The world is on the cusp of something great. Artificial intelligence is poised to change the way we do everything. And what I immediately think of is the introduction to a book. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities” is about what happens when change is unleashed on the world without any provision for how it will impact human beings. France was leaving behind feudalism and the Industrial Revolution was changing the way the rich and the poor related to each other. Unfortunately, the nobles weren’t up to the challenge of managing the transition. And so, they were swallowed up in the crash of the old system and it took Napoleon to build some kind of new foundation for France and much of Europe.
We may be in a similar place. An old order is crumbling in the face of a technological and sociological upheaval. We have an elite class that is definitely not up to the challenge. Their lack of self-awareness and lack of empathy for their fellow countrymen has made them the object of anger and now hatred. Maybe Trump and his successors can intervene and save the “nobles” from the guillotine. Maybe not.
But what is undeniable is that the age of automation and thinking machines will fundamentally alter our society. The only question is whether the people in charge have the wisdom to direct this transformation in a way that allows people to change along with it in a non-destructive arc.
After all, the machine age didn’t eliminate humanity. It allowed incredible productivity and created whole new industries that the children of the former age could move into. The same is true today. Everyone has to adjust to tools like AI that constantly hector us with their algorithmic pestering about how we should set up our reports or Power Point slide deck or whatever the hell it is that they claim to know better than us. But when push comes to shove it will still be humans that decide whether hemlines go up or down this season and whether thin or wide pinstripe suits stand for winning on Wall Street; even if it is the algorithm that picks the stocks.
But what worries me is that the elites really do feel that they alone are needed in this society. We can see that from what went on the last few years. Open borders were their ploy for flooding us out with third world peasants and then levelling us down to that status; serfs. And the COVID fiasco was their demonstration of how unimportant we really are. The whole country could be shut down but they were unaffected and our lives could be destroyed and we could dry up and blow away and it wouldn’t bother them one little bit.
Well, the shoe is on the other foot. Our side has a chance to adapt the revolution to our needs. Maybe it’s the best of times.
By what definition does someone who “lack of self-awareness and empathy” adopt the title of Elite? I suppose that if you hold all the real power, you can call yourselves anything you want. They also seem to lack wisdom. By allowing their purposes and means to stray so far from the norms of the populace is just stupid. Opening the border to 10’s of millions of random people flooring the country? The whole transgender thing, mutilating surgery for 10 year olds without parental notification or permission? Men declaring one day that they are trans and then wandering through the restrooms… Read more »
Tom, I’ll be willing to entertain whatever title we want to use for these people; elite, the rich, managerial elite, the oligarchy, whatever. Maybe they don’t even believe any of the things they’re forcing on the rest of us. But we need someone to get them off our backs. God bless Trump if he destroys them doing it. Fire half of Washington. Send their salaries back to the people who actually work in this country.