Are we becoming redundant?

What is happening on the technological landscape around the world is truly mind-boggling and horrifying! The AI (Artificial Intelligence) with its latest soft coup against human beings, in the form of Chat GPT, is a warning shot that has not yet been given serious attention. Besides snatching away jobs and threatening the very basis of human interaction, the AI is bent upon making us powerless and ultimately useless. The big tech companies and authoritarian regimes want this radical transformation to continue as it serves their strategic interests but one wonders why the rest of us are silent when it poses an existential threat to humanity!

An open letter, published in March and signed by more than 30 thousand prominent scholars and scientists, calls for all AI labs to pause for at least six months to develop consensus on its strategic direction and regulation. The letter raises the following questions on the threats that AI poses to humanity: Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth? Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? Should we develop non-human minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilisation?

One of my colleagues at SZABIST thinks I have got it completely wrong. He believes, and may be rightly so, that human beings have tremendous capacity to create new technologies and to adapt themselves to their socio-economic impacts, sometimes in imperceptible ways, and most often by making conscious psychological transition to the new world in making. History bears it out too. The fear around AI, he suggests, is irrational as no technology, however smart and powerful, can replace human creativity and intelligence.

The Industrial Revolution was, in all respects, a profound human experience as it transformed societies and states in Europe and around the world. Although it led to WW-1 and WW-2, the rise of communism, colonialism and climate change but political leaders and other social actors managed to develop institutions and tools to make it work for the betterment of humanity. A global order was established with the UN playing a pivotal role in promoting peace and human rights, democracy flourished in a short time span, and the living standards improved everywhere.

But all previous technologies made humanity powerful, not powerless! A nuclear bomb cannot make decision about when and where to explode; trains cannot make decisions when and where to go; aeroplanes do not have the capacity to fly without human intervention, and so on. AI, on the other hand, not only makes decisions on its own but can also learn and relearn. AI has now started making complex business decisions without human interference and is making strides in medical, education and transportation/ communication industries. To put it bluntly, it is on the path of making most of us redundant in the near future.

The scariest part of the AI revolution is the hacking of human beings and possible manipulation of their emotions and infringement of privacy. What we search, watch, read, whom we talk to, where we are, and how we react to posts shared on social media is all open for access to governments and tech companies thanks to smartphones and internet. The huge amount of data, computing and storage capacity, and the emergence of AI seem to make human agency (the freedom to choose and act) a thing of the past. What should we think, behave and live is going to be determined by big corporations and states!

One would not recommend halting the transition into the digital age, but it is certainly necessary to understand its dynamics and the new world it is going to create. We should not allow technologies to take away our humanity and liberty by making us redundant, slaves and worthless entities. We cannot afford a society where consent is manufactured and conformity is promoted. AI, in its present form and direction, seems to be the real Frankenstein monster. It is the responsibility of the world leaders to develop consensus on wise regulations to capitalise on the new technology without capitulating to its harmful effects.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 19^th, 2023.

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