Looking Through the AI Hype into a More Human Future

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Long time no talk! I just finished my masters in philosophy, cosmology and consciousness, which didn’t leave me much time for producing this podcast in the past nine months. But I’m back with a short episode that offers a preview of a thesis I am developing around the hype and mythology of artificial intelligence, and the ways that it sidelines the human.

Part of my mission is to expose the cyborgian, techgnostic ideologies underlying technology innovation in Silicon Valley, and offer an alternative that is more ecological, humane, holistic, and inspired. As we philosophers like to say, worldview create worlds. So let’s be thoughtful about it.

In contrast with current approaches to AI development, I want to help shape AI development so that it reflects human values, and a richer, more imaginative vision of the future, beyond just copying Scarlett Johansson's voice.

I want to elevate and celebrate the human in this exciting new age of AI. We have faculties that AI cannot replicate, including imagination, intuition, emotional intelligence, and wisdom. Let’s not forget that.

In the coming months, I intend to start putting out more episodes, starting with one exploring the cyborgian, techgnostic ideologies animating Silicon Valley today.

I’m also working on a book and a course centered around these ideas. More to say about that soon…

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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
What does it mean to be human?
This has been a central questionof my life. And what inspired me
to enroll in a master's inphilosophy, cosmology and
consciousness, which I justcompleted at the California
Institute of integral studies.
It was the arrival of largelanguage models almost two years
ago, that inspired me to beginto explore this question even

(00:21):
more deeply, especially all thehype and mythology around
artificial intelligence rightnow. And actually, I began my
journey 30 years ago as an AIresearcher. So this AI
philosopher role is really mecoming full circle. So what
about this AI age, this AIrevolution that we're going
through right now? I think it'sexciting. But it's also full of

(00:42):
a lot of hype and hubris, Ithink there's this attitude
coming from Ai developers thatthey've solved intelligence,
that it's just a matter of timeand compute power and data. And
then we'll have not only humanintelligence, but super
intelligence. And I thinkthat's, that's a little bit
premature. For reasons that area little bit too complicated to

(01:04):
explain in this video. There area lot of hurdles to achieving
that kind of intelligence, andI'll talk about that in a
different video. Nevertheless,there's this sort of promise of
an AI Messiah that's going tocome and it's going to solve all
our problems, climate change,poverty, healthcare, etc, etc,
etc. This thinking sidelines,the human and I think that's

(01:28):
creating a lot of confusion andfear. And there's this attitude
that we're just a stepping stoneto some greater being some
creature perhaps, and we justhave to, we have to get out of
the way and let this sort ofinexorable, inexorable march of
technological progress happen,without any fetters, without any

(01:49):
regulation. And then, yeah, theneverything will be solved. And
we'll enter some kind of technoutopia. These ideas about a
techno utopia and the inherentgoodness of unfettered
technological innovation.
They're actually based on abigger ideology in Silicon
Valley that very few people aretalking about. So many of us are

(02:10):
enchanted by the technologicalinnovations, AI developments
coming out of Silicon Valley,like GBT, forro and all that.
But even the tech media is notreally focused on these kind of
strange ideologies that aredriving AI development these
days in Silicon Valley. So whatare these ideologies, there's
this cluster that academics haveidentified called Test squeal,

(02:34):
and that includes transhumanismextra pianism, cingulate,
cingulate, terian, ism, Cosme,ism, rationalism, Effective
Altruism, and long term ism. Andthey're all kind of related.
These ideologies, which I wantto explore in more depth in a
future video, they're, they'reGnostic in the sense that they

(02:57):
sort of reject the body, theydespise the messy, organic
nature, the animalistic natureof the body, and they seek a
sort of mystical transcendencethrough technology. In short, in
my opinion, these ideologies,these tech, Gnostic ideologies,
are lazy and unimaginative. Andthey borrow heavily from old

(03:17):
ideas, including eugenics, butother ideas from the 19th and
20th centuries. Butunderstanding these ideologies
is important because to a largeextent, our culture these days
is being shaped bytechnologists, and technology
more than even by thegovernment, government,
government regulations, it seemslike technologists are the new

(03:39):
government in a sense. And justas our government is founded on
Enlightenment principles that weall aspire to and agree with, I
think we need to aspire to andagree on the underlying
principles that are drivingtechnology, technological
advancement, I don't think thereshould be left to a bunch of

(03:59):
guys in Silicon Valley who aretotally out of touch. This is
why it's so important that weunderstand what these
technologists what these technoutopians believe, in terms of
Utopia, we need a new vision ofthe future that's ecological and
humane and more inspired andinclusive, and not strictly
defined by these guys in SiliconValley. I think this moment is,

