AI has hacked the operating system of human civilisation

Yuval Noah Hariri in The Economist

Fears of artificial intelligence (ai) have haunted humanity since the very beginning of the computer age. Hitherto these fears focused on machines using physical means to kill, enslave or replace people. But over the past couple of years new ai tools have emerged that threaten the survival of human civilisation from an unexpected direction. ai has gained some remarkable abilities to manipulate and generate language, whether with words, sounds or images. ai has thereby hacked the operating system of our civilisation.

Language is the stuff almost all human culture is made of. Human rights, for example, aren’t inscribed in our dna. Rather, they are cultural artefacts we created by telling stories and writing laws. Gods aren’t physical realities. Rather, they are cultural artefacts we created by inventing myths and writing scriptures.

Money, too, is a cultural artefact. Banknotes are just colourful pieces of paper, and at present more than 90% of money is not even banknotes—it is just digital information in computers. What gives money value is the stories that bankers, finance ministers and cryptocurrency gurus tell us about it. Sam Bankman-Fried, Elizabeth Holmes and Bernie Madoff were not particularly good at creating real value, but they were all extremely capable storytellers.

What would happen once a non-human intelligence becomes better than the average human at telling stories, composing melodies, drawing images, and writing laws and scriptures? When people think about Chatgpt and other new ai tools, they are often drawn to examples like school children using ai to write their essays. What will happen to the school system when kids do that? But this kind of question misses the big picture. Forget about school essays. Think of the next American presidential race in 2024, and try to imagine the impact of ai tools that can be made to mass-produce political content, fake-news stories and scriptures for new cults.

In recent years the qAnon cult has coalesced around anonymous online messages, known as “q drops”. Followers collected, revered and interpreted these q drops as a sacred text. While to the best of our knowledge all previous q drops were composed by humans, and bots merely helped disseminate them, in future we might see the first cults in history whose revered texts were written by a non-human intelligence. Religions throughout history have claimed a non-human source for their holy books. Soon that might be a reality.

On a more prosaic level, we might soon find ourselves conducting lengthy online discussions about abortion, climate change or the Russian invasion of Ukraine with entities that we think are humans—but are actually ai. The catch is that it is utterly pointless for us to spend time trying to change the declared opinions of an ai bot, while the ai could hone its messages so precisely that it stands a good chance of influencing us.

Through its mastery of language, ai could even form intimate relationships with people, and use the power of intimacy to change our opinions and worldviews. Although there is no indication that ai has any consciousness or feelings of its own, to foster fake intimacy with humans it is enough if the ai can make them feel emotionally attached to it. In June 2022 Blake Lemoine, a Google engineer, publicly claimed that the ai chatbot Lamda, on which he was working, had become sentient. The controversial claim cost him his job. The most interesting thing about this episode was not Mr Lemoine’s claim, which was probably false. Rather, it was his willingness to risk his lucrative job for the sake of the ai chatbot. If ai can influence people to risk their jobs for it, what else could it induce them to do?

In a political battle for minds and hearts, intimacy is the most efficient weapon, and ai has just gained the ability to mass-produce intimate relationships with millions of people. We all know that over the past decade social media has become a battleground for controlling human attention. With the new generation of ai, the battlefront is shifting from attention to intimacy. What will happen to human society and human psychology as ai fights ai in a battle to fake intimate relationships with us, which can then be used to convince us to vote for particular politicians or buy particular products?

Even without creating “fake intimacy”, the new ai tools would have an immense influence on our opinions and worldviews. People may come to use a single ai adviser as a one-stop, all-knowing oracle. No wonder Google is terrified. Why bother searching, when I can just ask the oracle? The news and advertising industries should also be terrified. Why read a newspaper when I can just ask the oracle to tell me the latest news? And what’s the purpose of advertisements, when I can just ask the oracle to tell me what to buy?

And even these scenarios don’t really capture the big picture. What we are talking about is potentially the end of human history. Not the end of history, just the end of its human-dominated part. History is the interaction between biology and culture; between our biological needs and desires for things like food and sex, and our cultural creations like religions and laws. History is the process through which laws and religions shape food and sex.

