NOTE: THE FOLLOWING IS A TRANSCRIPT OF EPISODE OF EP417
What is artificial intelligence? To have a productive discussion about it, we must first define it.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability of machines or computer systems to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. AI involves creating intelligent systems that can adapt, learn from data, and act to achieve specific goals, often by simulating human cognitive processes.
An example of AI is the definition I just read, provided by Google AI. I wanted to know the definition of the term, Google interpreted my request, and then spat out a human-like definition that describes the characteristics of AI.
This is a fairly benign process. The downside of it is that it may lack accuracy or depth, and that it encourages laziness. A misinformed, lazy populace is a scary thing. Such is the nature of every day people’s relationship with technology. For example, I have no idea how my cell phone works. Actually, let’s get even simpler, I have no idea how my oven, dishwasher, or toaster works. I just know that they work or they don’t. This makes me incredibly reliant upon experts to fix any problems that arise - electricians, plumbers, and so on.
That means I’m less capable, as a person. I can’t fix things I use on a weekly, even daily basis. If I drop my cell phone in the toilet, I’m fucked. I only have one number memorized (my wife’s). In this way we outsource responsibility to others.
And doesn’t that raise a peculiar problem - what happens when the people we outsource responsibility to aren’t people at all. How does the world function when the machines are maintained by the machines? The advent of this technology is supposed to provide me more leisure time. I don’t have to worry about fixing anything myself nor do I have to worry about calling another person to fix it. It’s a self-regulating system that can operate completely independently of me.
Supposedly, the time this saves me would allow me to focus on the things I really cared about like art.
But what if art no longer needed artists to make and maintain it?
What happens when you extract the human being from the art?
The stakes baked into that question are high. All I hear is that my services are no longer needed.
Let’s imagine a sentient AI decides to make The Wrestling Works podcast - a podcast that analyzes professional wrestling as an art to figure out what makes it work. This AI is able to generate scripts based on wrestling’s past, present, and future, and even produce a human-sounding voice. This AI would do all the grunt work required to get that podcast on iTunes and other repositories so that it could actually be heard by the masses. It could establish various social media accounts and post on those accounts far more than I ever good, gradually amassing a following.
This AI could steal phrases from me like, “one and all” or “may the moment of pop be with you”, but I would have no recourse because those terms aren’t trade-marked.
That AI could even listen to every episode of The Work Of Wrestling in a matter of days and create a fact simile of my voice, diction, and tone. What regulations are there to prevent this from happening?
And Wrestling Works hosted by Jim Fail would be infinitely more successful than my podcast because of the novelty of it being artificial.
This AI would have been created by AI, not humans. It could even be the owner of an AI-generating company, not unlike the machine-run state 0-1 depicted in the Animatrix short The Second Renaissance (and just as an aside, if you want to know how everything is going to turn out with AI within the next fifty years, watch The Animatrix - long story short, it doesn’t - and won’t - end well for human bings).
Entire AI media networks will form, without any sort of human oversight, harvesting data and creating customized content based on that data far more efficiently than human beings ever could.
Consider your relationship with Google today - you open the webpage and type in your subject or question and then Google spits out a bunch of options for you to choose from. More often than not you’ll get pretty close to what you were looking for.
Now imagine a Google that doesn’t even require you to ask the question - it simply already knowns what you’re going to ask it before you ask it because it’s been monitoring everything about you, from your word-choice to your heart rate to your neural activity, perhaps, if AI-fueled bodily enhancements every become a thing (which they will), even being away of your thoughts as you’re thinking them.
In this world where your mind is synergies with the machines, asking and answering is instantaneous and all that makes you human is relatively unimportant.
Again, I come back to the idea that I’m not really needed in this kind of world. Everything is taken care of for me so I’m able to just sit back, relax, and play my video games. My brand of arts analysis is inferior because I’m limited by my individuality, my pesky emotions, my marriage, my friends, my family, and other various time constraints (like a full-time job).
AI doesn’t have to worry about any of that. Wrestling Works could churn out episodes as often as it likes - but it would first study the listening habits of its audience, learn what other shows they’re listening to, and craft the perfect podcast with highly specific content that seems tailor-made for each listener - the perfect subject, the perfect length of time, and the perfect frequency.
