Empathy vs. the Bots

Taking the long view

Image courtesy of AI

I have just finished herding my daughter and her two friends from track practice. The day is bright and the air warm, like summer, though it is still spring in the mountains, or should be. The girls, all 7, have gathered their things and bolted ahead of me, three across, their school-stuffed backpacks dwarfing their bird-like frames. They march away from me, out towards the car and the world, animated, confident, chatting about who knows what but no doubt something of great importance and joy. It could just be a random moment of parenthood, but I wonder if it’s not a definitive one. I am spellbound by them, by their grace and independence and hopeful gaze. The moment could stop your heart in its beauty.

It stops my heart because sometimes I fear the world is not meeting them where they are headed.

I’ve been a news junkie for decades—worked for newspapers and magazines—and could never get enough of the news. Now, like a bitter pill that may or may not save me, I force myself to read the newspaper. The litany of headlines is as absurd as it is relentless. It’s like being waterboarded by a toxic brew of anger, greed, retribution, and violence. Every day.

Every generation is accused of harshly judging the present by comparison to a cherry-picked memory of the past. And to a certain extent, I would agree. The American disposition is, generally, sunny. We instinctively—and maybe it’s a survival mechanism—seem to let the good and the decent float to the top of our collective memories.

But some things are not a matter of opinion or memory, and they are orders of magnitude different from before. If I had to make a sweeping generalization, and I will, I would say these profound changes are happening on four fronts: environment, technology, democracy, and decency.

Environment

We continue to blithely pour tremendous amounts of carbon and methane and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere (50 billion tonnes worth annually). But, unlike in the past, we actually know and understand the cause and effect of the practice. Also unlike the past, and for inexplicable reasons, politicians are doing their best to not only exacerbate the problem by subsidizing coal plants but also by actively sabotaging alternative solutions to carbon-based energy. So, average global temperatures continue to go up. Glaciers are rapidly melting; seas are both warming and rising. People are having to move because their houses are being swallowed by water in places like India, Alaska, Louisiana, islands in the Caribbean, and some Pacific islands. Florida is not far behind. It is projected that within 25 years sea water will cover land that is currently home to over 300 million people. That certainly has never happened before.

Technology

The tech bros, as they have always aspired to do, are in fact changing the world with their AI bots. But does anyone really understand what we’re getting into? For one, it will be a wholesale upheaval of our economic system, orders of magnitude greater than the Industrial Revolution, and in a tenth of the time. Second, what are the social implications of that kind of upheaval? No one seems to be looking beyond the IPOs. We have never experienced this kind of socio-economic change in such a short period of time, nor do we have even a remote plan for its effects.

Democracy

Our democracy is about as anemic as a democracy can get. In the past, the Achilles heel of our democracy was good, old-fashioned apathy. Now, it is threatened by unfettered gerrymandering, recalcitrant structural problems, and the flickering integrity and unabashed animosity of elected leaders. Political scientists have taken to calling our system of government competitive authoritarianism rather than a democracy. That has never happened in my lifetime.

Decency

Self-dealing and corruption have long been a pastime of politicians, but the scale and, more importantly, the brazenness of it today is breathtaking and unprecedented. And beyond the fiscal costs, there is the corrosive effect on our faith in systems of government. Right and wrong used to exist above and beyond our legal system. That doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.

What is the common theme?

I think it has to do with perspective: long versus short. Previously, our sense of the world stretched generations in to the future, to people we would never know. Somewhere along the way, however, we started looking at our aspirations for the world and our relationship to it as being circumscribed by our own particular experience and time on this Earth. And that, as they say, has made all of the difference.

So, what’s the solution?

It’s not often I get to quote the Old Testament, but here it is: “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth” (Genesis 1:28). In other words, have more children.

I say this half in jest, half not. And I say it more in a civilization-, species-preservation vein than as some sort of divine mandate to glorify God, but the effect is the same, regardless of motivation.

If you don’t want to have more children, or can’t, go to a park nearby. Watch some 7-year-olds playing. Just sit there for a minute and witness the purity and wonder of the moment. Take it in; hold it in reverence. Imagine what it could become.

The instant we can’t envision their future, and their children’s future; if the promise of their lives doesn’t stir us out of our navel-gazing, consequences-be-damned, me-only reverie, then empathy has lost the battle to the AI bots.

And that is a battle we can’t afford to lose.