Elon Musk, entrepreneur of some renown, believes that the sudden eruption of a very powerful artificial intelligence is one of the greatest threats facing mankind. “Control of a super powerful AI by a small number of humans is the most proximate concern”, he tweets. He’s not alone among silicon valley personalities to have this concern. To reduce the risks, he has funded the OpenAI initiative, which aims to develop AI technologies in such a way that they can be distributed more evenly in society. Musk is very capable, but is he right in this case?
The idea is closely related to the notion of a technological singularity, as promoted by for example Kurzweil. In some forms, the idea of a singularity resembles a God complex. In C G Jung’s view, as soon the idea of God is expelled (for example by saying that God is dead), God appears as a projection somewhere. This because the archetype or idea of God is a basic feature of the (western, at least) psyche that is not so easily dispensed with. Jung directs this criticism at Nietzsche in his Zarathustra seminar. (Musk’s fear is somewhat more realistic and, yes, proximate, than Kurzweil’s idea, since what is feared is a constellation of humans and technology, something we already have.)
But if Kurzweil’s singularity is a God complex, then the idea of the imminent dominance of uncontrollable AI, about to creep up on us out of some dark corner, more closely resembles a demon myth.
Such a demon myth may not be useful in itself for understanding and solving social problems, but its existence may point to a real problem. Perhaps what it points to is the gradual embedding of algorithms deeply into our culture, down to our basic forms of perception and interaction. We have in effect already merged with machines. Google and Facebook are becoming standard tools for information finding, socialising, getting answers to questions, communicating, navigating. The super-AI is already here, and it has taken the form of human cognition filtered and modulated by algorithms.
It seems fair to be somewhat suspicious — as many are — of fiat currency, on the grounds that a small number of people control the money supply, and thus, control the value of everybody’s savings. On similar grounds, we do need to debate the hidden algorithms, controlled by a small number of people (generally not available for perusal, even on request, since they would be trade secrets), and pre-digested information that we now use to interface with the world around us almost daily. Has it ever been so easy to change so many people’s perception at once?
Here again, as often is the case, nothing is truly new. Maybe we are simply seeing a tendency that started with the printing press and the monotheistic church, taken to its ultimate conclusion. In any case I would paraphrase Musk’s worry as follows: control of collective perception by a small number of humans is the most proximate concern. How we should address this concern is not immediately obvious.
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