Is Artificial Intelligence “Progress” or Programming Human Obsolesce?

Last updated on: April 4, 2018 at 10:58 am by Carl Gregg

Is Artificial Intelligence “Progress” or Programming Human Obsolesce? 2018-04-04T10:58:11-04:00 Carl Gregg

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Yesterday I posted on Is Your Job Predictable? Immigrants Aren’t Coming for Your Job, *Robots* Are. An overarching question is whether Artificial Intelligence is “progress”? Or are we programming our own obsolescence? For instance, Kurt Vonnegut’s (1922 – 2007) first novel, Player Piano, published in 1952 is about an “automated economy in which industrial machines managed by a tiny technical elite did virtually all the work, while the vast majority of the population faced a meaningless existence and a hopeless future” (32). Vonnegut’s science fiction seems increasingly less fiction and more science.

Consider that:

YouTube was founded in 2005 by three people. Less than two years later, the company was purchased by Google for about $1.65 billion. At the time of its acquisition, YouTube employed a mere sixty-five people, the majority of them highly skilled engineers. That works out to a valuation of over $25 million per employee.
In April 2012, Facebook acquired photo-sharing start-up Instagram for $1 billion. The company employed thirteen people. That’s roughly $77 million per worker.
Fast-forward another two years to February 2014 and Facebook… which purchased the mobile messaging company WhatsApp for $19 billion. WhatsApp had a workforce of fifty-give—giving it a valuation of a staggering $345 million per employee. (175)

“Contrast that with the automotive industry. At peak employment in 1979, General Motors alone had nearly 840,0000 workers but earned only about $11 billion—20 percent less than what Google raked in, in 2012, while employing fewer than 38,000 people. And, yes, that’s after adjusting for inflation” (76).

How then, should we help build a more hopeful future with “peace, liberty, and justice” for all, not merely for some? Among a list of contemporary prophets, many would include the writer, environmental activist, and cultural critic Wendell Berry (1934-). One of the central questions he asks has stuck with me since I first read it many years ago: What are people for?

The U.N. Declaration of Human Rights, upholds “The inherent worth and dignity of every person.” This value has the potential to help us shape a very different sort of society than one in which humans are only valued for the profit margins our labor can generate for corporations.

If you are interested in exploring this topic further, at least equally important to Martin Ford’s Rise of the Robots is a bestseller that The New York Times named as one of the top 100 books of 2017, World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech by Franklin Foer (Penguin Press). Foer has a particular interest in this topic. He was hired to be the editor of the New Republic in 2012, when that media organization was bought by Chris Hughes, who had been roommates at Harvard with Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Facebook. This purchase was originally hailed as a prime example of the way that some of the profits these new tech companies were making could be merged with traditional media. But, a little more than two years later, Hughes fired Foer, saying the profit margins were too slow to rise (7-8).

And recent headlines are siren calls that things can go really badly within our new world of twenty-first century technology. Witness the ways Russian hackers helped manipulate the American public in order to help elect a Reality TV star as President of the United States (221). Or consider just the first lines of an article from this past week’s New York Times: “Cambridge Analytica, the political data firm with ties to President Trump’s 2016 campaign, suspended its chief executive, Alexander Nix, on Tuesday, amid the furor over the access it gained to private information on more than 50 million Facebook users.

Reflecting on the growing power and influence of the big four tech companies—sometimes abbreviated GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon)—Foer writes:

We have deluded ourselves into caring more deeply about convenience and efficiency than about the things that last. Compared to the sustained nourishment of the contemplative life and the deep commitment to text, many of the promiscuous pleasure of the Web are vanishing. The contemplative life remains freely available to us through our choices—what we read and buy, how we commit to leisure and self-improvement, the passing over of empty temptation, our preservation of the quiet spaces, an intentional striving to become the masters of our mastery. (232)

But the technology corporations are actively trying to exploit our human weaknesses, keeping us enthralled to their products, giving them increasing amounts of data about ourselves, and augmenting their quarterly profits, even as they, in turn, use our attention and data to lure advertising dollars.

We need a “triple bottom line” one that accounts for people, planet and *profit–*not merely profit alone. Unfortunately, the incentives for short-term profits are too great to expect corporations to do the right thing on their own. To be even more direct, as best I can tell, there is a three-word answer that is the best way of responding to the rise of the robots, and that is a Universal Basic Income. I said a lot more about what that would mean in a Labor Day post titled “Beyond $15: The Sturdy Floor of a Universal Basic Income.” And I was interested to read this line near the end of Martin Ford’s Rise of the Robots: “Some form of guaranteed income is probably the best overall solution to the rise of automation technology” (272).

For now, regarding the choices before us as a species, I will leave you with these words from Wendell Berry’s book What Are People for?:

I knew a man who, in the age of chainsaws,

went right on cutting his wood with a handsaw and axe.

He was a healthier and a saner man than I am.

I shall let his memory trouble my thoughts.

The Rev. Dr. Carl Gregg is a certified spiritual director, a D.Min. graduate of San Francisco Theological Seminary, and the minister of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Frederick, Maryland. Follow him on Facebook (facebook.com/carlgregg) and Twitter (@carlgregg).

Learn more about Unitarian Universalism: http://www.uua.org/beliefs/principles

Uncategorized

Previous Post

March 28, 2018

Is Your Job Predictable? Immigrants Aren’t Coming for Your Job, *Robots* Are

Next Post

April 4, 2018 How Did Christianity Grow from 20 people to 30 million in 370 years?

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Advent Anti-Racism Archaeology Atheism Baptism Best of the Year List Book Reviews Buddhism Catholicism Christian Education Church and State Church Planting Climate Change Conscientious Objection to War Creation Spirituality Death Penalty Didache Disability Rights Discernment Easter Ecology Emergent Church Movement Empire-Critical Ethics Evolution Feminist Theology Film Reviews Gandhi Gospel of Mark Gun Control Hinduism Immigration Reform Interfaith Islam JFK Judaism Jungian Spirituality Lectionary Commentary Lent Letters to the Editor LGBT Marriage MLK Multiculturalism Mysticism Nonviolent Activism Occupy Paganism (Earth-centered Religions) Parables Paul Pluralism Politics Process Theology Quantum Physics Requiescat In Pace Seminary and Divinity School Sermon Series Retrospective Sermons Spiritual Direction Spiritual Practices Stewardship (Fundraising) The Book of J The Wheel of the Year (Paganism) Theoblogger Challenge Triathlon Uncategorized Unitarian Universalism Worship Resources Youth Ministry

Select a Month July 2026 May 2026 March 2026 November 2025 October 2025 August 2025 February 2025 December 2024 October 2024 March 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 August 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 August 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 July 2019 June 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 August 2009 July 2009 May 2009

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who tried to lure Nehemiah into a trap to discredit him?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Ezra and Eliashib Sanballat and Tobiah Darius and Cyrus Haggai and Zerubbabel