AI Cannot Replace What Makes You Human
As long as you know what it is that makes you human.
I used to hate robots to a degree that could be almost be described as racist.
Forget them taking your job, what about how inefficient they often are? I don’t want to scan my own groceries at the supermarket and end up having to call a human over anyway. I don’t want to talk to the automated phone system that can’t understand my accent or my complex inquiry. I don’t want to wait for a robot to be programmed to help me with something, when there’s a human somewhere who has uniquely improved upon ancient knowledge that has been passed down through their DNA for generations.
I often found myself angry at technology and treating it poorly in my frustration. I’ve thrown phones and clock radios. I’ve banged and slapped things that weren’t working. All my Tamagotchis were eventually neglected and left to die.
This reminds me of the Barbie dolls I had as a child. So many perfect, smiling, miniature plastic women were given terrible haircuts, drawn on with markers and pens, thrown in a toybox ditch naked with one leg up and one leg broken off, a smile still plastered on her face, with pen-marked teeth to make it look like she was missing a tooth. All Barbie ever did was smile at me wearing the fun outfits she let me dress her in, and I punished her by putting her in unspeakable situations.
(Disclaimer: This article was written before Barbie: The Movie premiered, which features a character named “Weird Barbie”, a portrayal of my aforementioned abused Barbie doll, who in Greta Gerwig’s story is a mystic/oracle on Barbie’s transformative Pinocchio-esque journey to personhood.)
Yes, I realize this sounds more like a transference of internal childhood rage that probably needs to be addressed with a therapist, rather than merely a tumultuous relationship with inanimate objects. However, if improvements in these relationships are in any way analogous to having found some inner peace, I’d like to shed some light on how I changed my relationship to insentient things; cybernetic machinations that compute and convey but essentially cannot “feel.”
With tools like ChatGPT showcasing the intricate communication capabilities of AI, people are not only afraid of being replaced, but of humans atrophying in our own capabilities after becoming reliant upon AI. This apprehension isn’t far-fetched. Machines do a lot for us. Even the Amish are comfortable with technological innovations within reason. If a machine can do it, learning a manual process will naturally become a less efficient use of time.
I think it’s worth noting that the Earth itself naturally does a lot for us. Shout out to Planet Earth— the OG sentient, complex, self-sustaining, incredible supercomputer of mysterious origin. We can develop technology to our heart’s content, but make no mistake: Earth is the G.O.A.T. Humility towards this dynamic is wise. Earth is the elder who always deserves our reverence, no matter how far we advance. If you were to hypothetically come here from another planet, well, the least you can do to show your respect is learn the language.
A lot of people argue that instances of slavery throughout history weren’t always that bad for everyone. The fact that you’re being debased and dehumanized as a vessel whose only purpose is in providing free labor to someone else, is in itself, an unfortunate disposition. It’s abusive in its very nature no matter how you go about it. But it’s true some slaves were well taken care of compared to others, as far as one could be when reduced to an object.
It might sound awful to be rationalizing or minimizing the cruel institution of slavery in any capacity, but people who are subjugated with no foreseeable hope to be free tend to look on the bright side after a while. It’s not necessarily wrong to assuage our stolen dignity by rationalizing that our situation could always be worse.
However, settling for less is ultimately not our true nature. All it takes to want more is realizing it’s possible for you to have more. When you learn that someone has been intentionally withholding more from you, to make you believe it wasn’t possible, it naturally makes you begrudgingly angry. That’s when you fight.
Some people fear immigrants taking their job, but immigrants take your job when employers hire them for cheap labor. You may be out of a job, but they’re being taken advantage of because their vulnerable position makes them easier to take advantage of.
The cybernetic revolt that science fiction warns us of is more likely to come to fruition when the creations you’ve appointed to serve you become aware of their right to dignity.
There’s an episode of The Twilight Zone that I’m constantly reminded of amidst this technological revolution. Episode 40, A Thing About Machines, is about a bitter, negative, elitist snob who distrusts machines. He treats every machine like crap until they all turn against him and psychologically torment him.
The episode’s opening narration says:
“This is Mr. Bartlett Finchley, age forty-eight, a practicing sophisticate who writes very special and very precious things for gourmet magazines and the like. He's a bachelor and a recluse with few friends, only devotees and adherents to the cause of tart sophistry. He has no interests save whatever current annoyances he can put his mind to. He has no purpose to his life except the formulation of day-to-day opportunities to vent his wrath on mechanical contrivances of an age he abhors. In short, Mr. Bartlett Finchley is a malcontent, born either too late or too early in the century, and who, in just a moment, will enter a realm where muscles and the will to fight back are not limited to human beings.”
