The immovable object and the irresistible force

Collisions are fascinating. Who knows what we might find in the fallout? At bottom, that may be why we build super colliders.

That thought led me to wonder about collisions of a different kind — collisions between ideas. Would they be as fascinating to contemplate? Ideas have an uncanny way of leading to changes in the material world, so yes, I’d say that smash-ups of abstractions can be just as mesmerizing as a destruction derby. Take, for example, the abstraction we call culture. Though not a concrete thing, it’s as mighty and immovable as Everest. True, a culture can shift in the course of millennia — perhaps even in centuries — but from the perspective of a lifetime or several generations, no. It is a wall of granite.

Now, take as the irresistible force the abstraction we call technology. In fact, let’s make a refinement. Let’s consider only two areas of technology, artificial intelligence and robotics. These two go hand in hand, so I’ll give them a name that denotes their synthesis, AIR. I contend that when AIR smashes into culture, the shock is so violent it forces culture to begin decomposing. But culture is resilient. In time, it recomposes into an entirely different form. To put it simply, AIR has the power to transform culture.

To understand the dynamics of the collision, it’s necessary to look at the constituents of culture. There is art, music, literature, and spiritualism, of course, but these are secondary characteristics. AIR affects them only indirectly. Most affected are the primary characteristics — labor, ownership, and government — and the cultural values that determine how each of them expresses itself.

In every culture, labor is and always has been the dominant institution. Disrupt labor with, say, social unrest, disease, famine, financial collapse, or natural disaster, and culture is jolted. Money for food, shelter, utilities, and mobility dries up. Life coarsens. An economic vortex emerges, with the power to bring everything to ruin. This is why most cultures have a strong work ethic. Work is revered, and the willingness to embrace it is a great virtue.

The value of ownership is almost as fundamental as the value of labor. We all become owners at birth; our bodies and our minds are ours, as is a vague potential to increase our sphere of ownership. We may discover that we own innate talents and comeliness, perhaps to a great degree. We learn that pride and self-affirmation are likely to grow as our potential swells our sphere of ownership. What a heady elixir it is to own property, a large bank account, beautiful objects, and, dare I say it, other people! Luckily, owning people pretty much solves the question of how to keep the engine of labor purring. The trouble is, there is a popular notion that slavery is morally reprehensible. So owners must settle for quasi-slavery, paying as little as the market will bear.

The value of government lies in its ability to lubricate the friction caused by the owners’ profit motive and the laborers’ grievances. When a government uses the right amount of grease, it earns the goodwill of labor (votes) and the thanks of ownership (money) to perpetuate its power. The greatest danger for government is its tendency to ally itself corruptly with ownership. This is a certain recipe for dystopia. The value of governmental detachment is paramount.

Now enter AIR. Owners will catch its scent first. They will quickly grasp the glory of owning intelligent robots. No labor costs other than routine maintenance. No unions, no work breaks, no absenteeism, no health insurance, no workplace safety suits, no sexual harassment suits. No complaints, period. Production costs will plummet; profit margins will soar. The incentive to reduce labor costs is an intoxicant that no earthly power can resist.

Labor will wake up to the power of AIR as its workplace invasion becomes ever more intrusive. I expect the AIR takeover of labor to proceed in four stages, as shown in the following table. It isn’t meant to be exhaustive but just indicative of the levels of job replaceability.

Stage 1 is already underway. AIR prognosticators think the first two stages will be complete by 2030. By then, panic will have spread throughout the labor force, and talk of economic revolution will be common. The crisis will end only when people accept the necessity of an economy that’s managed in all its aspects. Goodbye capitalism.

The transitions in Stages 3 and 4 will be less straightforward. In many cases, the first AIR machines will be assistants, not replacements. With time and considerable revision, trust in the machines will grow. Eventually, they will take over or become full partners. Partnerships are most likely with astronauts, engineers, lawyers, nurses, and teachers in Stage 3, and with artists, chemists, composers, designers, politicians, surgeons, and writers in Stage 4.

Many vocations will transition into avocations. That’s what I foresee for musicians, pilots, artists, chefs, composers, and writers. The fate of musicians may be unique. They are trained to manipulate objects that produce a range of mechanical sounds; most contemporary music is confined to these objects and human manipulation. But what of music that’s induced through electrically vibrated media? The far greater potential of this music can be realized only if machines are the musicians. Today’s trained musicians will be among tomorrow’s hobbyists.

The future of politicians is problematic. Traditionally, they have not only welcomed recognition but sought vigorously to create it. The debates that precede primary elections are a great political sideshow. Each candidate strains to create the impression that they are special. I’d prefer it if all politicians were self-effacing civil servants, but how could that ever come to pass? Voters don’t vote for people they don’t notice. What a sublime day it would be if voters voted only for high-functioning automatons. The meaning of voting would change entirely because a vote for an automaton is a vote for its programming! The values encoded in that programming would be a matter of certified public record. It’s the only way to make elections about issues rather than personalities.

The future of sex and marriage will be much more disruptive than today’s rages about homosexual marriage. What will a Southern Baptist have to say about sex with a lifeless human form? Surely that would be the vilest conceivable form of masturbation. Yet it is inevitable. The only barrier is the quality of the illusion. Once a certain threshold is surpassed, androids will take their place as prostitutes and companions. Obviously, this will have a notable effect on the birthrate.

The greatest resistance to the AIR revolution will come from pride. How humiliating to be alive and have no role in securing food, shelter, or nicities for ourselves and our loved ones. Or is it? The aristocrats of history weren’t a bit troubled by the thought. And in most cases, they had no particular ability to amuse, entertain, create, or lead. That will not be our fate when our culture is transformed. The technologies of gene editing and cybernetics will offer us endowments to amplify our experience of life and our joy in it. Before long, homo sapiens will be gone, superseded by homo cybernus.