by Naresh Jotwani
It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future — attributed variously to Nostradamus, Niels Bohr and Yogi Berra.
The year is 2050 CE, and the country is Muskovia, the most prosperous and ‘advanced’ country in the history of mankind. AI has been deployed throughout the country to make up for the huge population decline of the previous decades.
Muskovia is ruled by a small clique of ‘very smart rulers’, aided by AI. Elon Musk, truly handsome in grey hair and beard, is the Revered Prophet of this clique. Nobody knows whether he is physically present on Planet Earth, but his AI avatar is available on tap on every electronic device, liberally doling out wisdom tailored to the receiver’s IQ and station in society.
The ‘ruled’ population of Muskovia is much smaller than in the year 2000 — but much, much larger than its miniscule ‘ruling’ population. This ‘ruled’ population discreetly performs low value tasks which cannot be automated.
The ‘very smart rulers’ command their AI powered systems to fulfill their every need — not unlike what Alladin did with his Genie. The ‘rulers’ have very few kids, because kids get in the way of ‘ruling over the country’. The scenario in Muskovia is that of a giant virtual-reality game, in which ‘the rulers’ get to play at ‘ruling over’ the country.
However, reality has a nasty, age-old habit of popping up with a painful surprise every now and then. No amount of AI can alter this hard fact of life. Unsurprisingly, therefore, a vast portion of life in Muskovia lies well beyond the horizon of the sensors, robots and inference engines deployed by the ‘rulers’.
As long as there is life and there are human beings, the difference between real and virtual persists.
For all that AI can do — and Musk claims it will do — it cannot alter the effects of time and causality. The processes of AI are within the physics of time, not beyond it. Transistors switch on and off, causing other transistors to do likewise; pixels light up with colours; audio chips create and mix tones; tiny films vibrate inside microphones and speakers.
Over time, what happens to the ‘very smart rulers’ of Muskovia? Do they get it that they are growing old? In their virtual world, do they use plain mirrors — or ‘virtual’ ones which always show them as Greek athletes in suits?
Does the phrase ‘growing old’ mean anything to these ‘rulers’? If AI grooms, puffs up and polishes their self-image 24×7, and mediates their every experience of life, do they ever need honest introspection? Do they ever admit mistakes? Correct mistakes? Learn from mistakes?
Can an inner conflict or blame game start between AI and the true self deep within a ‘very smart ruler’? Can psychosis occur? Who would win such an inner conflict? If AI wins, soon the ‘very smart rulers’ will be displaced by ‘virtual rulers’. No human being within the ‘ruling’ clique will know the difference. Nobody outside the ruling clique will care.
The ‘ruling’ AI system of Muskovia shrugs off all matters related the human spirit, growth, truth, love … et cetera. The one and only ‘official’ standard of ‘truth’ is that which the AI systems have learned; no other ‘knowledge’ can exist. In spite of its humongous size, however, the AI system is a finite and closed one, and therefore subject to stagnation and decay. Indeed, the ‘ruled’ population of Muskovia has figured this out.
With smaller populations, the physical infrastructure of Muskovia is under-utilized; signs of decay are visible, and shrubs are punching through disused walls and footpaths. However, to hold up the narrative of a ‘booming economy’, Muskovia produces, consumes and exports virtual goods. That the goods are not physically produced is irrelevant, since GDP numbers are growing at the fastest rate in history.
Human nature being what it is, spying AI systems in other countries work 24×7 to break into Muskovia’s ruling AI system. Thus, for example, Altmania’s AI system may carry out an AI-driven purge in Muskovia’s AI system. A new way has thus opened up to ‘virtually’ colonize a country through its own AI system, without any physical violence.
How does the ‘ruled’ population know that their country has gone through a virtual purge? Simple! They know it when the ubiquitous system banner changes across all electronic media: from GROK FOREVER to ChatGPT FOREVER (not that the answer matters at all to the ‘ruled’ population).
People, real human beings — ‘imperfect’ though they are — define and give life to a society. Love binds families together. Without love, why would anybody raise a family? Without families and extended families, why would there be respect for elders or for earlier generations?
Fortunately, these traditions persist amongst the ‘ruled’ population of Muskovia. Of course it is difficult to verify these facts at first hand, since the ‘ruled’ live a largely contented but invisible life. They feed to the AI system only as much data as is needed for the system to infer ‘ALL WELL’. The ‘ruled’ take great care that no hint of their happiness and spirit reaches the AI system — because that happiness and spirit triggers envy and resentment amongst the AI-powered ‘rulers’, making them think that perhaps they need to ‘tighten the screws’.
How is life in Muskovia likely unfold in the coming decades?
That is not easy to foresee. The ‘ruled’ seem to be thriving in their happy world beyond AI, in the time-tested sense of human spirit, happiness, creativity and camaraderie. The ‘ruler’ clique, in spite of all its virtual wealth and virtual power, seems to be withering away. The AI system, in its own narrow interest, is hiding the trend that human ‘rulers’ matter less and less.
Like any software, the AI system can get into an infinite loop, in which it constantly infers ‘ALL WELL’ and pats itself on the back. In that ultra-stable state, the system can persist for long, with or without its nominally human ‘rulers’.
Thus it is likely that life in Muskovia has entered a period of stability and durability. On one side, the ‘ruled’ live normal human, happy lives; on the other, the AI system declares repeatedly ‘ALL WELL’.
In that stable state, whether any human ‘rulers’ actually exist is irrelevant — but the ‘ruler’ myth does help put children to sleep amongst the ‘ruled’.😉
EPILOGUE: Nobody can possibly miss the 24×7 mega-hype being generated for AI by the usual suspects. In the midst of all the hype, we could not resist taking a sneaky but thoughtful peak into what might transpire a couple of decades hence. Hope our readers will enjoy this attempt to look beyond the hype. This post is related indirectly to the previous one entitled ‘PROGRESS?’.
seeker-of-root-causes 