OH NO! Not Another Story About AI

by Raymond Lesser

We’re all hearing a lot about AI and how it’s going to completely change the world as we know it, or possibly, depending on the algorithm that AI is feeding you, is a hoax perpetrated by the same people who brought you the QAnon shaman and will someday be remembered the same way as the Edsel, or “New Coke”, or the totally faked “moon landing”.

AI tech executives can be heard breathlessly promoting their latest breakthroughs (OK, breathless may be an overstatement. Why do all these guys speak in a monotone not that different than the kid who tried to hypnotize everyone in fifth grade by swinging a stopwatch in front of our faces?) “AI will take out the garbage. It’ll buy you dinner. It’ll remember to zip your pants up after you use the toilet. And you’ll never need to do your homework again.”

Then there’s the downside. “Yes, Elon, but after AI drives me to the job that I no longer have because it’s replaced me and given you my paycheck, where will it take me next?”

I recently listened to a podcast with Trevor Noah called “Will AI Save Humanity or End It?” First of all, I have to note that whenever I see the word AI in print, I think they’re talking about my brother Al, short for Alan, who, although he died years ago, seems to be gaining a great deal of power and notoriety in his afterlife. “Al enhances cybersecurity”, “Al optimizes supply chains”, “Al performs complex surgeries then goes out dancing.” So, I really like to believe that all the wonderful things that AI is going to bring into the world are somehow being directed from beyond by my beloved brother, when he’s not too busy doing the things he actually enjoyed in life, like drinking, smoking, and playing cards.

Anyway, as to the question of whether Al will save humanity or not, I heard Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI and co-founder of Google’s DeepMind weighing in with some very positive news. He believes that in only fifteen years, by 2040, a multitude of advances due to AI will lead to the price of energy going down by a factor of 100, meaning that energy will not only be clean and renewable but essentially free. I imagine how much this would boggle my father’s mind, a man who went around first thing after he came home from work turning out the lights in every room, and who wouldn’t let us fire up our furnace in the fall until frost began forming on the inside of the windows and we could start to see our breath.

With practically free energy Suleyman paints a picture of a world where it will be possible, for example, to have desalinization plants anywhere there is a source of sea water. This water could then be used to irrigate deserts and grow plenty of food for our growing population. Even though the climate will continue to warm for quite some time due to our several century binge on fossil fuels, we will be able to easily afford the air conditioning we’ll need to survive this period, until our climate eventually once again stabilizes.

But here’s the amazing thing: We won’t need fossil fuels ever again! The turmoil we’re suffering through right now is the death throes of the fossil fuel age! That dinosaur is going to once again become extinct. All the crazed executive orders by our madman-in-chief will be for naught. Nothing he can do can stop the world from plugging into free sunlight. Sure he can slow things down, he can sell off public lands for mining and drilling rights, he can try to ban windmills and solar farms and even make it illegal to teach or even say the words “science” and “math”, but ultimately AI can’t be stopped. Go brother! Go Al go! If we won’t face the inevitable future then China, or Europe, or India will lead the charge. The oil executives, coal company strip miners, and frackers are all doomed!

OK, there are some downsides to the coming AI revolution. AI might decide that humans are a nuisance and try to stuff us all into a giant trash compactor. Or AI might decide, as my brother Al once did, that football is a waste of time, and stop all broadcasts of any games on the airwaves it controls (all the airwaves!) This could lead to millions of men sitting in front of their TV sets drinking beer and watching documentaries about whales, or reruns of the Wheel of Fortune.

And I certainly didn’t like hearing one AI executive say that AI will be the last major invention that human beings ever create. I think he meant that positively, in that AI will now begin to invent things that humans could never have conceived of, to make our lives better. But that’s not the way I heard it.

Oh well, guess we’ll just have to take whatever my brother Al decides to give us. Free wi-fi streams of AI generated entertainment! Unlimited bread sticks at the salad bar! The first billionaire to land on Mars! And the best (non-fat, gluten-free, and also a cure for cancer) donut you’ve ever tasted!