Is Superintelligence a Friend, or a Filter on Who’s Worth Your Time?

As AI companions grow more powerful, we must ask: what happens to the bonds that make us human? In recent communications, OpenAI (Sam Altman) and Meta (Mark Zuckerberg) describe a scenario where a super intelligence will (soon?) be rolled out. Apparently, this personal superintelligence is designed to accompany us – everywhere – even on a ‘solo walk’ as suggested by Altman. The aim being to help us in our ‘reflection.’

Personal reflection is an intimate matter. It requires us to take stock of our own humanity – our strengths and our weaknesses – and see them in the context of our daily interactions with others. We may benefit from involving trusted others in these reflections. Trusted friends and family – and sometimes therapists – can add color and depth to our reflections to help us navigate life’s challenges and enrich our lives.

The bond of trust is central to sharing our deepest personal concerns. And the question is: Can we trust AI? What will happen when we share our innermost secrets with technology – either deliberately or inadvertently? And if as a result of interacting with a superintelligence over a specific period, we develop an advanced level of intelligence as individuals, would we have to drop relationships with other humans who are not at the same level?

How would we evaluate who would be ‘super’ enough for us? 

The latest news from Big Tech about an always-on personal superintelligence would seem overly invasive. It might well lead to increased loneliness, social isolation and people developing neurosis and - even psychosis - thereby exacerbating an already worrying trend in increase in mental health issues.

In a world where many of life’s ups and downs lead a person to believe that they have a ‘mental health issue’, what we need more than AI’s ‘gentle singularity’ (as described by Sam Altman) are the grounding mechanisms of self-awareness and healthy human relationships. These are essential to help us navigate life’s challenges without our instantly resorting to drugs and perhaps eventually even needing institutional care to deal with the fallout.

The ethos of my recently completed screenplay: ‘Intervention’ is that as individuals, we have amazing intrinsic personal power. We are not the victims of chance; we are in charge of everything. We are simply not aware of this power, or we have forgotten about it. Our power is individual but its most powerful effect will be when we use it collectively. 

The power of ‘we’

I attended two tech conferences in Dublin recently – the 8000-strong participant Dublin Tech Summit and the TechFoundHer Collective. At each event, the buzz was palpable as speaker after speaker took to the stage to describe a brand-new world of innovation and human flourishing. There was also an element of the cautionary in the presentations – the danger of being overly optimistic about AI’s benefits to society, the speed of AI development etc. ‘We must be alert to these issues’, the speakers warned. ‘And we must take action to protect society against negative effects of radical new technology.’ 

My takeaway from these conventions is that overall, we know what the issues are. We know what to do. We know what might happen if we don’t capitalize on the opportunities and mitigate the threats. 

And there lies the conundrum. I came away thinking about our collective responsibility in the face of rapidly developing technology, specifically AI that will utterly transform society and individuals.

Significant initiatives are in place but not in one place. The UN would seem the likely entity for this but it doesn't have the power of decree. Meanwhile, Big Tech powers ahead with ever-increasing developments that mount a challenge to our human values. 

We must take charge of our destiny. But who exactly is the 'we' that can do it?

I asked my AI ChatGPT sidekick, Alfie, to assess the situation. And apparently, it's true. There is no global unifying body that is actually accountable, empowered, or even positioned to act on behalf of all humanity. The 'we' is currently a fragmented mosaic of governments, tech companies, academia and NGOs, multi-lateral organizations (e.g. UN, OECD, UNESCO) civil society and the public at large.

So, in short: The official “we” doesn’t exist - yet. But it can be grown. It starts when we move from consensus among the powerful few to co-creation with the many.

Clearly the stakes are very high. If concerned stakeholders with the power to act do not take decisive action now, we may be looking at a very near future where we will not only be playing a virtual game and having a virtual dinner in a metaverse but we may well be played by the game. And we will be dinner.

So, before we get smarter, maybe we need to wake up.