AI is Same Old Same Old

nothing has changed

I keep reading articles about AI saying there has never been anything like it, as in The Free Press’s “AI Will Change What It Is to Be Human.”

Well, yes. Of course AI will change everything. But so did Fire. And so did Writing. And so will fusion powered spacecraft in taking us “To the Moon, Alice.”

The point of all knowledge is to share it — or to steal it. And when you share knowledge, you change the world.

It is said, for instance, that JK Rowling snitched some ideas from Foyle’s War guy Anthony Horowitz in the creation of her Harry Potter series.

Anthony Horowitz wrote Groosham Grange in 1988 and Harry Potter has been created in 1991 (based on Rowling’s testimony) and published in 1997, exactly 9 years later.

So? Let me tell you. If you are a writer, you steal everything. I like to steal ideas and pithy maxims. Usually, I like to credit the author because I am really grateful whenever I encounter a new idea that I like, but often enough I can’t remember where I read it. And I don’t pretend that I ever had an original idea in my life. But my entire writing is about mashing ideas around.

And the point is: could Anthony Horowitz and his publisher have created a sensation like Harry Potter? So Horowitz has a reported net worth of $20 million and Rowling $1 billion. So at least Horowitz isn’t broke. But can he afford to fly private?

And don’t get me started on the question of “who wrote Shakespeare?”

The point is that humans are social animals. Everything we do or say is likely to be picked by another human — or millions of humans — and used by them for their benefit.

And it works the other way too. There’s this German chap who invented an idea called “communism” and experts agree that about 100 million humans have perished, because communism, so far.

Now there’s a lot of talk that AI is going to hit the cubicle set really hard. And also writers, since AI can whip up an article or a student essay six ways from Sunday.

But where’s the AI version of Elon Musk’s StarShip? And where is my 1,000HP fusion-powered SUV priced at $50,000 featuring self-driving?

The point is that adapting existing knowledge is the easy part. Inventing something new is the hard part. And according to the Science that I believe in, new knowledge is always “surprise.” How good is AI on surprise?

The other thing is that all new knowledge creates “disruption.” And most humans hate to have their lives disrupted. Right now I am re-reading Zola’s Au Bonheur des Dames. It’s a novelization of the invention of the department store in the 19th century and it is set in Paris. The hero, M. Mouret, is a young nobody that is just full of ideas about what women like on the shopping and clothing and fashion front. Women all love his new store; the old generation of tailors and dressmakers and umbrella makers absolutely hate the new store as it gets bigger and bigger and they sit there doing nothing and losing everything.

The Free Press article wonders about how AI will change Work, Leisure, Status, Human-only Spaces, Longevity, and how people will Rebel against it. But I say let’s apply Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt and his distinctions.

Political: how will AI change war and peace?

Moral: how will AI change religion and relations between the sexes and family and children?

Economic: How will AI change the economy, of making things?

Aesthetic: How will AI change the culture and our experience of beauty and ugliness?

Legal: How will AI change the law?

Science: How will AI change science and technology?

And so on.

Again. This is nothing new. Every time some nobody comes up with a new idea it ripples through society and changes everything, for good or ill. And lots of people hate it.