BY STEWART SLATER
Characters in disaster movies generally fall into one of two camps. The vast majority are blissfully unaware of what is about to happen and contentedly go about their business until it does. Thereafter, their fate generally depends on their behaviour in the opening scenes – these films inhabit a staunchly moral universe where karma is conveniently dispensed within their two-hour running time. There is, however, usually another character, the Cassandra-like oracle of doom who predicts the impending disaster, and, like their mythical forebear, is ignored until it strikes. Unlike her though, some of these characters, like Paul Newman’s Doug Roberts in The Towering Inferno, survive.
There have been two occasions in history when humanity’s image of itself has undergone the type of change suffered by the ships and skyscrapers of seventies’ Hollywood – the Copernican Revolution and the discovery of Evolution – and both conformed to the pattern of a disaster movie. There were some who realised that the paradigm no longer worked – Ptolemaic theory could no longer explain the observations of astronomy while the notion that species might evolve into others had been the subject of speculation since at least Greek times – but the vast majority of people continued with their inherited ideas of the universe and Man’s place in it regardless, unaware that they might change or even that they needed to.
It is clear that, today, we confront a third such occasion.
For most of history, humanity has worked with a tripartite view of the universe. At the top there are gods, next comes man and then there are animals. Modern Westerners are most familiar with this schema from the creation story in Genesis where Man is differentiated from Beast by being made in God’s image but the view is not just an artefact of Judaeo-Christianity. The Roman philosopher Epictetus wrote “God created some beasts to be eaten…Man was brought into the world however, to look on God and his works.” Man was superior to animals, but inferior to God.
When this belief was first formulated is impossible to tell, but it would be reasonable to date it to the dawn of civilization. Gods – Man’s superior – may have been invented earlier; the Lionman of Hohlenstein-Stadel, a prehistoric statue dated to approximately 40,000 years ago is often interpreted as representing a deity but certainty is impossible. However, from what we know of pre-civilisation humanity, it is unlikely they would have regarded themselves as superior to animals. They lived similar lives, travelling in packs in search of food, often finding themselves in competition with other species. The hunter was often the hunted. It would take the First Agricultural Revolution to turn animals from rivals into resources.
As a conception, it was long-lasting. It is only with the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions that man has been able to do without God, although the logic of the latter brings with it the unpalatable and generally ignored implication that our superiority over animals is less than we might prefer. Even so, not all have abandoned the old view. The West, to secular liberals, may be secular and liberal, but it retains its faith. The Netherlands is Europe’s least religious nation, but even there, 41% of the population identifies as Christian.
Nietzsche was quick to see the implications of scientific discoveries, asking, “God is dead. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?” In truth, though, there was little to worry about. Man quickly adapted to his new role as the most powerful and cleverest entity there is. That the human brain is the most complex object in the universe has become a truism of popular science. Developments since Darwin have merely served to bolster our new self-image, each breakthrough a cause for exultation as, through medicine and engineering, nature has increasingly been brought under control. Even less unalloyed boons such as nuclear weapons have merely given us the power traditionally reserved for gods.
But, it is clear, Man’s time at the top is coming to an end. Whether from the discovery of alien visitors about which there is (as occurs periodically) currently an uptick or (more likely) Artificial Intelligence, within the foreseeable future Man will no longer be the cleverest entity in the universe. In the case of the former, we shall be like the passengers of the Poseidon, unaware of the wave until it hits, but in the latter, we will be like the architect in The Towering Inferno, all too aware of what is coming.
For, A.I. is rarely off the front pages. Industry leaders recently called for a pause on research, Britain’s former government adviser was quoted (wrongly, he insists) as saying that humanity only has two years before A.I will be able to “kill many people.” The achievements of each new iteration of the systems attract coverage (Chat GPT-4’s college entrance scores would rank it in the top 94% of students, but probably not get it into Harvard) as do their rumoured mistakes (true or not).
A.I is already having an impact. Students are using it to do their homework, lawyers are using it to write briefs. It is thought that, in May alone, 3900 Americans lost their jobs to it but it is the future which is concerning. For while we have become inured to computers outperforming us at specific tasks (Garry Kasparov lost to IBM’s Deep Blue in 1997, the Chinese game Go fell to machines in 2016), it will soon be able to match humans’ general intelligence.
When this will occur is unknowable. In a 2022 paper, researchers assigned a probability of 50% to it happening by 2050, and a 10% chance by 2031. The prediction site Metaculus finds a median forecast of 2032. What is clear, however is that in the absence of intervention (and as Yoshua Bengio, one of the “godfathers of A.I”, pointed out in a recent blogpost, the intervention required would necessitate a wholesale re-ordering of global society to succeed) it will happen in the foreseeable future.
It is, perhaps, fitting that the society most likely to agree with Voltaire’s dictum that, “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him” is intent on inventing its own, for once A.I. passes human intelligence, it will increasingly appear godlike – powerful and mysterious. Even today, it is proving impossible to anticipate. A system at MIT can predict patients’ race from X-rays and CT scans, something not only unachievable by humans, but thought impossible by medicine. Experts openly admit that they do not understand why it gives the outputs it does. This problem will only compound as it becomes more complex.
But if A.I. will increasingly appear godlike, it will be a different, older type of God. The religions most prevalent in the West are monotheistic. It is likely that there will be a profusion of A.I’s, like the polytheism of the ancient world. The Abrahamic faiths are covenantal, taking the form of a deal between humanity and the divine in which both undertake to act in certain ways – God has, so far, kept to his bargain with Noah by never again trying to destroy the world by flood. Its operations being opaque, A.I. will be far less predictable than God or Allah. It will, instead, be more like the Olympians, super-powerful but, to the less sophisticated human mind unable to discern greater purpose, often whimsical. It may even be that – “educated” by different data containing different biases – A.I’s will become tribal just as when the gods formed “Team Greek” and “Team Trojan” during the fabled war.
Faith, therefore, will not confer immunity from the shock of A.I. Not only will a new category fit itself into the traditional god/man/animal schema, but this new entity will behave in unfamiliar ways. Both godly and godless will need to update their understanding of the universe.
How we will react to this is difficult to tell. The Agricultural Revolution elevated man over animal, the Scientific, man over God. The A.I. Revolution, however, will elevate computer over man. For the first time, we face being bumped down the pecking order, like a minor royal on the birth of a sibling’s child. Perhaps we will rebel, seeking to use our remaining power over the things which are still our inferiors. Perhaps, in line with the often-ignored implications of Darwinism, we will reduce ourselves to the level of animals, forming a two-tier society of silicon overlords and carbon underlings.
If we cannot predict the exact fall-out of A.I., we can, however, be relatively certain that it is coming for it is hard to believe that we will take the draconian action necessary to avoid it. As every fan of disaster movies knows, you can predict a calamity and be unable to prevent it.
Stewart Slater works in Finance. He invites you to join him at his website.