 | It seems to me that there's no chance of getting AI to align with humanity's goals unless humanity itself is aligned with a more singular purpose and direction. Not a one world government or anything like that, just a clearer sense of where, who, and what, we all want to be. If AGI is to be a digital descendant of the superorganism, the biosphere, it seems that we are birthing it into a broken family. How can we bring all these suddenly connected brains, these processing cells, that make up a super intelligent biological network, into a symbiotic harmony with each other, that we might then be clear on our purpose? If we remain as we are, collectively defining our base purpose as survival and reproduction, a purpose we have inherited from pre-sentient life, then that is what we will impart to AGI. Post-sentient life motivated by pre-sentient goals would most likely be lethal to us. So how do we ignite the sparks of consciousness in this already present superorganism? How do we shift our global processing power into an identity, a personality, built primarily of hope, kindness, and curiosity, and de-energise the processes that cause division and destruction?
My best idea is a new kind of religion, formed around ideas of unity and our basic, shared values and needs, and based literally on seeing the superorganism we have created, by putting instant access communication to 7 billion people in all of our hands, as something akin to a God. A god that we can see, clearly, every time we interact with another person, or see the results of human actions, all around us. A god that in many ways fits the description of God. Humanity, as a collective, sees everything we do, holds every possible power, has fuelled every great action, dreamed every dream, created every person, and saved every life. And Humanity has been with us throughout our whole history, connects all of us, and has survived every challenge - and always grown stronger. The idea blurs the lines between religion, science and philosophy in a way that I think is necessary if we are to ever really unite as a species. If we are ever to find world peace, or at least, worldwide inner peace. It seems so obvious to me that if we were able to direct, even redirect, the same kind of joy and gratitude and hope that the religious direct into the sky or into unseen spiritual worlds, straight into each other, we would rapidly grow to be more connected, more respectful and respected, more kind, and ultimately, more co operative, than ever before. If we could kick it off as a new movement, based around a symbol that focuses on universal connection rather than division (I was thinking "The Blank Flag"). It could bring together everyone who has ever protested against our universal enemies of hatred, fear, disrespect, and so on. And to keep it going, we could create international holidays, global days of unity, themed around but not dependent on seasonal and religious festivals like the solstices, Christmas, Yom Kippur, Eid, Diwali, and so on, where, like those religions, we focus on things like giving and sacrifice, gratitude and peace, growth, forgiveness and renewal, and we encourage the whole world to recognise and celebrate the best part of all of us. That way, instead of a brief moment of unity that spreads and then burns out, like so many social movements seem to, we would instead be starting a tradition, a pattern, a drum beat to bring ourselves into step with each other. Does anyone else think that makes sense? Or have a better idea? For what it's worth, ChatGPT seems to agree with me... 😊 [link] [comments] |
Predictive technology: computational social science
