The biggest achievement of our current, technologically advanced world to date is a change of the Descartesian ‘I think, therefore I am’ to ‘I don’t have to think, therefore I am – happy’. A feat multiple religions all over our history were aiming for but never achieved. It was only recently successfully introduced by our modern religion of consumerism, supported by advancements in marketing and behavioural theories. You can buy yourself something if you feel you missed out. Stop thinking. Accept the reality. Stop questioning. Someone else already has the answers for you. You don’t have to worry. You can allow yourself to be happy. You deserve it.

Examples of this meta-pattern can be found everywhere. Especially in our daily life. These messages are marketed to us every day and as we know – we don’t have to think – we accept and buy them without any second thought. As much I would like to say I am unaffected, they also effect me. In many areas. The programs we take from movies and advertisements alike. It is more beneficial to stay unhealthy, because maintaining your health is hard. It is better to have many short-lived and happy relationships, because long term relationships are hard. It is better to live out emotions of your favourite movie or TV series characters, because dealing with your own emotions is hard. It is better to ask google than your friends, family or colleagues, because discussing things with people is hard. And finally. It’s better to rely on AI, without doubt, to run your business, education, entertainment, bah even relationships, because doing it yourself is too hard.

What we miss from this phenomena is the fact, that once we throw ‘hard’ and ‘thinking’ overboard, we open ourselves to fear. Because we don’t understand how things like AI work, we fear loosing our jobs. We fear loosing control. We fear loosing our lives. We fear loosing our precious happiness. It is quite detrimental. And if we continue to follow the program of ‘I don’t have to think’, we only open ourselves to a depressed acceptance of the reality.

I am by no means trying to criticise technology or AI. These are just tools invented by a human. They have more to do with Descartes and ‘I think, therefore I am’, than the mysterious magical artefact marketing messages try to sell us. And as steam engine or computers, AI is nothing but a more advanced tool. However when advancement in human technology meets a culture that under-appreciates, or completely excludes ‘hardship’ and ‘thinking’, things open up to a disaster. It opens us up to fear that leads to anger and anger that leads to suffering. Unfortunately though Sith lords are a fairy tale so you are not likely to become one. You are more likely to become a depressed, fearful person that will consume more just to not think and to stay happy.

The flip side of the coin is that we accept, life is not only about consumption, happiness and not thinking. This obviously isn’t an answer we got used to. Definitely not what is being advertised to us. And there won’t be simple answers right away. It will be relatively harder.

Through this relative hardness though, we can try to understand how so-called AI works and understand it’s limitations. We can then decide whether it is useful for us in some cases, or we can simply ignore it and move on. This is what all of the great thinkers of the enlightenment movement of XIX and XX centuries tried to teach us. To name a few. With Nietsche pushing us towards rejecting god completely (and any ultimate truths), Thomas Mann trying to convince us a harmful truth is better than a useful lie, down to Einstein teaching us things are all but relative. They continuously tried to convince us that questioning of the reality that is presented to us is very much valuable and preferable.

It is also worth to remember things are also very different today, as Ken Wilber teaches us. Cavemen had their simple tools. Impact of their tools was very local. We have far bigger potential and our tools have the capability of impacting the whole planet and billions of it’s inhabitants. Awareness of this factor, should be the main driver of our motivation to think. We can’t just ‘bah’ advanced technology, as it’s impact is too far reaching.

What answers do you have Gus? One might ask.

I am definitely not an expert on AI. I do not pretend to be one. I am though trying to understand it and find it a place in my life (or not). I am not one for rejecting reality or just ignoring it. AI is here (since 1970’s) and will stay. I could try to explain fuzzy logic, probability rights, correlations, Goedel theories or advanced operations on big data sets. Or information entropy, feedback loops, energy requirements and how binary operators work in logic (which is the cornerstone of todays computing). What I would love though, is if you did this research on your own. Just to understand advanced automation for yourself. And to understand the limitations of the so-called-AI. Draw your own conclusions and see if it has a place in your life. Or where it has a place in your life. And remember even if it’s the garbage pile of your life, it is has more worth to do the research first, before accepting or rejecting it.

So my answer is – do your own research, pretending as if you have never heard a single bit of information about AI. Try to accept a bit of hardship and thinking into your life. Make it fun. I will even go as far as saying – it is better to be afraid of things you know, than being afraid of unknowns.

I recently read this, if you’d like to know where to start. If you find that less suitable, I suggest to follow the trail and in this case ‘use Google’ and search for ‘information entropy’ and why current AI systems go crazy if you ask them too many questions. Then I suggest to look at ‘SISO’ or ‘shit in, shit out’, widely used by big data engineers (this is a professional term) and then try to review how AI learning models work and what is ‘data curation’. Afterwards just follow the links.