A.I. & Fun

On the slippery slope of AI doing all the work, we’re pushed to the question: What can humans do that robots can’t? Answer: Have fun. 

With all this AI, could we please have time for more fun?

How? How. How: how we’ve always — With sexual bodies, and embodied music, and plants and animals, and stories from old people, and wood, fire, food, laughter, and eye contact. 

Here’s a nice idea: we just need more AI to do all the work, so humans can have more free time. Question — to do what? It seems the more free time we have, the more we watch Netflix, which also seems to be created by robots. It was cool back when they were sending DVDs in the mail and then disrupted their own profit model, but now it’s just a place to sink your time and wash your brain. 

So what do humans do with all our free time after AI is doing all the work for us?

First of  all, it’s a select group of people who’s time we are concerned with. Will AI replace mechanics and pick up the free-range chicken eggs? Will AI shine shoes? Does anyone shine shoes? This joke is on the class of people who are so privileged they think posting online about privilege does something to decrease their privilege — a bizarre equation for the average smart person. These are the folk who don’t understand that work is good, especially for manly men or manly women or even non-binary men. The Nazis stole “Work Will Set You Free” from ancient wisdom that Nietzsche was too sexually frustrated to understand.

There’s an old adage when you’re doing some shitty job that someone else is tired of you complaining about: “they don’t call it ‘play.’” Getting preachy: When Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, it seems evil was the new knowledge. Before that they had been living in paradise. Point being: you can’t have fun playing without some time done working. 

For decades, highly-educated hipsters have entertained themselves by musing half-crunk about the goodness of open borders and universal basic income and the automation of the working class, and then — AI can write software. All the sudden we’re supposed to have hot takes about the existential crisis. Meanwhile, in the  middle of nowhere where the wind blows 70mph and the snow packs up taller than semi trucks, smart folk have been discussing the stupidity of self-hating elitists for decades (the author is a recent convert). 

Maybe this is too much for the Atheists in the audience to take, but it’s time we stop thinking ignorance is impressive. Perhaps this whole technology thing has been a botched experiment in humans trying to be gods, and we realize, based on the control variable, that God did it better. Maybe we needed AI to show us we like to work. Maybe it’s time to go back to being humble and joyful. 

Does anyone remember Francis Bacon?  How about we stop “torturing nature for her secrets” and go back to living in cooperative contemplation with the vivid, vibrant, vivacious world we love?

Can someone create an AI to answer these questions? I suspect the answers will be predictable, underwhelming, and lead to an increase in boredom. Time to go back to the real sandbox.