Most people aren’t anxious about artificial intelligence
You may have heard that we are startled by recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI). If a piece of software can perform a number of tasks better than humans, in almost no time, without whining, and cheaper, what will become of us? We were told that the bleakness of our future made us “anxious.” But the fact is, even as we acknowledge the advances in AI, the majority of us are not anxious. We are simply not that type.
You may have heard that we are startled by recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI). If a piece of software can perform a number of tasks better than humans, in almost no time, without whining, and cheaper, what will become of us? We were told that the bleakness of our future made us “anxious.” But the fact is, even as we acknowledge the advances in AI, the majority of us are not anxious. We are simply not that type.
Most people were not anxious about robots in the 1960s, computers in the 70s, any major automation of the 80s and about the Internet. Some people were anxious, and they still are anxious, and may remain so, because they are prone to anxiety. And they are the ones who told us to be afraid.
Most people were not anxious about robots in the 1960s, computers in the 70s, any major automation of the 80s and about the Internet. Some people were anxious, and they still are anxious, and may remain so, because they are prone to anxiety. And they are the ones who told us to be afraid.
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AI anxiety is in the class of ‘climate anxiety’. It is the anxiety of innately anxious people that has been given a name. If it wasn’t AI or climate, they would have found something else to be anxious about.
A characteristic of anxiety is that it must spread, looking for new colonies. The intermediary transmitters of anxiety, such as journalists and organizers of enlightened festival, may not be anxious people at their core, but they are never sufficiently skeptical about a new anxiety. They might even find it interesting. As a result, they contribute to the spread of the compassionate idea that you may be anxious. It is a wave of compassion that precedes the wretched. But human society resisted this. This is why every age has familiar anxiety, but most people are not anxious. You are expected to be anxious about an innovation or a bleak future, but you are not, you are just tormented by personal demons.
Last November, an American organization working on artificial intelligence, including programs that train themselves to imitate human communication, released a prototype of a chatbot that seems to have impressed many people. Google scrambled an answer. And now many people feel that programs that program themselves to perform a wide range of tasks will affect the immediate future of the world.
The fountainheads of global anxiety, which are usually in the West and never, say, Africa, have gone beyond telling us how millions will lose their jobs. Some of them are in the phase of comforting us, saying that automation has created fear in every century, so it is natural to be afraid. There are cute stories of protests against the invention of paper, the printing press, how Queen Elizabeth I refused a patent for a knitting machine in the 16th century because she was afraid it would take the jobs of women who knit, and how dressmakers in New York protested the adoption of sewing machines, and of course how people feared the dawn of computers.
Some also console us by pointing out that each automation, although it made some jobs obsolete, ended up creating more work. This is a popular but absurd argument because people who are made redundant are usually not the same people who are hired in the new jobs created by new technology. How then is it supposed to comfort someone?
Job losses due to artificial intelligence are highly likely, and the new opportunities in this new world can especially benefit the young. Most people accept this, yet they are not anxious. This is our nature. People also know they will die one day, and even that does not make them anxious.
What if an asteroid collides with the earth in a year? Will there be mass anxiety? In that case, maybe. But even that, after the initial hysteria, can be surprisingly less intense than we imagine. I think people can face an impending disaster if everyone is going to get hit. This is one reason why AI doesn’t make most of us anxious.
I do not deny that there can be public issues that create anxiety. For example, sociology students who see their bleak future, or many Muslims in India today. But, even in these cases, the cause of anxiety has to do with the feeling of being in a minority. Generally, anxiety is not caused by a public issue, but by a unique personal situation. A village of hungry people is likely to have lower levels of anxiety than a child in an urban middle-class colony whose parents have just lost their jobs.
People who don’t have anxiety are underrepresented in media, both old and new. They make up most of the world in numbers, but very little in the way of emotional influence. The most powerful transmitters of ideas, whether writers or “influencers”, are driven by their personal concerns which they want to give more glorious names. This often makes them interesting and persuasive. Take the fear out of rogue AI. A thought experiment by Swedish philosopher Niklas Bostrom, to illustrate the dangers of AI, raises the scenario of a machine programmed to maximize the production of paper clips. Bostrom’s paperclip maximizer will create new technology to consume all resources on earth to make so many paperclips It will also destroy all humans because they can turn it off, interfering with paperclip production.
Most people don’t feel this kind of anxiety, but the few who are prone to anxiety have successfully created the fear of technology and machines that manifests itself in complex ways. For example, at first glance it may appear that excessive concern for privacy has nothing to do with the fear of sentient machines. But I believe it comes from the same wound. This is evident in the anxiety among some who seek more respectable names.
Manu Joseph is a journalist, novelist and the creator of the Netflix series, ‘Decoupled’
