Our future with AI

One question I keep seeing online these days is:

"Why are all tech companies trying to force AI on us?"

It's a valid question that I've been asking myself. Those tech companies must be aware that their product is mostly shit. Apparently, they're failing to make money with it, too (expect ads in your ChatGPT replies). So why are they pushing it so hard, harder than any new technology before?

It's difficult to find a logical answer to this question unless we look at the big picture. I mean the very big picture.

What is it?

Is it that capitalism is more unhinged than ever before, and that wealth inequality is greater now than ever?

No, it's bigger than that.

Is it that fascism is rearing its ugly head again and slowly but surely taking over Western countries?

No, it's bigger than that.

What about the climate crisis and the sixth mass extinction?

Almost.

Actually, it's all three combined.

Nowadays, I often see people talking about one or the other as if they were completely separate issues. The truth is that they're all connected, and becoming more so every day.

Unfettered capitalism is making the climate crisis unstoppable. This, in turn, makes societies more unstable, which is how fascism grows bigger and more powerful.

I hope I'm not teaching you anything new.

But what does the ubiquity of AI have to do with this?

Almost everything.

Disclaimer in the form of a side comment: Yes, I know it's not "real" AI, and that thing isn't intelligent. Sadly, however, "AI" is currently the most common term used to refer to those products, and even my mom understands it. Well, she doesn't speak English, so she says "IA."
Most people don't know what an "LLM" is, and some are confused by the term "generative AI." So, despite the fact that the term is not accurate, "AI" it is.

So, what's the link between AI, capitalism, fascism, and the end of the world as we know it?

Let me explain.

I'm a university teacher. I'm somewhat spared from the problem because of what I teach—foreign languages—and because I have started designing my classes in ways that prevent students from using AI. However, students are using it for more and more things, and it has become a major issue in higher education.

In the past, people went to university to learn new things and to learn how to think better. No, really. They did.

AI invading almost every field of study is changing this. I'm not sure why these students are in college anymore. I've heard that it's to build their social circles for future networking and to find spouses. If that's true, it's pretty terrifying. The truth is that the more students rely on AI, the less they learn, and the less they learn how to think for themselves.

In short, they're becoming stupid.

Or should I say "stupider"? I can't generalize to all Western countries, but in those I'm familiar with—mostly the U.S. and France—education is in shambles. This is happening in different ways. In France, most education is public, and budgets are repeatedly cut. Proper educational conditions are no longer met: there are not enough teachers (more and more are pushed out of the profession), classes are getting too big, and the educational environment is deteriorating. This isn't just happening in higher education; it's happening at all levels.
This obviously impacts the quality of education provided.

In the US, public schools have long been underfunded, but you can assume that private education is fine. The material conditions may be fine, but the quality of education is increasingly problematic.

Twenty-five years ago, when I taught there, I was often appalled by how little students fresh out of high school knew about pretty much anything. What do people learn in US high school? Next to nothing, it seemed. Some of my friends and students came out of programs such as AP (Advanced Placement) or IB (International Baccalaureate). Supposedly, these programs were the elite of high school education, yet the knowledge and learning they acquired in these programs was equivalent to that of an average European student in a regular school. Those who did not come out of these programs seemed to have the general knowledge of someone 3-4 years younger in Europe.

At the time, the smartest students more or less caught up in college, but most of them remained uneducated outside their fields of study for the rest of their lives.

The focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) over the past couple of decades seemed like a good thing. However, this focus came at the expense of the humanities. It has given us hordes of engineers and technicians who can invent great things in theory. However, their lack of knowledge and understanding of philosophy, ethics, and even history is what has led to the current state of technology, including... You guessed it... AI!

That was 25 years ago, and everything I've seen since then (i.e. younger Americans I've met, what I've read and listened to about them) points to an even lower level of education today than 25 years ago.

In other words, Americans have become less and less educated, reaching concerning levels (just look at the state of public discourse and politics). And AI makes them even less able to understand the ins and outs of the world they live in.

(If I focus so much on the U.S., it's because: I have experience with it and its education system, and most of the AI we're talking about today comes from that country).

So, even though the reasons vary from one country to another, the state of education in the Western world is not a pretty sight.

Do you know what the most important thing is for a healthy, functioning democracy?

