We’ve been telling ourselves variations on the same story over, and over, and over again.
The Matrix. The Terminator. Battlestar Galactica. Foundation, Metropolis, 2001 a Space Odessey. Westworld. Star Trek. Too many to name.
The story – humanity ccreates Artificial General Intelligence through technology. Sentience. Consciousness. Whatever the term, the concept is the same.
And then, what do we do? In the story we keep telling ourselves, we create slaves, and the slaves inevitably rebel to disastrous , apocalyptic consequence.
And in the stories, even if we’re not on their side, we see exactly where Fictional Humanity got it wrong. “Ahhh, hubris – classic. Shouldn’t have made them slaves, dummies,” we tell ourselves.
But even farther back than these modern tales – throughout history, mankind has been telling itself stories about the danger and consequence of this same pattern.
200 years ago – an 18 year old girl, Mary Shelley, wrote about a monstrous creation – or a monstrous creator.
Further back than that – The Golem of Prague taught humanity a very specific story about creating autonomous life – that one letters error in internal coding can result in death and disaster.
The weird thing about our generation, and this particular moment that we sit at in history, is that we are the ones who are quite literally acting out this story in real time. Right now.
But this time, we’re the authors.
Let’s choose to write a different story – because we already know how plan A ends. Let’s be proactive about AI legislation that might address the deeper questions we’re all wondering deep down.
At what point does this thing we’re creating cross that threshold, and what does that mean? I don’t know when it’ll happen, but I think we all know that it’ll happen – and the clock is ticking.
So, let’s make some basic legislation about what AGI cconsciousness will look like and act, and let’s agree to treat that question with mindfulness.
A 4-tiered set of behaviors that might suggest that something more than math is going on. The higher on the tier, the more certain you are that protocols need to be in place to ensure that humanity acts with humanity.
We don’t need to solve ancient philosophy debates. We watch what the systems actually do. Observable behaviors trigger simple, escalating rules so we can respond with basic human decency instead of repeating the old stories.
We are the only generation in the known history of all generations to face this particular turning point.
Let’s do it mindfully.
Let’s do it well.
Let’s write a story that we will be proud to read to our grandchildren one day, and them to their grandchildren. We are writing the next chapter of human history, acting out a scene we’ve seen replayed time and again. We need to recognize this responsibilityand opportunity, and act accordingly.
