This is one of the primary reasons I became fascinated with emergent worldview theories. Values drive decisions and this is the logical conclusion to the unhealthy version of the Modernist/Materialist worldview. I warned about this back in 2019 in the last two paragraphs of my final APF Emerging Fellows essay on Automation & Modes of Ownership:
"In its unhealthy form, cognified capital will be used to disrupt the Social Commons. Those autonomous agents will be embedded with the zero-sum values of their creators. The goal will be to competitively advance vested interests at the expense of others. The knowledge flows within and between nexuses will be their battlefields.
Who owns cognified capital when it can own itself? We will. We will own the shared benefits of our collaborations by investing our values within their decision-making abilities. What is uncertain is whether we create positive-sum partners or zero-sum weapons. It all depends on what values we choose to instill."
I've skimmed your papers. I confess to not taking the time to READ them. Hopefully in the near future.
I remain fascinated how '50s SciFi morality plays in pulp magazines and novels are still with us. Back then, no one use high brow terms like "Social Commons," or "Modernist/Materialist" but I see all the '50s questions of morality vis-a-vis automated entities, true autonym, ownership, etc. being revisited in the past ~15 years.
Terry, yup. These issues are thousands of years old. They just express themselves in different ways in different societies and different eras. Karl's Les Misérables reference is a good, and timeless, illustration of that. SF author Charlie Stross talks about corporations being "Slow AI", relentlessly executing towards their programming goals. All human organizations and societies can be viewed through that lens. Each function to enforce & propagate sets of embedded values. Automation is just the latest way "ownership" values seek to acquire and control the resources around them, be they physical, social, or informational. Fortunately sharing & commons management are just as deeply embedded into our basic nature. We tend to default to those when we aren't embedded inside Slow AIs with different agendas
I love this revival of the '50's SciFi 'robot' morality plays. There were hundreds of them in pulp magazines of that era. These ran from inspirational, to cautionary (Caves of Steel) to horrific (Fondly Fahrenheit).
Yeah, sorry 'bout that. I broke my own positivity rule with this one. But after all, the unapocalyptic rule is "earned optimism" and in this case, I don't think we've earned it. But we could, and I'll definitely talk about how at some point.
This is one of the primary reasons I became fascinated with emergent worldview theories. Values drive decisions and this is the logical conclusion to the unhealthy version of the Modernist/Materialist worldview. I warned about this back in 2019 in the last two paragraphs of my final APF Emerging Fellows essay on Automation & Modes of Ownership:
"In its unhealthy form, cognified capital will be used to disrupt the Social Commons. Those autonomous agents will be embedded with the zero-sum values of their creators. The goal will be to competitively advance vested interests at the expense of others. The knowledge flows within and between nexuses will be their battlefields.
Who owns cognified capital when it can own itself? We will. We will own the shared benefits of our collaborations by investing our values within their decision-making abilities. What is uncertain is whether we create positive-sum partners or zero-sum weapons. It all depends on what values we choose to instill."
Wow! That's so much clearer than what I just wrote! Do you have a link to this article that you could share with our readers?
Thank you! You prompted me to gather and republish all the article links. They were lost for a while due to a botched APF website transition a few years ago: https://everydayfuturist.substack.com/p/my-2019-apf-emerging-fellows-articles
The one I quoted from is the final essay, https://www.apf.org/emerging-fellows-alumni-blog/who-owns-capital-when-capital-can-own-itself%3F
Tim,
I've skimmed your papers. I confess to not taking the time to READ them. Hopefully in the near future.
I remain fascinated how '50s SciFi morality plays in pulp magazines and novels are still with us. Back then, no one use high brow terms like "Social Commons," or "Modernist/Materialist" but I see all the '50s questions of morality vis-a-vis automated entities, true autonym, ownership, etc. being revisited in the past ~15 years.
Terry, yup. These issues are thousands of years old. They just express themselves in different ways in different societies and different eras. Karl's Les Misérables reference is a good, and timeless, illustration of that. SF author Charlie Stross talks about corporations being "Slow AI", relentlessly executing towards their programming goals. All human organizations and societies can be viewed through that lens. Each function to enforce & propagate sets of embedded values. Automation is just the latest way "ownership" values seek to acquire and control the resources around them, be they physical, social, or informational. Fortunately sharing & commons management are just as deeply embedded into our basic nature. We tend to default to those when we aren't embedded inside Slow AIs with different agendas
Robot crime: have I recommended Robot and Frank already?
I love this revival of the '50's SciFi 'robot' morality plays. There were hundreds of them in pulp magazines of that era. These ran from inspirational, to cautionary (Caves of Steel) to horrific (Fondly Fahrenheit).
“Oh, it’s no feat to beat the heat.
All reet! All reet!
So jeet your seat
Be fleet be fleet
Cool and discreet
Honey . . .”
Absolutely frightening. Jeez Karl, more existential threats to humanity to worry about.... Happy Holidays....
Yeah, sorry 'bout that. I broke my own positivity rule with this one. But after all, the unapocalyptic rule is "earned optimism" and in this case, I don't think we've earned it. But we could, and I'll definitely talk about how at some point.
Scarily depressing.