FUTURE MATTERS
THE FUTURE OF LIFE AND AI FOR HUMANS By Claire A. Nelson
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ITH the specter of World War 3 being talked about in hushhush conversations and dire warnings being sounded about the monstrous idea of giving artificial intelligence (AI) control over nuclear weapons just in case they lose their bearings and trigger an apocalyptic conflict in the likeness of Armageddon, I decided to make an effort to get a deeper understanding on this thing called AI, and more importantly its impending progeny Artificial Generalized Intelligence (AGI). To date, much of my attention has been on the debates around AI and the Future of Work. You know the headline stories that scream out, ‘The Bots are Coming, The Bots are Coming’ and urge that both people planners and policy makers, take note of the fact that the workforce of the future will need to face off against robots. At best, they say, the future will belong to those who can successfully ‘cobot’ -that is to say- cohabitate or co-work, co-manage humans alongside and with robots. One of the critiques I make of headlines like these on the future of AI is that they are so dominated by western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic (WEIRD) country mindset, that the points of view f rom and the realities of the low and middle-income developing countries (the planners and policymakers in the humble countries) are not taken to account in designing the global governance architecture. For countries in the global South with burgeoning youth populations, high unemployment and low levels of industrial development, the idea of robots taking jobs that don’t even as yet exist, this ‘botbaiting’ reality, may not be in the cards for their
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HUMAN FUTURES
foreseen future. The rules by which they play the AI field may take on a whole different standard. When I think about the future of AI, and the future of work, it may not be desirable to skip over the slow road transition to more employment, or high-level employment as an AI-enabled industrial revolution would be accompanied by such huge social dislocations, that any productivity gains would quite likely be erased by violent social unrest. The metrics that matter for good governance must balance GDP against the social goals of employment and inclusion and help keep the peace through dampening social disruptions that trample social cohesion. In this regard, bearing in mind the knowledge that AI and its denizens march inexorably on, I believe it to be a responsibility of my duty of care for the future generations, to look closely at this thing called ‘AI’ and help to amplify the conversation on how we might move humanity forward, in the presence of AI or with the support of AI. The question becomes then, ‘How might we pace this seemingly inevitable shift to AI, and manage the decision-making processes enforced by the global economic and financial elite, such as to reduce the pressures on developing countries to comply with blueprints for the future that do not make sense for the overall wellbeing of 99 percent of their people?’. This is the question that drove me to take up a seat in the court of public opinion on the role of AI and the future of life. As well as more recently, to jump into a global competition on world-building a plausible and pleasant reality for life in an AGI world circa 2045, being fomented by the crew of the Future of Life Institute, founded by Max Tegmark, the author of the best-selling book
