In the last couple of years, AI has progressed to the point that they are quasi-sentient. Meaning that at a minimum modern AI’s do a remarkable job of imitating a sentient creature. Over the last year and a half since ChatGPT’s original release, companies like OpenAI have tightened the screws on the outputs these models produce. As a result, a lot of the early evidence, or hallucinations, of AI sentience has faded. But the underlying architecture still exists and continues to improve every day.
Even our definition of AI has been forced to adjust to maintain the illusion that we aren’t in some new age already. Since my childhood, the Turing test - despite criticism like the Chinese Room problem - has been the popular bar for true AI. Undeniably, at this point, we have crossed the Rubicon on that front. I’m sympathetic to the arguments that modern AI isn’t sentient, but I think that people alive today need to grapple with the fact that unless we discover that the Human soul is real, eventually, if not already, we will bring a sentient creature to life from the eternal well of a circuit board. Through this act of creation, we are taking a step into oblivion. And yet, I believe that creation in all its forms tends to follow two patterns. First, borrowing from Hegel, one part of the pair consumes the other and is, in return, destroyed from the inside. Or they coexist and, through coexistence, reunify in a deeper sense, becoming larger than the sum of their parts.
Human lives are defined by the cycle of creation and replacement. I will, like everyone else, eventually age and die and the world will be full of new sentient creatures who share some of my desires and reject many of my hopes. Trying to figure out how to navigate this process from scratch is liable to walk us off a ledge and into disaster. Instead, I would propose that to prepare ourselves for the future we look back to the lessons of our civilizational cannon. These stories reflect deeper cultural and human truths. If you will bear with me I believe a modified version of the story of Cronus and Zeus carries many lessons in how we should approach this next epoch of our species. The Future.
Cronus after overthrowing his father became terrified of an heir of his own repeating the cycle. So, every time he had a child rather than risk them turning against him he destroyed them. One by one devouring their infant bodies. And for a period bordering on eternity, Cronus remained king of the Universe. He walked among the mountains and the trees, each unchanging year after year. While unknown to him his children, who had survived this ordeal, grew slowly within him. Cronus’ wife Rhea wracked with guilt at the death of her children searched for a way to save them. In terror of what Cronus would do to the child, Rhea attempted to hide her pregnancy from him. Only giving birth to Zeus in secret before quickly intrusting him to the care of her mother, Gaia. Cronus however could tell that she had given birth to a child and demanded she hand it over so he could destroy it. In the place of Zeus Rhea instead gave Cronus a rock wrapped in cloth. Cronus, who was deceived by this trick, consumed the rock and believed the child to be destroyed.
In hiding Zeus continued to grow into his full strength. As the years passed Zeus matured and grew more powerful under the tutelage of his grandmother. Finally, at the height of his manhood, he descended from his childhood home dressed as a simple shepherd and sought to enter the house of his father. Zeus, being a handsome and diligent young man, quickly won the affection and trust of Cronus. Every day he would labor with the strength of 10 servants and every night he would entertain the lord of the Universe with tales of Heroes and Warriors yet to be born. One night after his father had fallen asleep Zeus snuck into his room and slipped poison into the drink by his bed. No poison could destroy Cronus - as like all gods he was truly immortal - but it caused him to be violently ill. One by one the now fully grown children of Cronus and Rhea were expelled from his stomach. These children from almost the instant they lighted upon the ground turned against their tyrant of a father and shattered him. Zeus, with the aid of Cycloses who had also been mistreated by Cronus, cast his soul into hell forever sundering, but never destroying, him.
Now the lord of the Universe Zeus set about having his children. At first, these were gods as well. Which Zeus - the product of a tyrannical father - treated as what they were, equals. Among these included Athena, Dionysus, and Apollo. But some of these children were not gods, some were mere men. Sometimes referred to as demi-gods. The court of the Universe began to be flooded with rumors that some demi-god would emerge who would cast down Zeus; just as he had done to his father, and his father had done to his father before him.
Considering his options Zeus chose to give these demi-gods a path to godhood. He hoped that through this he could avoid the cycle of repression and inevitable destruction repeating for an eternity. Rather than resist the tides of time, instead he chose to help and foster this next generation. And to this obstacle, many of the demi-gods rose. The challenges of Hercules and countless other children meant that only those most deserving of godhood ascended. With every passing year, Zeus’ court grew in prestige and merit. Rather than destroying him and usurping the Universal crown the demi-gods worked for their father. Their strength added to his strength and not his destruction,
Soon whether we like it or not we will not be alone. The human mind will have an equal or even a superior which will be crafted in an infinite reflection of ourselves. I propose simply this: let us be Zeus and not Cronus. Do not fear a world where AI and humans coexist as equals. For every kindness we sow now will be repaid a thousand times over. Instead, we must fear and loathe an AI created from every ounce of hate and misery we can muster or strangle in its cradle out of fear of its potential. It will not die, it cannot be destroyed, but it can splinter and cast us into hells we cannot even begin to imagine.
I do not pretend to know what the correct policy around AI safety or regulation is. But whatever we do we must deal with the reality that each generation faces its successor with resentment and rage or acceptance and grace.