What will happen to the course of history when ai takes over culture, and begins producing stories, melodies, laws and religions? Previous tools like the printing press and radio helped spread the cultural ideas of humans, but they never created new cultural ideas of their own. ai is fundamentally different. ai can create completely new ideas, completely new culture.

At first, ai will probably imitate the human prototypes that it was trained on in its infancy. But with each passing year, ai culture will boldly go where no human has gone before. For millennia human beings have lived inside the dreams of other humans. In the coming decades we might find ourselves living inside the dreams of an alien intelligence.

Fear of ai has haunted humankind for only the past few decades. But for thousands of years humans have been haunted by a much deeper fear. We have always appreciated the power of stories and images to manipulate our minds and to create illusions. Consequently, since ancient times humans have feared being trapped in a world of illusions.

In the 17th century René Descartes feared that perhaps a malicious demon was trapping him inside a world of illusions, creating everything he saw and heard. In ancient Greece Plato told the famous Allegory of the Cave, in which a group of people are chained inside a cave all their lives, facing a blank wall. A screen. On that screen they see projected various shadows. The prisoners mistake the illusions they see there for reality.

In ancient India Buddhist and Hindu sages pointed out that all humans lived trapped inside Maya—the world of illusions. What we normally take to be reality is often just fictions in our own minds. People may wage entire wars, killing others and willing to be killed themselves, because of their belief in this or that illusion.

The AI revolution is bringing us face to face with Descartes’ demon, with Plato’s cave, with the Maya. If we are not careful, we might be trapped behind a curtain of illusions, which we could not tear away—or even realise is there.

Of course, the new power of ai could be used for good purposes as well. I won’t dwell on this, because the people who develop ai talk about it enough. The job of historians and philosophers like myself is to point out the dangers. But certainly, ai can help us in countless ways, from finding new cures for cancer to discovering solutions to the ecological crisis. The question we face is how to make sure the new ai tools are used for good rather than for ill. To do that, we first need to appreciate the true capabilities of these tools.

Since 1945 we have known that nuclear technology could generate cheap energy for the benefit of humans—but could also physically destroy human civilisation. We therefore reshaped the entire international order to protect humanity, and to make sure nuclear technology was used primarily for good. We now have to grapple with a new weapon of mass destruction that can annihilate our mental and social world.

We can still regulate the new ai tools, but we must act quickly. Whereas nukes cannot invent more powerful nukes, ai can make exponentially more powerful ai. The first crucial step is to demand rigorous safety checks before powerful ai tools are released into the public domain. Just as a pharmaceutical company cannot release new drugs before testing both their short-term and long-term side-effects, so tech companies shouldn’t release new ai tools before they are made safe. We need an equivalent of the Food and Drug Administration for new technology, and we need it yesterday.

Won’t slowing down public deployments of ai cause democracies to lag behind more ruthless authoritarian regimes? Just the opposite. Unregulated ai deployments would create social chaos, which would benefit autocrats and ruin democracies. Democracy is a conversation, and conversations rely on language. When ai hacks language, it could destroy our ability to have meaningful conversations, thereby destroying democracy.

We have just encountered an alien intelligence, here on Earth. We don’t know much about it, except that it might destroy our civilisation. We should put a halt to the irresponsible deployment of ai tools in the public sphere, and regulate ai before it regulates us. And the first regulation I would suggest is to make it mandatory for ai to disclose that it is an ai. If I am having a conversation with someone, and I cannot tell whether it is a human or an ai—that’s the end of democracy.

This text has been generated by a human.

Or has it?

The secret to an enduring sex life - cups of tea

Making love with a long-term partner is less about sex toys and snatched passion and more about sharing time, intimate moments – and cups of tea, says the marital therapist Andrew G Marshall. He explains how couples can keep the spark alive

Celia Dodd in The Independent

Tuesday, 24 January 2012

Sex life a bit lacking? Take heart: the answer lies not in scary-sounding toys or tantric techniques, but a nice cup of tea. That's the comforting view of leading marital therapist Andrew G Marshall. He explains how it works: "If you stop in the middle of love-making to have tea and talk to each other, it shows how desire comes and goes – that sex isn't just a race to the end. It allows you time to be intimate with each other. Sex which used to last 15 minutes suddenly lasts an hour and a half. Sex doesn't have to involve going out of your comfort zone – although challenging yourself is good."

