AI, Comfort, and the Point of No Return
AI has reached a point where it’s simply unstoppable. I really don’t like saying that, but I don’t think there’s any going back from here.
That’s why I find the constant dystopian talk about AI somewhat pointless. The way AI is almost always placed at the center of some dystopian future scenario also feels a little strange to me. After all, if something truly bad comes out of all this, it will still be the result of human decisions, human consent, and human will.
When you look at the development of AI through the lens of Kevin Kelly’s idea of protopia, it doesn’t feel quite as terrifying. Protopia is not about creating some perfect future, or avoiding every possible downside. It’s about things getting incrementally better, while accepting that progress also comes with problems and trade-offs.
And honestly, I can’t ignore what AI has already added to my own life. The convenience, the things it can take off my plate, and, more importantly, the time it gives back to me are very real.
As a software developer, yes, I’m probably among the people whose work is most directly threatened by AI. But there’s something else that seems to be one step ahead of all of this: comfort.
Comfort has always carried both the temptation and the danger of making everything disappear. Why struggle with something yourself when a machine can do it for you? Why learn something when you can simply ask? Why spend hours coding something when AI can do it in seconds?
It’s not that I’m unwilling to learn or too lazy to write code myself. I’ve spent months, even years, learning a framework, a language, or a particular way of thinking, only to watch most of it fade away within a week or two when I stopped using it. After seeing that happen so many times, spending that much time on those things has started to feel even more pointless.
Yes, going through the development process yourself, even if it takes much longer, will probably teach you something and give you some experience. But I’ll always choose the time I can save over the things I might gain from doing it myself. I can’t be sure how much I’ll actually learn from it, and I’m almost certain that, in the long run, I won’t retain most of what I do learn anyway.
That’s where I think the real challenge is.
Maybe AI is a technology we need to learn to orbit rather than fall into. We should be able to take advantage of its convenience without getting completely consumed by it.
Because the real danger might not be AI destroying everything.
It might simply be us becoming too comfortable to care.
When it comes to the surveillance side of things, after learning that LG’s TVs can be used to spy on you even when they’re not connected to the internet, I feel like talking about it at this point is just a waste of breath.