Competition, AI And Money

Humanity, as a species, has won the race towards dominance on this planet. It was the second race, to be honest, as the first was won by some apex predator dinosaurs until they were wiped out some 65 million years ago. Will we be the architects of our own demise as we race towards a superior artificial intelligence?

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Recently I saw a video discussing the AI in the soon to be released Gran Turismo 7; on 9 February Polyphony Digital Inc. (PDI), Sony AI and Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) announced their new racing AI agent "Gran Turismo Sophy." The training of Sophy began in April 2020, and while in the very beginning it had trouble to even keep a car driving in a straight line, in July 2021 it was almost able to beat four of the world's best human drivers, including the triple-champion of the '2020 FIA Gran Turismo Championships,' Takuma Miyazono. In the second event, on 21 October 2021, the AI beat the human team score by double points, even after having been overtaken out in the beginning of third race. You can watch the videos on the Gran Turismo website, and I suggest you do that if you're at all into racing games; it's fascinating to see how the AI employs faints and maximizes track-limits. Sony Interactive Entertainment's stated goal is to entertain and not humiliate human drivers, so they'll release a well balanced AI eventually (probably not at the game's release but in a later update); I only mention this because 1) I'm a fan of racing and racing games, and 2) it serves as a perfect example of how AI can easily outperform human beings in a field that's thought to be heavily dependent on human intuition and adaptation.

When discussing these developments it's important to keep in mind how humanity has evolved throughout time. One important truth that's so easily forgotten these days is that not a single invention can be ascribed to one single person. All inventions are build upon the collective achievements of current and previous generations. We like to do that, but trust me when I say that Steve Jobs didn't invent the smartphone single-handedly nor did Tim Berners-Lee invent the internet; these are all developments of previously existing things and ultimately it's only rational to speak of these inventions as the result of our collective efforts. Completely contrary to this rather simple truth though, we live in a highly individualized socioeconomic paradigm, and are raised with ditto mindset. Capitalism wastes huge amounts of human potential with its prescription of competition; people and businesses all individually try to invent better products and keep ownership of what they learn in the process, all with the primary aim to maximize individual profits. This means that many people simultaneously try to solve the same problems on their own, instead of pooling their knowledge and learning from each other, which is not only a waste of efforts, but of resources as well.

This is the environment in which we now strive for better AI. Think about that for a second. Scientists are well aware of the potential dangers of developing self learning and self replicating AI systems; watch the below linked video to see an example of AI robots finding solutions to problems that weren't programmed or expected. We could be in danger by simply giving a powerful AI the wrong problem to solve. What if we instruct AI to find ways to preserve the environment, and it learns that we are the biggest threat to the environment? The plot of I, Robot comes to mind... Thousands of minds individually developing AI in secret with the aim of making money... That's a recipe for disaster, if you ask me.

A good example of what can go wrong with new technology when left to free individuals who have no other aim than to make as much money as possible is, I'm sad to say, cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology; with tens of thousands of tokens in this unregulated marketplace, 99 percent are worthless and harmful scams. Although NFTs can be useful, as things stand now they're not much more than a cult of money, tiny communities that'll defend the usefulness of their NFT jpegs to the death while using the overpriced images in their social media profiles. As with so many problems and potential problems, it's not the technology that puts us in danger, it's the overarching socioeconomic structure that creates the dangerous mindset of wanting to get there first. Let's take a step back to rethink our priorities before taking too much steps forward, for is we don't, it might be too late when we realize we've taken that fatal step in a direction that leads to creating a new dominant species...

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