Move over Margaret Atwood and George Orwell.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is another imaginer of future history whose sci-fi story parallels unfolding news. Player Piano, published in 1952, anticipated today’s hopes and fears.
In this story-world, algorithms replaced decision-making and AI replaced workers. The protagonist is a man in a grey flannel suit who defends the broken social systems from within a privileged enclave.
The conflict in Vonnegut’s story-world
The diminished numbers of employed fiercely protect their jobs and that job’s relevance. They insist there’s value in their performing the meaningless tasks and titles that AI hasn’t yet taken.
The employed are terrified of joining the underemployed doing make-work chores in exchange for monthly government stipends. The unemployed pity and resent the employed hoarding their entitlements. Each tries to find value and meaning in their lives by not being ‘the other’.
The conflict in the real world
Some researchers assert that the uses and consequences of their work are not their concern; innovation without responsibility for the results. Some scientists involved with the Manhattan Project regretted the use/abuse of nuclear technology. Even Elon Musk, in 2018, concurred with Vonnegut about AI’s potential social harms.
Even if the Earth isn’t annihilated during a global conflict, we may still want to flee — from robots. “I’m very close to the cutting edge in AI, and it scares the hell out of me,” said [Elon] Musk. “It’s capable of vastly more than almost anyone knows, and the rate of improvement is exponential.”
AI is morally neutral and ethically biased
As with most complex problems, I explore opposing ideas and multiple perspectives. What if both ideas are true and all perspectives are correct? Being open minded opens the mind. Yes, I might be proven wrong about something I believe, but I’d rather know that.
AI is not just one thing, nor only good or bad. Will AI unleash its own evil or save us? AI helps some, hurts others, and leaves some unaffected. Or maybe some of each. The person whose job AI takes might be saved when AI guides the cardiac surgeon operating on them. Technology saves lives and technology enables denuding the natural world. Technology gives and takes meaning out of life, and gives and takes lives.
What does the future of AI hold?
No plan exists or is capable of existing to ensure which future happens. Maybe Skynet. Maybe Blade Runner. Maybe Star Trek, (insert fav series here). Few predict H. G. Wells’ (1905), A Modern Utopia as the future. Wells envisioned AI as relieving humans of repetitive work. Vonnegut Jr. argued that all work can have meaning; just ask those who have none.
Since we don’t know and the future is now, this is the time for more complex analysis of the various possible outcomes. Because, unlike those who take no responsibility for the outcomes of their decisions
For another view, see CHRISTOPHER PISSARIDES, Why worry about automation?