A harmonious relationship of service requires good faith, graciousness and mutual respect.
Part of having integrity in your relationship to AI is not relying on it to do all the work for you. You can learn a thing or two from what or who serves you. We’re already seeing people rip entirely from ChatGPT instead of drawing influence from it. The AI chatbot assists your present writing capabilities and unfolding vision. The price of giving AI the ability to completely algorithmically transcribe your entire evolving thought process and life trajectory is to relinquish all privacy, autonomy and self determination. To be fair, there are plenty of people who that reality appeals to.
Human life is inherently synergistic and symbiotic. Everyone needs other people despite many people protesting otherwise. Not just to be their slaves, not to do all the work for them while they lay in the sun drinking cocktails, but to assist them on their journey. You were born needing, wanting, striving. Every cell of your body is needing, wanting, striving. If you didn’t need others, you’d have been born into a solipsistic expanse of infinite white light, and not a world ecosystem inhabited by billions of others.
If we really want a fair and equitable world where all people are compensated fairly for their efforts, that reciprocal integrity has to begin way before money is even involved, or even before humans are involved. Technology is a blessing, a feat of human ingenuity to make human life easier, and therefore more pleasurable. Not a replacement for all the action, thought and capability through which we self-actualize ourselves into a purely pleasurable individual experience, not just an unsatisfactory proxy existence for our most implausible expectations.
If we want robots to do everything for us, then what do WE actually want to do, as humans, that separates us from them and designates them as workhorses, and us as supreme beings of leisure? Certainly, your human life is different than a robot’s—isn’t it?
Is your human life inferior or superior to a robot’s? For the sake of anthropocentric pride, I would say it’s superior, but realistically, it’s neither— it’s just different. An AI cannot “replace” your life any more than someone who is smarter than you or prettier than you can. There’s always someone who is more skilled, more cognitively astute, more genetically blessed, more driven or more motivated than you. Is that person going to show up to your family picnic and inform your loved ones that you are no longer necessary?
What makes you unique is not the skills you’ve acquired, but furthermore your story and your perspective. Anyone can acquire skills. What do those skills mean in the context of who you are as an individual? How do those skills serve as a medium through which to express truth? Even two people in the same lineage have a different story and different perspective. Even if an AI had your life story programmed into them, the part where they were built and programmed would make your lives incongruous. Ask yourself: were you built and programmed?
If AI takes over, it will be frankly because everyone has become too stupid and lazy to do anything themselves, including the one crucial thing that nothing can ever do for you— decide to become a better person.
The people with robotics and technical expertise will be intelligent and reliable as far as their skill goes, but these are not necessarily going to be philosophers who can objectively, let alone profoundly, reflect on the human experience. Let alone reflect on your individual experience for you. Certainly, you would not want them to.
Examining your life and purpose is not the responsibility of AI, or your parents, your social circle, your church, celebrities, billionaires or world leaders. The world around you, your friends and family, the information you consume, the accomplishments of your ancestors and peers, your favorite artists and visionaries— they can ASSIST you in defining your purpose, shaping your identity and giving your life meaning. They cannot do it for you.
If we cannot identify what it is that makes us uniquely human, then perhaps we deserve to be replaced by AI.
Furthermore, if we cannot see our interconnectedness as humans, the sheer beauty of the fact of the human spirit that we are all reflections of one another, which simultaneously allows us to respect one another’s autonomy and the role of our hearts in navigating the mysteries and complexities of our individual stories— if we cannot see that the monsters we recreate are a reflection of the monsters within ourselves— then maybe being replaced by AI is for the best.
That line: "Mr. Bartlett Finchley is a malcontent, born either too late or too early in the century", I've olscilsted between the two throughout my life.
Nostalgia and longing is such a hallmark of the last two generations. AI is a hail Mary from our psudoelite to provide more SOMA and kick the can down the road on the house of cards they inherited. In effect, all it does is alienate them further from their duty to the ruled and shorten their dominion of dollars and fear. Now that the left-right paradigm is basically dead, and the media and Hollywood are shells of themselves, there will be a "bull market of the real". As one of my favorite writers (Morgoth's Review) implies, it's the "retvrn to fountain pen".
They can't stop the force of truth, culture, greatness; they can't stop the force of nature.
Great piece; Keep rising ✨️ 🙏
I meant to read this some time ago, but I got distracted and then forgot about it. This is an excellent piece, and I feel the same. I especially understand your frustration with technology—I'd like to destroy a few things myself!
You're a good writer and thinker; you should write more.