Terrified of Technology
OpenAI keeps shipping world-changing products at a ridiculous pace. And I’m terrified. The computer revolution went after scribes and accountants. The internet revolution went after mailmen and retailers. Now, the AI revolution is coming for the creative folk. And I like to think I’m one of them.
It’s natural to be afraid when the future is uncertain. But we live in an abundant world where our needs are met by default. Why then are we so worried about this change? I think the answer lies in our primitive desire for status.
Our fear is not driven by the uncertainty of meeting our future material needs, but by the uncertainty of preserving our current social status. As technology replaces us in the workforce, it destroys our main source of status – professional success. And that scares us, because our need for status it is wired into our psyche. Our fears are valid.
In an essay titled “Moore’s Law for Everything”, OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman wrote: ‘This revolution will create phenomenal wealth. The price of many kinds of labor (which drives the costs of goods and services) will fall toward zero once sufficiently powerful AI “joins the workforce.” ’
I know he’s right. Stuff will become cheaper. Humans could choose to work less, and enjoy more leisure time. But the majority of us won’t. Historically, swapping work for leisure has been the case primarily among upper classes, because their status was set in stone. Their bloodline, not their actions, won them the status game. It’ll be the same today.
All of us – capitalism’s proletariat, will use our newly created spare time to play status games. But rapid technological progress will shuffle the deck just as we memorize it. And we will grow increasingly frustrated, until we resign ourselves to our fate.