Why Are We Afraid of AI?

 

Why are we afraid of AI (artificial intelligence)? AI is a tool that we have created, for the purpose of serving our needs, and therefore it would seem that it should be good for us, should enable us to accomplish something that we currently cannot do.

The problem is that AI is going to enable an even greater surveillance over every aspect of our lives, and apparently make decisions based on the information it gathers, in accordance with the law. Is it so scary that we should become a nation that follows the law?

A human has capacities that AI does not have, and should AI develop some of these higher qualities then there should not be an issue. The question becomes, do we have confidence that we are still going to be able to live according to our higher qualities, or do we seem to feel AI is going to dominate?

And when we look at it from this perspective, we seem to be right to worry, because we see people’s lives all around us being destroyed by the unfeeling, mechanical application of the law, both administrative and criminal. If we’ve already lost the capacity of human judgment, the capacity to consider people’s motivations, needs and history, then there can be little expectation that AI will exceed us in this respect. There can be no justice without heart, and humans are the ones with the heart.

Not only do we see a criminal justice system that regularly sentences juvenile offenders to life in prison, handing down similarly highly excessive sentences to all as a matter of course, but we see our social safety networks cutting off the indigent and the poor due to bureaucratic realities, with no recognition of their actual need. We see insurance companies freely refusing care to those who may well die without the necessary treatments, in order to make profits.

We have become inured to the reality of a government that has allowed the development of an economic system that shovels wealth from the poor and the middle class up to the already wealthy shareholder class. A powerless government is not very comforting as we confront a future with AI. In the balance between government and corporation, the corporation has won. Financial capitalism, shareholder capitalism, corporate capitalism have used our collective ostrich-like tendencies in giving us just enough to keep quiet, to move us into domination by the profit motive. Our billionaire class, primarily male, has won.

Until now. The power released into society by ‘Me Too’ has been greatly underestimated. The rise of the black woman in politics, ready and ably positioned to take on the rich and powerful, changes everything. The social activism emerging from every corner of society, whether on the streets, in coffee shops or institutions quietly designing new paradigms, is ready to join forces and initiate a new era.

The universe itself has intervened and made it clear that the earth will not accept any more abuse, the corporate go-to method of extracting profit. The Christian Nationalists  (like Mike Johnson, our new Republican Speaker of the House) currently trying to convince us that Christianity is on their side, having resorted to rejecting Jesus’ actual teaching on the basis of its being too weak, have failed to reach the masses. We know deep down that Jesus was right, we need love and acceptance and universal empowerment, not domination by the wealthy and privileged.