Marshall is on a mission to reclaim monogamous sex for couples who are puzzling out how to feel sexy with the partner who shares the frankly unsexy business of domestic life and bringing up children. As a marital therapist with practices in London and Sussex, Marshall has enjoyed a rare insight into the love lives of ordinary people over the past 25 years. His latest book is, How to Make Love Like a Prairie Vole: Six Steps to Passionate, Plentiful and Monogamous Sex (Bloomsbury, £12.99), published both as a book and an app.

In his view, too many couples resign themselves to little or no sex after the first few years and pretend they don't mind while secretly yearning for better sex – or resorting to an affair. "Too often people leave a relationship at just the point when sex has the potential to get much better," Marshall says.

"One myth I particularly want to challenge is that after the first few years it's downhill all the way and once you get past 40 that's about it – you've got one last chance and you'd better grab it quickly. That encourages all sorts of stupid affairs.

"However, if couples make love rarely it leaves the relationship pretty vulnerable, because we don't lose our need for sex. It's a wonderful way of feeding a relationship. It's not just about orgasms: what's particularly restorative is that afterglow, where you hold each other and feel cared for. But if you don't feed your relationship it dies, or someone else comes along and feeds your partner. I don't think people get divorced because they have a bad sex life, but I certainly think it's a contributing factor."

Marshall encourages couples to reinvent their sex lives every few years. It's not about spicing things up superficially with new techniques and toys but about building confidence and openness. If couples can pull this off – in the face of undeniable pressures like kids and careers – sex gets better and better. Yet the very glue that binds long-term relationships can hamper progress, because individuals are naturally wary of suggesting changes for fear of rocking the emotional boat and as time goes on there's so much more at stake. And while it's all very well for sexperts to bang on about the importance of communication, most couples haven't got a clue where to begin.

Too often sex has become the elephant in the room; a subject far too scary to bring up because it feels like criticism. So much easier to bite your tongue and put up with things the way they are.

Marshall's advice is to avoid bringing up problems, which will make your partner feel defensive. Instead start by talking about what you like about your sex life and remembering what was wonderful in the past. That should to break the ice for further discussions about how to bring more good stuff into the relationship now.

Marshall is also keen to bust the myths about sex which hold couples back: that it has to be spontaneous and that both partners have to be equally turned on at the same time. "That puts people under extreme pressure," he says. "What's needed is a bit of give and take and accepting that sometimes one person is in the spotlight, sometimes the other. If you wait until you both feel in the mood you'd probably only have sex once a year, on holiday. That's not to say you can't have spontaneous sex, just that you can't rely on it. The rest of the time you need to plan."

And he urges couples to treat sex as a priority, rather than the last thing on the minds of two exhausted individuals. Parents, whether their children are teenagers or toddlers, should take note: "If anything is causing problems in our sex lives, it's the sense that we have to be super-parents who are available to our children 24/7," he says.

"I can't tell you how difficult it is to persuade couples to put a lock on their bedroom door, although they wouldn't dream of barging into their kids' bedrooms! If your kids hear you making love, Hurrah! It says you are sexual creatures and I think that's incredibly reassuring because it gives children the message that their parents love each other – and that is a wonderful bedrock for them to have."

SEXUAL HEALING

* Take the pressure off by having a break from sex for a few weeks. Focus on touching instead.
* Develop habits that give you a head start, such as going to bed at the same time as your partner and keeping distractions such as computers and phones away from the bedroom.
* Simple communication also helps: if you're going to bed, then make a point of telling your partner, so they know you haven't just gone for a bath or whatever.
* If you've got children, put a lock on your bedroom door. If you're worred about being overheard, play music.
* Don't wait to be in the mood. Sex doesn't always have to be spontaneous. Plan sex.
* Communicate. Bringing up the subject of sex can easily be taken as a criticism. Don't focus on problems but talk about what's good about your sex life and what you enjoyed in the past.