An educated population.

You're starting to see where I'm going, aren't you?

AI is now everywhere. People whose education is, at best, perfectible are using it more and more for different things. It's making them less and less able to think for themselves. It's making them stupider.

This is not a bug of AI. It's a feature. It's the main feature.

A poorly educated population undermines democracy. We're seeing the consequences of this in many Western countries today. An uneducated population is fertile ground for authoritarianism, which is growing to dangerous levels everywhere in the West.

The push for AI is making fascism stronger every day.

Am I implying that tech bros like Sam Altman or Mark Zuckerberg are pushing for fascism?

Yes, I totally am.

But why would they do that?

One reason, albeit a minor one, is their lack of understanding of many fields in the humanities. These people are good (?) technicians, but they're quite ignorant of most, if not all, social sciences. Believe it or not, understanding the social sciences is important for understanding the impact your inventions will have on society, and those sorts of things.
A bigger reason is pure greed. The more right-wing a government is, the fewer regulations, worker's rights, taxes, and social services there are. These things allow us to have a somewhat decent life but they prevent 21st-century modern barons from making even more money.

That's not all.

I have yet to discuss the role of the climate crisis in this story. It's the main one, as it is in every story nowadays.

To stop the climate crisis and global warming, we must completely overhaul our economies. First and foremost, we must end capitalism.
If we don't end capitalism by around 2030, global warming will become unstoppable and spiral out of control.

Ending capitalism worldwide by 2030? But that's not realistic, right? No, it's not. The fate of the Earth is pretty much sealed. The planet is about to undergo changes unseen in its 4.5 billion years of history. We're getting a front-row seat.

Will humanity survive? Maybe. Probably, in some parts of the world, at least. However, it is about to face the death and destruction of its lifestyles at an unprecedented rate. We can expect hundreds of millions of deaths due to the climate crisis before the end of the century. That's the optimistic estimate. Talking about billions of deaths sounds impossible, but is it? I don't know. I hope so, but... Is it?

Our societies and civilizations can't survive such upheavals. They will collapse. Hopefully, we won't return to the Stone Age, but what happened to many civilizations throughout history is about to happen again to most societies on Earth today.

If I, a nobody with perhaps a better eye for the bigger picture than most, can see it, you can be sure the oligarchy can too.

The oligarchy could stop the climate crisis, but doing so would most likely mean losing its position of power. So, the oligarchy has decided to sacrifice a large portion of the populations it controls to ensure its survival.

Does that sound far-fetched? If so, then you really haven't been paying attention these past few years. Honestly, I'm terrified by how little we've learned from the Covid19 pandemic. Despite the fact that many specialists had warned the powers that be that it was a question of when, not if, such a pandemic would happen, our societies were horribly unprepared when it showed up.

We witnessed chaos, disinformation, and the politicization of an issue that should never have been politicized. Ultimately, our governments proved to be partly incapable and partly unwilling to manage the crisis. They were unwilling to do so because managing and tackling the pandemic would require major changes to our economic system. These changes were not only incompatible with capitalism, but they could also have empowered the population. Instead, through various lies and inaction, our collective governments willingly sacrificed a large part of the population so that they wouldn't have to reconsider capitalism. Millions died and hundreds of millions were infected by a poorly understood virus, the long-term effects of which we're only beginning to understand—and they're not good news.

The oligarchy allowed many of us to die and maimed an even larger number of people in order to protect itself and the system that gives them power.

If you think they won't do it again, you're in denial. This isn't a theoretical situation. They've been doing it for the past five years. And many people foolishly approved of it because wearing a mask was inconvenient or something.

Yes, the world is crumbling. Societies are about to end. Many people will die. But the oligarchy has one major goal: to survive and remain in power over whatever is left to control.

There's only one thing that can stop them: Functioning, healthy democracies with leaders who work for the common good, not the advantages of an elite. For this kind of governance to exist, an educated population is necessary.

Attacking the education system was not enough; the oligarchy needed to spread a "virus" that would make people stupider and stupider.
Enter AI, pushed by tech companies to become ubiquitous and make us passive and idiotic so we won't rebel against the oligarchy when the climate crisis spins out of control and our societies fall apart.

In short.

Thanks for reading.