There are many expressing concerns about the ascent of Artificial Intelligence and the effect on the arts, manufacturing, work, life styes, and more broadly on humanity [1].
At the nub of many of the concerns is the question whether a machine can be creative, or does creativity lie wholly within the human domain? I suspect this is really a question about human exceptionalism, a position that has been regularly challenged since the Earth was thought to be the centre of the universe.
Can AI be creative? Is it or will it become sentient? Will it take over our position of superiority?
Rather than ask such questions — as if we are in competition with these sand-based forms of sentience — we might ask why does it matter? Can we really do anything about it anyway? The concept of ‘originary technicity’ espoused by French philosopher Bernard Stiegler submits the “belief that humans have always been technical, that we have emerged as technical beings through simple technologies such as flint stones, fire, clothing, language.”[2] Technology has a history of facing resistance and then demonstrating its ability to overcome it because of what it enables. Resistance is indeed futile. Just look how the electronic calculator squashed the slide rule!
So what if AI is able to do everything for us: drive cars, go to work, fight wars, fix our photographs, write our news, tidy our homes, wash our dishes, make our beds … These are all those tedious chores computers were intended to relieve us from [3] [4]. But, arguably, AI is a little different and it may take us down a path where it can do everything.
Then we are left to do what? Achieve our dreams of sitting in the basement playing computer games and eating chips and pork rinds. Nirvana is just around the corner!
It’s like the difference between farmed and wild salmon.
[1] The case for taking AI seriously as a threat to humanity
[3] How AI Will Impact The Future Of Work And Life
[4] Improvements ahead: How humans and AI might evolve together in the next decade
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