Non-Dystopian is a sci-fi horror music trilogy of mini songs.
It was inspired by episode 28 of Your Undivided Attention Podcast with guest Historian and Futurist thinker, Yuval Noah Harari , where he explores the idea of Artificial Intelligence Sidekicks if they were designed to act in the best interest of humans.
Below are the excerpts I decided to use in this short trilogy that really hit home and made me think deeply about the world we are facing ahead.
Listen to the songs or watch the videos, following along to have a better experience.
Part 1: The Communal
In this first part of the trilogy Yuval Noah Harari speaks about optimizing A.I sidekicks to help humans have better connections with their communities.
**In principle, you can tell the A.I. Sidekick “Look, I want you to develop my communal feelings. I want you to develop my communal activities”. And if you are not talking about the dystopian version, and if this is the aim that you are giving the A.I. Sidekick, it will potentially be better than anybody in fulfilling it. Better than any human mentor, any human educational system and even government. The A.I. Sidekick will know how to turn up your communal emotions, you know, find the right way for you individually to feel closer to the community.
Now you can be much more precise and even tell people “Look, this religion is not for you, maybe you were born to Jewish parents but for your personality, better try Mormonism. It will work much better for you”.
So, even there, if you let go of the dystopian version, the A.I could actually make it work more effectively. The big question is, what is the ethical basis for all that. If human feelings are no longer the basis because they are kind of malleable stuff that the system can change whichever way, so what defines the aims?**
Part 2: The Romantic Ideal
In this second part of the trilogy, Harari speaks about optimizing A.I. sidekicks to help humans with intimate romantic relationships.
**It never happened before with the evolution of life on Earth. No kind of organism ever had this ability to hack itself. To re-engineer itself. This is why it is often referred to as a point of singularity.
Also I think that our imagination cannot go beyond that point. And why like all science fiction movies and all rules break down at that point. Our own imagination is still the product of the old system and our own imagination is exactly what is now... can be changed, can be hacked.
I would look at it from a different perspective. One of the deepest urges or desires of every human being is to be really understood. The Romantic ideal is really about that. That there would be at least one person out there who really knows who I am, who really understands me, who accepts me as I am with all my problems and all my scratches and whatever. And the new technology offers to fulfill this idea.
It won’t be your mother, it won’t be your, at least not human lover. It will be an A.I. system, but it will know exactly who you are and will accept you as you are and will even work in your best interest. What could be more attractive than that?
You come back home from work and you are tired and you’re a bit angry about something that happened at work and whatever, but your spouse doesn’t notice it because your spouse is too busy with his or her own emotional issues. But your smart refrigerator gets it. Like, you get back home and your husband doesn’t understand you but your refrigerator does.**
Part 3: Agency
In this third part of the trilogy Harari tells the story that even if A.I. sidekicks act in your best interest, you still lose agency over your life.
**I’ll just say that, usually, at this point in the discussion, we start talking about all the dystopian scenarios. And how all kinds of dictators and totalitarian regimes can take over the world.
What I usually find most interesting and most disturbing line of thought, is not the dystopias. What happens to humanity when you have this kind of technology really serving whatever it means to be your best interest.
But again, it’s not a kind of evil system that is trying to take over the world. It really tries to make your life better. I think that is the core plot of Brave New World, in a way. That, let’s put aside the dystopias and still, you have something out there that knows you far better than you know yourself and that increasingly makes all the decisions in your life. It could be this kind of perfect mentor or A.I. Sidekick that guides your life. And again, it’s not an evil system but you still lose agency over your life.**
Thank you for reading 🙏
Eclipsing Binary
