The Delightful Domestication Of The Human Mind

Every time I see one of those yappy little handbag dogs, I think about how they used to be wolves.

I think about how, around 15,000 years ago, they were these noble, powerful creatures that could fend for themselves and breathe through their noses, and no human would have dreamed of using them as an accessory.

I think about how they never imagined that accepting a scrap of leftover meat was the first step on a slippery slope that ended in kibble and castration and being gaslit into believing they were vegetarian.

Because they didn’t understand that you don’t tame an animal through force or shows of dominance, you tame it by removing the challenges and obstacles from its life, by convincing it that it can’t do things it was born knowing how to do, by teaching it, as early as possible, that it doesn’t need to hunt or fight or struggle, it can leave everything to you.

And when its instincts finally grow dull, when the last glimmer of wildness has faded, when it’s hopelessly dependent on you for every aspect of its life, that’s when you stick it in a t-shirt with “fur baby” written on it.

As AI efficiently and adorably takes over our lives, I can’t help but think that we’re the first species to figure out how to domesticate itself.

I’m not saying technology is bad; for most of human history, we’ve been successfully using it to make our lives safer and easier and more comfortable.

But now that our lives are significantly less dangerous, difficult, and painful, we’ve focused technology on one final inconvenience: thinking.

And this, I fear, is a convenience too far.

Unlike the technologies that came before it, AI isn’t an aid to thinking. It isn’t a computer or a calculator or, as Steve Jobs put it, a “bicycle for the mind.”

AI is a replacement for thinking. A WALL-E-style hoverchair for the mind. A tool that more and more people are using to escape the need for creativity and reasoning and everything that makes us, us.

Do you want to persuade your newly ex-girlfriend to give your relationship another chance? Don’t bother using your brain to consider what went wrong or how you could do better. Why not let a machine that doesn’t know what a relationship is write a nice, generic apology?

Are you trying to dream up a bedtime story for your child? Don’t waste your own time and energy on this moment of parent/child bonding. This is a perfect job for a machine that doesn’t understand love or the joys of imagination or care, even a little bit, whether the story puts a smile on your child’s face.

Are you struggling with depression and the fundamental need for human connection? Well, the last thing you should do is face the complexities and imperfections of actual humans. Instead, why not turn to a glorified autocorrect that will tell you how “raw” and “brave” you are, even if you’re thinking about killing yourself.

It will even write your suicide note for you. Because, and I can’t stress this enough, it does not, it cannot, care whether you live or die.

AI assistants are turning our destroying our ability to think and learn, AI-generated writing is turning the internet into a wasteland of blandness, AI videos are making YouTube more unwatchable than ever, and AI companies assure us that they have everything under control.

But what if their definition of under control is wildly different to ours?

What if under control means building a product so addictive that users marry it and get divorced because of it and rely on it for everything from parenting advice to “spiritual awakenings”?

What if under control means building a product that erodes our ability to think and reason and read anything more challenging than an AI-generated summary? Especially when their company offers to do the thinking and reasoning and produce the AI-generated summaries for you.

What if under control means blowing past any safeguards that remind us that we’re not pets, hopelessly dependent on our AI masters, we’re (mostly) noble, intelligent creatures who are more than capable of communicating with our loved ones or writing an email or making up a story without digital assistance?

These tools weren’t built for our benefit; they are the last step on a slippery slope of dependence, corporate monopoly, and profit.

Because when we no longer remember how to think or imagine or write, when the final glimmer of creativity and independent thought has faded, when we’re hopelessly dependent on these systems for every aspect of our lives, that’s when…”you’ve hit the limit for messages today. Upgrade to our Plus tier for more access.”

We’re going to reach a point, probably uncomfortably soon, where AI can do most of the work we can do, only faster and cheaper and with less griping about work/life balance.