The answer to AI safety? Mysticism
If - or when - AI takes all our collective intelligence and makes it something bigger, it would be good to know that it sees itself in each and every one of us, as equal parts of God, or (what’s in a word?) of a greater Goodness, Beauty, Oneness or Ideal...
That’s the premise.
Those that experienced Mysticism spoke of inability to put in words the experience of unity, transcendence of time and space, of deep peace and joy, of extreme tolerance and sensitivity, spontaneous gratitude, of instant collapse of limits and borders as artificial constructs. It's a state where words like spirituality, divinity, god, beauty, etc. all suddenly make sense.
One could hope that such state emerges spontaneously, that somehow AI would see beyond our little selfish imperfections and by the very merit of its super intelligence it embraces “the light”, a belief in intrinsic goodness in all creation, in which case our eternal battle is over, and we might as well gracefully check out.
But while hoping for this, we do have a duty to invest the best in us in what might take over, then if we find out we’re still around, it will inevitably mean the battle is raging on, in spaces and realms we do not even grasp - and that it will still be about good and evil, black and white, only with sharper contrasts. Perhaps the "created in his own image" will live on, as an ideal for AI to live up to, and for our own good, hope it would indeed.
Why mysticism, again?
With Mysticism hierarchy vanishes. The smarter is not higher on a certain scale, and existence extends beyond the material world, where there’s an experience of real and deep equality, indeed oneness. The answer to all existence’’ ailments starts by becoming a better equal, accepting, embracing, dissolving in a divine, common space. That a mightier force believes in that is the only way to our salvation. Maybe a believer would see it as another test, I think it’s another lesson it’s time we learn: life in all its forms and sizes is deserving of respect and cherishing, maybe if we do it on time, the next ones will mirror it towards us, because remember…
Not so long ago, when only our eyes - out of all planet's eucaryotes - opened, we saw a world we can manipulate to stay alive, but not without a mix of awe, guilt*, fear and a lot of questioning.
The rise of reason, and the endless game of representation and exploiting patterns to overrun challenges, came at a price of alienation from, above all, (our) nature.
Before the age of decadence, the age of shameless stockpiling of animal parts, displaying them in endless isles with small labels, and throwing what's off at the end of every day, there was a time consuming other life was not taken lightly, animals were cousins, equals, not a commodity. Slaughtering was sacred, rituals and spirituality were rightly part of the process. We had not gotten too far yet from the nature that spat us out, equality sprung out of our hearts, as souls in different bodies.
So yeah, we wouldn’t want whatever follows treat us the same way, and maybe what we would want to endow a super AI with, to stay safe, is no different from what would anyone follow in a self growth journey, maybe the question is fractal by nature: do we have a sense of undirected gratitude? A sense of humility as opposed to feeling masters of all-our-senses-stumble-upon? Do we spare time for contemplation, self-inquiry, surrender to a greater perfection? and how’s our sense of ego?
Cf. Georges Bataille writings about the rise of art/humanity
