The Precipice and the Blind Faith

I’m standing on the edge of a precipice, and I see that while you are doing the same, you have your hands over your eyes and are singing “la-la-la” in an attempt to drown out my shouts of warning that you’re too close to falling. Am I being an alarmist or sounding an alarm?

It’s not that you are blind to the dangers but that you prefer not to see them. It’s not that you are deaf to my warnings but rather that you choose not to hear them. The la-la-la chorus isn’t folly. It’s not willful ignorance or self-preservation. It’s blind faith. Safe in the knowledge that I am wrong. And that you are right.

So there I am, caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. If you fall, my shouts become a prophecy—not that anyone will be left to care or slap me on the back. And if you don’t, I’m the voice of a madman. One you resent for making you afraid. Sometimes, when the stakes are so high, it’s no longer a case of wrong or right. But the weight of witnessing and the courage to cry out at the risk of crying wolf.

Cassandra’s Curse and the Doomer Label

The ancient Greeks had Cassandra, granted the power of prophecy yet cursed never to be believed—the ability to see disaster approaching yet damned with the impotence of denial and disbelief. Instead of Cassandra, we have a new curse or insult for those who refuse to see the future through rose-tinted eyes.

We are doomers or doomsayers, lumped in with anti-vaxxers and eccentrics, all neatly packaged with the title “decel” (decelerationist). If that’s what you want to call me, that’s fine, and for the benefit of the doubt. I shall wear that like a badge of honour; in fact, I’m even thinking of doing that quite literally and getting some badges made—nice white ones with decel in big red lettering. Erm, what typeface shall I use?

Extremism and the Eggbox

Now, if history has taught us anything at all, it’s that extremism is a bit of an extreme. It’s obvious to all that neither pure Marxist theory nor unchecked capitalism works. Ask any zero-hour contract delivery drone bike rider (if they had the time) or any North Korean Worker-Peasant (not that they could tell you anyway) for their opinions on the dignity of labour.

So why on earth should we trust extremists who hitch their wagons to a philosophical movement that believes, above all, that the forces of innovation and capitalism should not just drive change but be exploited to their very extremes to propel radical social change—wherever it leads, even if it makes toast of today’s social order?

Effective accelerationism (e/acc) is a doctrine for AI absolutists who see the likes of me and perhaps you as roadkill on the highway to our utopian destiny—just collateral damage. That such progress is written in stone. Saying that you can’t make omelettes without breaking eggs is fine if you’re the one holding the whisk. It’s not so great if you’re an egg in a carton with a short use-by date and marked “obsolete.” And who gets to label the eggs and boxes anyway?

But we are not talking about smashing eggs; in all honesty, I don’t believe we have any idea of what we are smashing. No idea at all. If you are a proponent of e/acc, it is impossible. You can’t see the future; only predict the direction of travel. By your own admission, the future goes wherever the technology takes it. You are happy to be led wherever, whatever the cost. The blind led by blind faith! Would you be so casual with cooking if the odd egg detonated when you cracked it on the side of the bowl?

No Sentient Skynet, No Manna from Heaven

Suggesting that AI will become sentient, run rogue, go the full Colonel Kurtz, decide that Skynet is a really good idea and unleash legions of Terminators trying to find Sarah Connor’s crib and enslave everybody is ludicrous. Surely, if AI were that good, it would know her address anyway!

However, that is no more far-fetched than seeing AI as a panacea that will result in Manna from heaven and banish poverty and inequality forever. For all we know, it could eradicate inequality by making us all equally poor. The issue is that we don’t know.

The Inevitable Divide

I suspect that our future lies somewhere between those two points and that AI will merely magnify our social divides. Life won’t just continue being great if you’re rich, but it will get even better. Better healthcare. Better transport. Better virtual assistants make every aspect of your life just that little bit better. All the while burning through all our natural resources, such as water and power, like the Kardashians, on a spending spree.

If you are poor, life will just get worse, with less access to high-quality healthcare, no jobs, poor AI-provided state education and resources getting more expensive by the day. Look back, the Industrial Revolution divided the world roughly into the working class (proletariat) and the middle class (bourgeoisie). Why should we expect the AI Revolution to be any different? Only this time, it’s the haves and the have-nots.

Blind Faith and Reinforcement Bias

If you truly believe that AI is the solution to all universal human problems—like poverty, war, and climate change—what is your stance on Santa, the Tooth Fairy or the Yeti? In comparison, all are just as credible. While I still want to believe in Father Christmas, I’m a realist. All I ask is that those who embrace the goals of e/acc do so as well.

But that’s never going to happen; hoist by their own petard with their cheeks as blinkers, they have disappeared so far up their own ends they can no longer see daylight or logic. Tunnel vision born from righteousness obscures their argument, and the bleeding obvious. Their skewed extremist perspective suffers from reinforcement bias and ignores the issues for what they truly are.

The View from Above and Below

There are two perspectives on the problem of poverty. And by that, I also mean wealth, social, and data poverty. If you look down on poverty from above, from the viewpoint of the privileged, it is simple: from above, in your lofty perch, the problems look small and easily solved—a godlike simplicity. Just wave your hands, play a little tune, do a little dance, and all is fixed.
Yet if you look up from the bottom, the problem is huge, almost insurmountable. The view from the ground enables you to see the true magnitude of the issues. Down there, you don’t get to choose the tunes or who you dance with.

Empathy Vertigo

I think that most AI absolutists suffer from empathy vertigo and lack the vision and imagination to ever picture themselves down there with the little people. No. They picture themselves as the kings, the strategic thinkers who make the decisions, not the pawns who do what they are told.

Thus, the weight of the utopian view crushes all in its path. Techno-utopianism is a dangerous delusion. If simply saying that makes me a “decel”, then bring it on—anyone else for one of my badges?