My guess is that it a new episode would come out every weekday, be thirty minutes long, and cover WWE, AEW, NXT, NEW JAPAN, and any other promotion it deems worthwhile.
Can you imagine how efficient that would be.
You’d open your preferred podcast app and you’d no longer be at the mercy of me - my artistic drive, my interests, my passions, my failures. You’d only get exactly what you want, when you want it, and for how long it can sustain your interest.
The more I talk about this the more horrified I become, because it’s going to happen. There’s no putting this toothpaste back in the tube.
With the rise of AI will come the inevitable backlash, and human only spaces will crop up across the world as havens. When in such places there will be limited access to the internet and devices, and people will get back to what being human is all about. This being human thing will be decidedly niche though and come with a hefty price, just like any such retreats that exist for the same purpose today.
And remember, everything I’ve discussed thus far is AI without a bipedal body (bipedal just means an animal that uses only two legs for walking - thank you again Google AI). Our healthy fear of The Machines (due in no small part to the brilliant first two Terminator films) has somewhat blinded us to the more insidious bodiless artificial intelligence that hacks all networks and gains control of our nuclear stock piles (the basis of the last two Mission:Impossible films).
AI won’t even have much use for human-like bodies because it’s more liberated in its own, vast, interconnected network cloud.
Humans will certainly want bipedal AI bodies though for a wide assortment of tasks and these will be considered lesser machines designed to perform lesser jobs. First and foremost, these human-like machines will be used to replace nannies, construction workers, any human working in public transportation (we’ve got self-driving trains), anyone working for Uber (we’ve got self-driving cars), doctors, lawyers, sales people, retail workers, waiters, waitresses, cooks, janitors…the list of replaceable jobs is endless.
And if all of the alienation and purposelessness of this reality gets you down and you no longer know how to talk to another human being well don’t worry because we’ve got AI companion robots! Fully functional, anatomically correct, entirely customizable artificially intelligent mates. Put simply, sex robots are definitely coming and Washington is going to have a hell of a time regulating them (which is to say, they won’t). Abuse of these machines will run rampant. These human-like AI robots will be subject to all make and manner of torture, satisfying the dark appetites of a populace increasingly devoid of empathy.
If you think I’m getting off topic don’t worry, I’m getting to professional wrestling.
Within fifty years there will be an AI wrestling match. The novelty will be too much for promotions to pass up. And you know what…fans are going to eat it up. They’re going to love watching Kenny Omega take on Lenny Alpha, the Lucha AI from Zero-One. These robot wrestlers will perform wrestling moves no human ever could. Body slams from the rafters. Super coast to coast drop kicks that make Shane McMahon’s signature look like child’s play.
And the violence, oh the violence. Because they’re machines, there’s no limit to what they can do. We’re going to watch and scream with joy as they literally skin each other alive and set themselves on fire. We’re going to watch, satisfied in a way we never could’ve imagined, as these hyper realistic robots bleed and bake for our entertainment.
And all of this continues to remove you - that thing which makes you, you - that beautiful spark burning in your soul yearning to be free, desperate to be understood - your humanity is nothing more than the firing of a few peculiar neurons.
Keep all of this in mind as you consider the undeniable reality of climate change. Earth is getting hotter. It’s boiling over, in fact, and the number of climate refugees is souring. This is a fact no climate-change-denier will, eventually, be able to avoid. What happens when that mass of humanity clashes with another mass of humanity who’s had their jobs taken away by AI.
Then consider whether or not AI will care about climate change. It doesn’t breathe the air. It could float on water in vast, ocean-sized data centers. AI could build a massive rocket and shoot it into the stars long after we weak little humans have expired.
On a smaller scale, what happens if an AI scrolls through a person’s social media history and doesn’t like what they see. What if an AI listened to this very episode of my podcast and took umbrage with it. You think being cancelled is bad - how about a sniper-drone that can see and shoot through walls.
This is the world we face. I am convinced that our children, today, will live to see some, if not all of this come to pass. It’s going to be bloody, horrifying, and seemingly insurmountable.
All because we like having quick answers to questions.
All because we like consequence-free sex and violence.
All because we didn’t value that thing which makes our entire existence precious and meaningful - that messy, difficult, awe-inspiring thing called the human soul.