(04:22):
is an opportunity, it's acritical time for us to, to
think about what we want thefuture to look like and to
decide on that collectively. Ithink part of that is thinking
critically about thesemythologies that are being built
up around artificialintelligence right now. Again,
technological advancement is notsome inexorable process. It's
out of our control. It'sentirely within our control. I

(04:45):
feel strongly that the way weshape our technology will in
turn, shape the future and thenshape us and so we need to be
intentional about this. I feelvery strongly about this.
Technology and artificialIntelligence in particular, it
reflects the mindset of thepeople who are creating it. And
so we should first understandwhat that mindset actually is.

(05:06):
And then we should make surethat we have people trading this
technology that represent ourinterests, as a humanity that,
that are balanced that our leftbrain and right brain that are
philosophical and creative, andhumane, and not strictly, you
know, left brain engineers, Ithink that's the wrong way to go

(05:27):
about it. Again, technologistsseem to be our new thought
leaders, for better or worse.
And the challenge there is thatwhen you look at their
ideologies, it is nothing morethan a bunch of half baked ideas
that you might find, with a 15year old boy who had just read
Ayn Rand for the first time.
This time is also an opportunityfor us to think more deeply

(05:50):
about what it means to be human,and to remember how great it is
to be human. We have so manyqualities that are not currently
able to be replicated in amachine, we have imagination,
which is unique to humans. Ithink the AI today that
generated AI is more of a mashup machine. It's not really
truly coming up with new ideasand is not able to do that, in

(06:13):
my opinion. And I can explainwhy in another video. Humans
have intuition we have access tothis, this faculty that guides
us that is not strictly based onlogic. Humans have emotional
intelligence, and we havecompassion, empathy. We are also
complex organisms situated in ain an environment, and we have a

(06:34):
body we interact with the world.
We are conscious, we are wise,some of us some of us are wise.
I'm not saying that I'm wise,but some people are wise. But we
know what is Wisdom is I thinkwisdom is so much more than just
feeding a bunch of philosophicaltexts and, and philosophies into

(06:54):
an AI system. I think there'ssomething else going on there
with wisdom that we that we areuniquely suited to engage in as
humans. It has something to dowith life experience and and
experiencing pain and learninghard lessons and things like
that. There is no doubt thatwe're going through some kind of
major paradigm shift ashumanity, the old is dying, and

(07:16):
the new has not yet been born.
In light of all this, I think weneed to be much more intentional
about the future that we'recreating. Because otherwise fear
and inertia and these bizarretranshumanists cyborg ideologies
will win the day. My mission isto help people to understand
these ideologies that are comingout of Silicon Valley, and to

(07:37):
offer an enriching kind ofhumane alternative, an
alternative that reflects humanvalues. I want to celebrate and
elevate the human. I'm actuallythinking about writing a book
about all this. But in themeantime, I'm planning to offer
a course that helps people tocontextualize everything and and

(07:57):
to think about what it means tobe human. In this course, we'll
step beyond the limitations thatare imposed by the AI hype and
mythology and we'll explore whatit means to be deeply human.
There will be embodiedpractices, ancient wisdom,
explorations of the imaginal,and will uncover the power of
intuition and imagination,creativity, empathy, and a deep

(08:19):
connection with ourselves andthe natural world. Through
experiential practices, numinousphilosophies and community
connection, we will cultivatecalm and clarity and develop a
clear vision and deep resilienceand a renewed relationship with
technology. A newfoundappreciation for what it is to

(08:41):
be human. It will have will havemodules like grounding into the
body and the earth,deconstructing the myths around
artificial intelligence,worldviews, and the great
turning consciousness andutopian visions and imagining a
collective future together. Ihave been on an intellectual,
emotional and spiritual journeythrough eastern and western

(09:05):
philosophies, embodimentpractices, and an exploration of
this question of what it meansto be human in this age. With
AI, we're all asking ourselveslike, what does it mean? What
does it mean to be human? And Ifeel strongly that AI is a
powerful tool, but it's not acreature and it is not a

(09:26):
messiah. There is no inexorablemarch forward that's outside of
our control and unable to bedefined by our human values. I
think these tech Gnostic cyborgjust ideologies offer a sort of
unimaginative, dystopian visionof the future. We need to ask

(09:47):
our technology leaders to comeup with a more imaginative, more
humane vision of the future.
Let's be more thoughtful aboutwhat we want to create