen or unseen.
Our days are filled with interactions with our phones, our machines are automated and our utilities are provided to us by a remote source of artificial intelligence. There are some in the world where the act of fetching water from the earth is still a reality, but for those of us in the modern world, our conveniences have given us what looks like freedom.
1. Handmade Wonder
I am not against “AI”. To enjoy the conveniences of our civilisation, I can’t be. But I’d like to explore for a moment what it means for a person to give up their critical and creative thinking to a machine that will do it in a fraction of a second. The real loss is not the art, it’s the human capacity to struggle, imagine, and shape ourselves.
I can only speak from the viewpoint of the artist, as that is my only well trained muscle. I’ve definitely spent more than my 10,000 hours to master drawing, and I can confidently render most things on paper or screen if I put my mind to it. But that skill took me my entire life to shape, it took me making thousands of terrible art works for a handful of good ones.
We can now sit in front of a screen with an idea (heck we don’t even need an idea- AI will do that for us) and cast a spell or so it seems to create that thing we imagined. It is definitely magic- but like all good magic it does involve some trickery.
2. The Danger of Surrender
In an age of infinitely generated everything, what value is there in creating something by our own hands? Let me take you on that path.
A human starts out as an unpolished gemstone, a diamond in the rough if you like. Through overcoming difficulties we cast off the rough and shape the more beautiful stone. Perhaps we discover a fracture or blemish in our stone along the way, but we trim and refine. We strengthen our inner beauty (because that’s where it lies all along- revealed through our perfection) and we work to become that better version of ourselves.
Our inner work is shaped and perfected, and so too is our outer work- especially if you happen to be someone with a craft, and indeed most of us are. Our jobs all require learning and refinement, all require us to solve problems.
But if we hand over the tasks of solving all problems to AI- then we miss out on the fundamental reason a human needs to feel purpose, to feel achievement, to feel whole.
I could generate a very nicely rendered image, but what lands is merely a fleeting moment of interest. Maybe I’m stepping into the world of the mystical here but there is something mysterious about things that humans have created. That sense of awe we get when we look up at the Sistine Chapel or the bewilderment when we look at the concept art of a film, or the experience of playing in an immersive computer game. That sense of awe is curiosity and intrigue into “how did that human do that?” “Can I do that?”
3. The Dystopian Possibility
AI certainly can help us with an infinite amount of tasks, but what happens when it takes ALL tasks away from us? Is the point of humanity the ability to progress? To problem solve? What happens to our psyche when all of our struggles are removed?
Struggles are not created equally. We definitely do not want to continue in mind numbing work, we do not want to struggle to survive or struggle for basic necessities, every human should be afforded the dignity of these basic things. But a struggle for achievement is different, it could be as simple as perfecting a dish we want to cook for our families or as grand as building a hotel from our own vision.
But it’s not in the completion of that struggle that we find meaning- it is along the way. And if we use AI to shortcut our struggle, or any other kind of shortcut for that matter then we miss the point.
So many great minds, once they solve their problem soon find another one to ponder and crack- because THIS IS THE HUMAN CONDITION.
This is why the curiosity gap works so well to keep us glued to social media, why we obsess over completing a jigsaw puzzle. Humans need to solve their own problems in tangible ways.
In a world where our problems are solved, we no longer can call ourselves human. We have to ask ourselves why the elite would want to remove the work from the human hand- they profit from not paying their workers, but if there are no workers, then no one will have the money to buy into this perpetual consumerism?
It’s a scary thought. If the work as we know it is removed from the human, what will a post-labour world look like? It’s definitely not going to be the free time utopia these AI bros are talking about. Not for us anyway.
My mind can’t even comprehend what a world like that could mean for us. There will always be a reason to enslave our fellow humans, perhaps disturbingly it will be for entertainment purposes, perhaps trapped in a theatre for the elite.
4. Hope
And yet there is hope. We have a gift that can’t be automated, our ability to shape ourselves, that is our human compulsion. To overcome struggles to learn, refine, create. Our creative impulses won’t die with the advent of AI. We don’t need to let go of our humanity, as long as we keep thinking for ourselves, challenging what’s created with AI, even collaborating with it. We can reach out for meaning, not ease.
The future doesn’t need to be a theatre of spectators; it can be a collective workshop, because for now, the tools are still in our grasp.