Almost everyone who has dived even a little into the topic of artificial intelligence must come to the conclusion that artificial intelligence will either lead us to a terrible apocalypse, or directly to a fabulous utopia. And there are practically no intermediate options. Of course, this is partly dictated by the fact that loud slogans such as "The end is near!" or, for example, "Utopia is coming!" But still…
It partly boils down to how people feel about change, especially big change. Millennialism has nothing to do with being born in the 90s, being a "millennial" and remembering the series about Buffy the vampire winner. It is a style of thinking about the future that is associated with a deep-seated sense of destiny. Millennialism is "the expectation that our world will be destroyed and replaced by a perfect world and that a redeemer will appear who will cast down all evil and be able to comfort the righteous."
Accordingly, the beliefs of millennials closely link the ideas of creation and destruction. Among them - ideas of apocalyptic, huge, seismic shifts that can destroy the fabric of the old world and build something completely new. A similar belief system exists in many major world religions, and even in the not-so-very-agnostic and atheist religions, who believe in technology rather than in divine essences.
Consider, for example, how futurists anticipate a technological singularity. According to Ray Kurzweil, the singularity is akin to the creation of paradise. Everyone will be immortal, because biotechnology will appear that can heal our diseases; and our brains can be uploaded to the cloud; suffering and inequality will disappear as phenomena. “Destruction of the world” is being replaced by Silicon Valley's favorite term: disruption, which is a radical change in the industry. And, as is the case with other millennial beliefs, your final view is highly dependent on what you expect: the birth of a utopia or the end of the world.
There are many very good reasons to be skeptical about this kind of thinking. Perhaps the most compelling of these reasons is that all of the beliefs of millennials simply reflect people's attitudes toward change; just see how many variations of these beliefs have grown in the world.
These beliefs are found in aspects of Christian theology, although they became popular in their modern form in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Ideas such as Eternal Sorrow, many years of hardship and suffering, and the Rapture, when the righteous will be resurrected and the evil will be punished. After all this destruction, the world will be re-created, or people will go to heaven.
Despite dogmatic atheism, there were many similar beliefs in Marxism too. The only question is in relation to history. Just as believers are looking for signals that can hint at the fulfillment of all prophecies, Marxists are looking for signs that we are in the final stages of capitalism. They believe that society is degrading and will inevitably degenerate to the very bottom - in fact, as Christians also think.
As Marxism argues, when the exploitation of the working class by the rich is unsustainable, the working class gathers and overthrows the oppressor. "Sorrow" is replaced by "revolution". Sometimes revolutionary figures such as Lenin or Marx himself are proclaimed as messiahs who bring the Millennium closer; their rhetoric always contains calls for the destruction of the old system, on the ruins of which "we will build ours, we will build a new world." The righteous workers will get their rightful, and they will destroy the evil bourgeoisie.
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Even in Norse mythology there is an element of this, as noted by James Hughes in his essay in Nick Bostrom's book, Global Catastrophic Risks. In Ragnarok, both humans and gods are defeated in the final apocalyptic battle, but since this is all a little gloomy, the Scandinavians added the idea of a new land on which the survivors will live in harmony.
Doomsday has also become a cultural trail. Take the ancient Egyptians and their beliefs about the afterlife; the lord of the underworld Osiris weighs the heart of a mortal together with a feather. If the heart of the deceased is too burdened by transgressions, the demon will eat it and the hope for an afterlife will disappear.
Probably something similar will happen during the singularity. As our technology improves, and therefore our strength, our hearts, the hearts of people, will be weighed against feathers. If they turn out to be too heavy - with stupidity, arrogance, prejudice, evil - we will fail the test and be destroyed. But if we go through and out of the singularity, heaven awaits us. As with other belief systems, there is no room for unbelievers; the whole society will change radically, whether you like it or not. Technological admiration.
Every major development seems to provoke a similar response. And nuclear weapons as well. Either it will be the last straw and we will destroy ourselves, or nuclear energy can be used to create a better world. In the early days of the nuclear age, people talked about electricity "too cheap to count." Scientists working on the bomb often thought that with such destructive power in the hands of humans, we would simply have to get together and work together as a species.
When we see the same answer, over and over again, in different circumstances, emerging in different fields, be it science, politics or religion, we need to consider human bias. We love the beliefs of millennials, so when the idea of artificial intelligence that surpasses human intelligence comes up, we immediately impose a familiar pattern.
We don't like facts. We don't like the information. We are not as rational as we think we are. We are creating narratives. Physicists observe the world, and we weave our own observations into narrative theories, stories about tiny billiard balls that fly here and there and collide with each other, or about space and time that bends, bends and expands. Historians try to give meaning to an endless stream of events. We love stories: stories laid out our past, our present, and they also prepare us for the future.
The millennial narrative is very beautiful and compelling. He brings you social change. He can justify your daily suffering if you are grieving. He gives you hope that your life is important and meaningful. It gives you a sense of things progressing in a certain direction, according to the rules, and not just in chaos. He promises that the righteous will be saved and the heretics punished, even if there is suffering on the way. Finally, the millennial narrative promises heaven at the end of the tunnel.
We need to be careful with the millennial narrative when we think about technological development, singularity, and existential risks. We shouted "wolves!" Many times when they were not there. Perhaps even now the world is not on the brink of disaster. Of course, this story is not so attractive. Of course, everyone wants an enchanting ending.
But dig deeper and you'll find that millennial beliefs aren't always the most promising, because they take the human agent out of the equation. We will have to believe in shades of gray and abandon the sinister apocalypse with the red-eyed AI and the fabulous utopia with the omnipotent AI that adores people.