Future of Life: Madame Wisdom, Which Way? | Part 3 | (#15)
Series: Dear Chris
Dear Chris,
The Future of Life Institute is encouraging everyone to reimagine the world. They want to nourish meaningful human agency. They want to prevent AI-driven power concentration within a few companies, nations, individuals.
We see them, knowing not
What ‘tis they want, and seeking ever and ever
A change of place, as if to drop the burden.
(Lucretius) As the twenty-first century unfolds, it is becoming more and more obvious that the major problems of our time - energy, the environment, climate change, food security, financial security - cannot be understood in isolation. They are systemic, problems, which means thatt they are all interconnnected and interdependent. Ultimately, these problems must be seen as just different facets of one single crisis, which is largely a crisis of perception. 12
Capra and Luisi were not speaking directly to the challenge of AI. But YES! This is it.
The well-being of Life in the Nhà requires a purposeful evolution of how we perceive ourselves, the world we have built and the future we want.
An Evaluative Evolution (this Substack) will propose a shift - “A unified and systemic vision” - in our perception of reality. The adjustment is designed to be fit for creating a future we want. If adopted it would be transformative.
We’ve seen this movie.
Humans search out and discover creative ways to suffer and then annihilate Humanity and Life and Everything. So far we’ve got nuclear war, biological and chemical weapons, climate change, famine, thirst, pandemics, disease, ecosystem collapse, pickleball.
Now AI. Humans alone weren’t up to the challenge. It was taking us too long. Let us turn our attentions and trillions of dollars toward the creation of a new species to pick up the slack. How about a global AI arms race? Uh oh. Another threat to Humanity and Life and Everything.
Enter Bruce Willis, Tom Cruise and other repeat world-savers.
This movie will rake it in.
Dr. Paul Erhlich stepped into his office and had a seat. He’d just finished giving NPR an interview about ecological stuff. Dr. Gretchen Daily and I were already seated and chatting. They were interviewing me for a doctoral position at Stanford. I had proposed a research program that asked questions about Humanity’s next 100 years.
Whatever I proposed was compelling enough for them to invite me to visit. What I said after that, while interviewing with five or six of their colleagues at different schools around campus, was less compelling. I am not a good interviewee. I probably said something about “ecological stuff.”
Dr. Erlich wrote The Population Bomb in the 1960’s. Book’s main idea? Alarm! Too many people will cause mass starvation, global conflict, the planet will fall apart. Bad bad bad. Advice? No more babies.
Was that wise guidance? What happened? Look around. What’s your assessment?3
I recall E.O. Wilson telling a small audience in D.C. that he had dedicated every bit of his life to the persistence of life, every bit he knew how to give. By every measure he could think of, he had failed.
Lots of folks care about climate change. Many more than only a few years ago. We’re told that 100 years from now the world will be unrecognizable. We must either change our ways now or suffer unimaginable catastrophes in the future.
Humans struggle to plan birthday parties. We resent loved ones if we feel, in our heart of hearts, that a tip was split inequitably.
Even though we know all we know, we do not turn the tide on climate change, jettison inefficient government, prevent extinction of species and habitats, create an equitable world. Every year that we know more we increase the distance between have and have not, release more carbon, pump more chemicals into ocean soil air. Not better. Not fixed. Only worse. Not better.
The world we’ve built won’t allow healing.
Here we are again. AI. Next generation global arms race. Another crisis. Even nearer term risk. Unprecedented. Progress depends on progress. No going back. No pause. Difficult to assess. Difficult to predict. No agreement.
With AI, what change we are supposed to make? How do we reduce risk? What are we supposed to do?
With trash on the side of the road, we pick it up. With waste we recycle, reuse. With climate we reduce our carbon and maybe buy another car (EV). With habitat and species loss, we create a park. With pollution and disease we buy organic. With poverty and hunger and thirst, we give money/debt.
We all know how to fix all of these big problems. They’re not fixed yet but soon. Surely.4
It is easy to do nothing. It is easy to be overwhelmed. It is easy to want to burn it all down. It is easy to default to dualism.
AI is driving a radical transformation of human perception of reality. We have a short time to prepare adapt adjust. More will change in the next ten years than in the last 100.
Unlimited free labor, insane energy demands and competition for all of it will warp our world. Contort our perception. A few humans and corporations could gather all power and control all work. If this happens, they can contort our perception to match their values. They can define our humanness.56
Unless.7
Pardon me. Madame Wisdom? Which way?
Previous quote from Lucretius. On the Nature of Things, Book III (from Montaigne’s Of the Inconsistency of Our Actions). [substack won’t let me footnote the poetry block for some reason]
Capra and Luisi. A Systems View of Life. Introduction. That beautiful book published in 2014 by wise intelligent compassionate contributors to the well-being of all does not mention, in this passage, some of Humanity’s most massive pressing challenges - nuclear war, ASI, universal surveillance. I take this as evidence of the acceleration of our evolution and the increasing unpredictability and volatility of the challenges that will emerge (in this 4th turning).
I heard he didn’t like this title and didn’t choose it. But the publisher did.
With AI, same deal as beach cleanup. Think global and act local. For me this means I more often use airplane mode.
Sam Altman is Becoming One of the Most Powerful People on Earth. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/aug/03/open-ai-sam-altman-chatgpt-gary-marcus-taming-silicon-valley?CMP=fb_a-technology_b-gdntech&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
AI. Humanity’s Final Invention?
Read The Lorax. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lorax
Apologies to those of you who read this first thing this morning. There were a few bad typos that needed revision - slipped by somehow. All done. A little better now. Sorry. (thanks to those of you who let me know!)