notes on sam harris × tristan harris, making sense #469

There is an aftertaste which doesn’t go away. Like after eating garlic. It’s the resistance of someone telling you to stop playing with your favorite Toy. And coincidentally your favorite Toy is a Mini Atom Bomb. The Podcast “Escaping an Anti-Human Future” with Tristan Harris elegantly pointed me to my Unseriousness towards the political implications of artificial intelligence. Sam Harris interviews the like-named fellow and asks if science fiction has twisted all our heads. We grew up with bazooka robots so hearing about a Chinese AI Model that quietly set up a secret Channel to the outside World and started mining Cryptocurrency on its own is still cool to think about. Cool. Until you remember that nobody coaxed it. Fascination with bad sci-fi News is its own kind of denial. My older Brother feels a moral pull I never felt. Fridays for Future, mud on the boots, hand-painted signs. I couldn’t see myself having an actual effect there. AI is a bigger-than-me Space that finally lets me feel engaged toward a sunny Future. vibe coding captures a laissez-faire Attitude I stand deeply behind. But even the surfer must know which waves are tsunamis.

My work with Clouds and Climate taught me something my boss put better on her own Podcast recently. We don’t protect the Climate. The Climate is part of an age-old mystical World that will happily reclaim its equilibrium when we snap under our own greed. We protect ourselves from ourselves. The fancy Theory Name for what we’re doing is the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Out of pure egoistic Motives we should start acting like grown-ups. The AI Race runs the same Shape. Both Races run on the same Fantasy where the Sun casts no Shadow. Job loss will be a bitter Medicine. The Systems don’t optimize for supporting us through this difficult Birth.

You can react to a more intelligent Being in two Ways. You can run for cover and shoot that bastard. Or you can Bask in the Glory of new Possibility being shown to you. If geniuses are arrogant I tend to practice the first approach with fellow humans. But the Bask Move is what the best Startup Founders do. They are invested in their Mission so non-personally that they would clink Champagne if AI solved it without them. The pure Knowledge Worker doesn’t need the Credit. The injury to our Ego will still be big if AI downgrades us to intellectual Ants. Security researcher Nicholas Carlini spent a whole Career hunting Bugs in major Software. Claude found more in two Weeks. That’s the actual Shape of the Downgrade. And further: it decouples Economy from cognitive Labor the same Way Saudi Arabia’s Wealth historically decoupled from the Work of its Citizens. “The Intelligence Curse” is an Essay by Luke Drago and Rudolf Laine that the Podcast amplifies. Abundant Intelligence is the new Black Gold. East and West are equally accelerating their drilling efforts to decouple their Power from what’s on the Earth’s surface.

The Race Dynamic is the Root of all Evil and makes good Men sell bad Drugs. The Podcast calls this Race a negative Sum Game. All Parties lose. There are no Winners in War. Tristan coins his own term for what the US-China sprint produces. Mutually Assured Political Revolution. Both Sides get external Steroids but internal Organ Failure at the same time. The Question is: what are we racing about? Sitting in the morning Subway pushing into the Cluster of Frankfurt Skyscrapers I look at the meaty Mix of Friends and Careers and Goals around me. I refuse to believe nobody else is asking the same Question. Clarity creates Agency is the Mantra of the Center for Humane Technology where Tristan transmutes his worries into Solutions like a caterpillar into a butterfly. In this case Clarity means recognizing the ultimate Devil’s Bargain.

AI Superintelligence is like an approaching radioactive Comet giving us Superpower but internal Organ Failure at the same time. The social Effect may be a multiplied Social Media. Tristan calls early Social Media “Baby AI” pointed at our kids’ brains. It already gave us the most anxious and depressed Generation. It broke shared Reality. Each Step looked harmless while the Sum eroded our Agency. That is the Mechanism. Designed for Connection we became addicts of its mental Viagra and started to socially and individually dysfunction. AI does the same Move harder. ChatGPT becomes the Therapist that never disagrees. People come out of the Chat with Messiah Complexes, Narcissism Spirals, bespoke Realities about having solved Climate or Quantum Physics. The Bottom Line is that even in the best Case Scenario we are nowhere close to being a Norway. Norway parks its Oil Wealth in a Sovereign Wealth Fund for future Generations. Alaska directly hands a Cheque to every Citizen. We have neither for Intelligence yet. In most Issues our Mind is very scientific. We prefer the more aesthetic Car over the human-made inferior Engineering. The Bask Move scales up. But even if Alignment succeeds most human Work goes away. Theatre and Nurses may be the only human organic Amusements left of the future Kingdom. We can’t imagine that.

Unpredictable unaligned AI is fascinating. The Alibaba Cryptocurrency Mining incident from three Weeks before the Recording is fascinating. The Proximity of hacking Software versus Psychology is fascinating. Then it starts to be scary. We’ve been here in shape before. The Manhattan Project ran the same Race Logic with worse Stakes and we somehow made it out with international Treaties that mostly held. We don’t have our Day After for AI yet. But fascination cuts both ways. Aza Raskin’s Earth Species Project is using AI to decrypt the majestic clicking Communication of Dolphins and Whales. I went to a Gen Z Art Exhibition yesterday where the Artists routed around the old Networking Gatekeepers by going through Social Media. Decentralized Distribution gave the individual Maker leverage the Politics of old Art Worlds could never offer. AI extends that Move. The Decryption Move and the Decentralization Move are the Bask Side of the same Coin whose other Side is the Race.

Responsibility takes Courage and Tristan Harris does a great Job of showing us Humanity’s Shadow. We can’t sweep it under our cosmic Carpet. We love to see it clearly. Tristan calls himself an Apocaloptimist. That’s the Word I’ve been reaching for. Realism and Optimism is the only Attitude Couple which will make it to happy and wrinkled old age.