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Editor, feuilleton (arts and essays) section of the German daily newspaper Süeddeutsche Zeitung, Munich
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Beyond the realms of serious science and technology, the popular debates about machines that think have been high masses of a new mythology. There are two main dogmas. One is the hope that a moment of Singularity will awaken a synthetic spirit superior to the human mind. The other is the fear that thinking machines will dominate and ultimately destroy humankind. Both distract from the fact that at the heart of the debate is a very real John Henry moment.
In the folktale of the late nineteenth century, the mythical steel-driving man John Henry dies beating a steam-powered hammer during a competition to drill blast holes into a West Virginia mountainside. White-collar and knowledge workers now face a race against being outperformed by machines driven by artificial intelligence. In this case, AI is mainly a synonym for new levels of mainly digital productivity. Which is of course not quite as exciting as either waiting for the moment of Singularity or the advent of doom. At the same time, the reality of AI is not quite as comforting as the realization that machines, if properly handled, will always serve their masters.
Dystopian views of AI, as popularized by movies and novels, are just misleading. Those debates are rarely about science and technology; they tend to be mostly humans debating the nature of themselves. Most of the endless variations on imaginary machine rule project the fear of inherent evil and cruelty into machines as proxies for the age-old uncontrollable urges of self-empowerment and unlimited progress.
Elevating the AI debate to hopes with theological dimensions is turning optimism about technological progress into a salvation theory. As confirmed again and again, the likelihood of a synthetic spirit is nil. Artificial intelligence might be the most rapid advancement of complexity in science and technology. So far, it still mimics human nature, and it will remain so. For one thing, it lacks time. AI doesn’t have the luxury of a trial-and-error phase of billions of years. To believe in a coming moment of Singularity, when AI transcends human control and advances to surpass human intelligence, is nothing more than the belief in a technological Rapture. This might be a popular belief in insular worlds, like Silicon Valley. AI reality is different. And it’s here.
AI has already touched billions of people in profound ways. So far, the main effect of AI is the comfort of an ever-increasing number of digital aids. Calculating consumer choices, behavior patterns, and even market shifts might still belong more to the realm of statistics than of intelligent life. Still, even those crude forms of AI should neither be over- or underestimated, even if the real John Henry moment hasn’t yet arrived. Working masses have always been replaceable by efficiency measures or cheaper labor. And no labor is cheaper and more efficient than machine labor. Just like the steam hammer in John Henry’s tale, most digital tools will outperform humans at highly specialized tasks. So of course there will still be a demand for high skills and outstanding talent. No computer will ever replace a scientist, an artist, an innovator. It’s the midlevel white-collar or knowledge worker who will fall behind.
As AIs’ efficiencies and skill sets increase, they also become tools of power. Surveillance, warfare, and torture are done much better by an entity not prone to emotions, conflicted values, or fatigue. Still, the danger that hostile or even lethal machines will develop an evil consciousness and turn against humankind is nil. The agency is in the institutions and organizations that will use them—for whatever benign or sinister objective.
It won’t take the advent of a superior intelligence to turn abstract debates about AI into very real questions of power, values, and societal changes. Technology can initiate and advance historical shifts; it will never be the shift itself. The John Henry moment of the twenty-first century will be neither heroic nor entertaining. There are no grand gestures with which white-collar and knowledge workers can go down fighting. There will be no folk heroes dying in the office park. Today’s John Henry will merely fade into a sad statistic. Undoubtedly calculated by a skillfully thinking machine.
