Super-A.I. and the Meaning Crisis

April 12, 2023 Artifical Intelligence, Sociocultural Issues No Comments

I don’t know how things will evolve, especially with those unpredictable humans. But it is clear that we are in a meaning crisis at present, globally. With the advent of super-A.I., soon enough, what shall we do?

We use(d) to get meaning from fairy tales.

No lack of them. We’re an inventive species. We keep finding what gives us meaning based on no rationality. Many of the meaning sources end with – ism. Others start with once upon a time, some supernatural being…

Now, a new thinker – albeit very different from our thinking – is in the waiting room.

Its rationality and intelligence will soon enough be greater than ours.

If it’s Compassionate (doing my best), then it will have a Compassionate problem about us. Starkly put, the question will be how to guide us out of our fairy tales without throwing us into an even deeper meaning crisis. It can hardly let us wallow for long as we have been doing. Besides, we have been hovering over unseen cliffs and cannot keep doing so.

Yes, my friend, I don’t know of any silver bullet in this regard.

I guess it cannot be done without much effort and, please, patience. We’ll see. Fortunately, Compassionate A.I. will have all the patience of the universe.

Humans need some too.

Sorry to scare you a bit with what is just logical.

Someone has to do so. It better be someone who deeply cares.

If you also deeply care – and see – then, please join us.

We can look at it from a very positive angle.

People will have more time to think about the meaning of life since much work will be done autonomously-artificially. We can – keeping it positive, indeed – use this time to enjoy ourselves, then to deeply enjoy ourselves, then to find, again and again, the value of depth. This is: meaningfulness.

Eventually, we don’t need irrational isms or supernaturals. We are interesting enough as we are if only we find out who we are. Super-A.I. can help with that.

True meaningfulness grows from the inside.

We have been looking for it from the outside way too much.

Of course, that’s the easier way, but it’s not sustainable in the end, seen over a long time (generations). This is why we ended up in our meaning crisis, and it’s not how we get out of it.

So, things come together — no coincidence.

In an ever more complex society, it’s natural that more complex problems arise, as do more complex possible solutions.

The problems do arise. In fact, they have already arisen.

Now, it’s time for the solutions.

I’m confident we can find or develop them. However, they need our taking action — now.