The following is an extract from Techno by Marcus Smith, out this week via The University of Queensland Press.
We began by considering the need to examine and reflect on the technological revolution: how it is impacting the world today, and how it is likely to do so in the future. In the midst of it, we may not have the perspective to fully appreciate just how much has occurred in such a short period of time, and the implications for humanity. But if we reflect on the technological developments that have occurred throughout history, the extent to which new technologies have changed everyday life in just 25 years is amazing.
Technology and its regulation is the defining issue of the time we are living in and we must take it seriously. The complexity of technology companies’ products, financial resources and global nature means that national governments must collaborate to achieve effective regulation. Governments have so far not devoted enough resources to addressing the costs of new technology: privacy impacts, crime, social inequality and the potential for artificial general intelligence to change the world in ways we cannot even anticipate.
One reason may be that we are so immersed in technology that we haven’t thought enough about why it needs to be regulated and impressed this on our leaders. New technology has simultaneously empowered and disempowered individuals. We have better access to information and services, but this has led to the data-based business model adopted by a new generation of technology entrepreneurs.
Online search has monetised our browsing history to provide more efficient advertising, leading the way for later companies to monetise our faces and our genomes. Law-enforcement agencies taking fingerprints, or evidence from a suspect’s phone under warrant, evolved into data systems that record everything done online. What started with uploading a profile photo to a website soon became fodder for surveillance systems, algorithms, deepfakes and disinformation.
Personal data is now used as extensively by companies and governments as the state of the art can facilitate; privacy legislation has had little impact. The internet provided the foundation for a new generation of social technology applications. Social media has connected people and changed the world — to such an extent that it has transformed knowledge dissemination, politics and aspects of liberal democracy. Facebook disrupted news media, advertising and other industries, influenced elections and led an evolution in the dynamics of human relationships. It has never been easier to network, transmit information and reach a target audience.
Now blockchain technology is decentralising and disrupting financial systems and redistributing wealth through cryptocurrency and smart contracts, opening access to a wider range of players. Many more people are now able to transact across the globe, without the expense of lawyers, accountants, bankers, currency exchanges and documentation. New business opportunities abound — but so do opportunities for fraud, as the FTX collapse illustrated.
The discrete technologies required for social credit systems are largely in place around the world, but only one country — China — is openly establishing comprehensive, integrated digital governance. It is likely that similar systems will eventually be implemented in many countries across the globe, potentially changing the fabric of liberal democracy and its values. Entrusting AI with these datasets will furnish it with a great deal of power.
The technology revolution has major implications for governments and international relations. Mineral resource allocation, climate change, the development of even more advanced industries and military applications of technology will affect world politics and the international order. The influence of governments may be diminished as technology and AI inevitably become more sophisticated.
The groundbreaking but still traditional approach to technology regulation that Europe has enacted — legislation and fines — is an admirable start, but ultimately this method alone won’t be sufficient. Controlling AI and other technologies will require the collaboration of governments around the world, and will have to incorporate innovative forms of technology-based regulation.
Nineteenth-century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the best-known existentialists, who focus on questions associated with the meaning of human life and humans’ place in the world. Nietzsche published his works during the 1800s, an important period in human history when a secular world was emerging, and the influence of Christianity was being challenged by a growing awareness of scientific advancements. Discoveries in astronomy, physics and biology were changing our understanding of the world and the universe around us.
Nietzsche’s assertion that “God is dead” comes from this time. He was seeking to highlight that, as a result of human advancements in knowledge during the Enlightenment — fundamental scientific discoveries, alongside the development of more sophisticated ethical and political theories — humans no longer needed religion as a source of value and order in the universe. According to Nietzsche, humans had, to some extent, “killed” God through their achievement in obtaining a greater understanding of the world.
As well as making a leading contribution to scientific advancement, AI of the future will create art, music, poetry, literature and philosophy. If, despite our best attempts at regulation, AI does overwhelm humans, integrate with the other technologies we have looked at and, through its vastly superior intellectual capacity, gains control of the world, how would a large language model make sense of the world and AI’s place in it? It would ingest the writing of the most influential humans that had come before it — including Nietzsche and his widely quoted views on humans’ status at a time when science had caused them to reorder their thinking. Might the AI then generate the phrase “Humans are dead”?
Figuratively, that could succinctly encapsulate the diminished relevance of humans in the world. So the pinnacle human achievement may in fact precipitate the cessation of some aspects of it. A contradiction of modern life, but one we will quickly be forced to move on from following a period of brief reflection. We are hardwired to reinvigorate, to continue to pursue human advancement and to evolve.
As religion still has a role in the world today, so too will humans in a world led by superior AI technology. In the future, humans may coexist with AI, just as religion now coexists with science. Although religion cannot explain the physical world in the way science can, it provides an important view that science cannot. Humans, too, will continue to provide a perspective on the world that AI cannot.
