How to embrace AI

When I was a young child I was impressed by the animation of a story. A myth in fact, ancient but originating from a young country: the Legend of John Henry and his 10 pound hammer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb8ItdNKo0w

In the story, railroad worker John Henry is challenged to a competition with a steam-driven machine. Henry beats the machine, but succumbs to exhaustion. There is historical evidence for the veracity of the events in the story (as with Homer), but the legend transcends its own historicity. It is a powerful metaphor, a mythology, for the industrial age. It’s a story of bravery against the odds, of heroism and ultimate defeat. A tragedy that shows a powerful truth of the human condition, and reveals to us our own predicament. It left a great impression on me. I was the odd one out in a family of computer engineers, and my father, who worked for IBM in the seventies, had explained to me that his job consisted of implementing computer systems to replace administrative workforce. I realized early on that in our age we would all become John Henry.

Still, making some jobs obsolete might be a good thing. There are many jobs in the contemporary office ecosystem that consist of the soulless following of protocols, producing brain dead results of unabating mediocrity; jobs that were dubbed “bullshit jobs” by the late philosopher David Graeber in his 2018 “Bullshit Jobs: A Theory”. This prevalent mediocrity is easily substituted with AI slop. But that is no recommendation. I hate mediocrity. I dread a world with more of it, AI produced, or not.

This puts me in somewhat of a dilemma. With Pathfinder, I find myself being part of something I both believe in and not believe in at all. I am convinced of the value we are trying to produce for end-users, I like the product, but I’m taking my time embracing the AI technology behind it. My business partners know this.

A psychologist once told me about the power of “as if”. It works well on PTSD sufferers, but also has a general application. It was one of the most counter-intuitive pieces of advice I’ve ever received. In situations that feel overwhelming, pose yourself the question: “What would my behaviour look like if I would not at this moment experience this intense anxiety?” And then you simply act out the answer. The courageous act is not a result of courage, courage is a result of just doing the courageous thing. This becomes one of these enigmatic self-fulfilling creations of the imagination that are an indication that the principle actually works.

So I have decided to deploy this disposition with regard to my dilemma. No matter my personal feelings, I have to start working from the understanding that using AI will be as ubiquitous as the pocket calculator once was, and as familiar as spreadsheets or bus fares. I have to embrace this new collaboration with ‘intelligent’ ‘agents’ (both terms need to be taken with the appropriate amount of salt) with courage and integrity. I should temper my expectations, but also engage with it respectfully, as if it were a friendly and cooperative colleague, artificial perhaps, but understanding, civilized, empathic even. In this spirit I should speak to it as if speaking to, say, a familiar and trustworthy persona like Star Trek the Next Generation’s human-like robot commander Data.

I will make this leap of faith, in spite of my lack of trust, empowered by the following rationalizations: AI is what it is, and it is here to stay. We have to learn to trust it, since we’ll all be using it. We have to use this reality to our advantage, because you can be sure others will.

I have a pretty specific project in mind for the system to contribute to, something that could keep a small research unit busy for a while. Perhaps I can at least save some time.

I will keep you posted.

Mathijs