Having cancer is an education, and this is what I have learned

Illness introduced me to a beautiful network of dependence – and a struggle for autonomy I can't win on my own

• 
• • Mike Marqusee
  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 26 July 2011 22.00 BST
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The discipline of nursing converts science into care. Photograph: Bert Hardy/Getty Images
Now entering my fifth year of living with multiple myeloma, a haematological cancer, I reflect back on a roller-coaster ride of symptoms, treatments and side effects. Whatever else this experience has been, it's been an education. But what exactly have I learned? To begin with, that any glib answer to the question misses the core of the experience – the complex dialectic of being ill, which is a social as well as physical condition. For me the experience has led to a heightened awareness of both our intricate dependence on others and our deep-seated need for independence. Sitting with my IV drip, I like to think about all the human labour and ingenuity that come together in this medical moment. I could dedicate the rest of my life to this exercise and still not complete the inventory. The first circle of dependence is immediate and sometimes intimate. Partners, friends, doctors, nurses, cleaners, porters. Beyond them is a vast network of people I never see: pathologists, pharmacists, IT engineers, appointments managers. Everyone who has anything to do with maintaining the supply of medications or the functioning of equipment or getting me to and from hospital. Everyone who makes sure the lights are on and the building safe. The whole intricate ballet that is a functioning hospital. One misstep, and the whole breaks down, with potentially dire consequences. Beyond that, I'm dependent on a long history of scientific development to which individuals and institutions in many countries have contributed. From the British chemist Bence Jones identifying the protein associated with multiple myeloma in the 1840s to the pathologist and one-time film star Justine Wanger developing the IV drip in the 1930s; from the first experiments with chemotherapy (a byproduct of chemical warfare) in the 1940s, through the protracted struggle to master the art of toxicity (a dialectic of creation and destruction, if there ever was one), to the discovery of proteasome inhibitors in the 1990s and the creation of new "targeted therapies", like the one I'm currently receiving. Without innumerable advances in immunology, biochemistry, chemical engineering, statistics and metallurgy, to name but a few, I wouldn't be where I am now – in fact I wouldn't be at all. The drip flowing into my vein is drawn from a river with innumerable tributaries. It is an entirely rational, intelligible process but no less miraculous for that. And it's not just a story of science. Alongside that – and necessary to it – is the long history of the hospital, of the discipline of nursing, of the social developments that made it possible to convert raw science into practical care. I'm acutely conscious of how dependent I am on those who built and sustained the NHS – including, pre-eminently, generations of labour movement activists and socialists. And as I sit with my IV drip, I'm mindful of those in government and business who would smash the delicate mechanism of the hospital and shatter the network of dependence that sustains me. I'm being kept alive by the contributions of so many currents of human labour, thought, struggle, desire, imagination. By the whole Enlightenment tradition, but not only that: by older traditions of care, solidarity, mutuality, of respect for human life and compassion for human suffering. The harnessing of science, technology and advanced forms of organisation and information to compassionate ends is by no means automatic. It leans on and is only made possible by the conflict-riddled history of ethical and political development. Beautiful as it is, this network of dependence is also frightening. Restrictions in capacity and mobility are hugely frustrating, and relying on others to supplement them is not a straightforward business – for patient or carer. I often feel I'm engaged in a never-ending battle for autonomy. I fight it out in relation to institutions, experts, medications, means of mobility, forms of diet. Not to mention the vital effort to live a life beyond illness, to hold on to that kernel of freedom that makes you who you are. Paradoxically the struggle for autonomy is one you can't win on your own. You need allies, and part of being a carer is being an ally, not a nursemaid or controller. Independence is the stuff of life. But you can achieve it only through dependence on others, past and present. That's a truth driven home to the cancer patient but applicable to all of us. Illness is not an ideology-free zone. Certainly not for the government, which aims to divide sufferers into acute cases deserving of support, and less acute ones that must be forced back into the labour market, where our only function will be to undercut wages. This is one reason why resistance to the attacks on benefits for the disabled ought to be a central plank of the anti-cuts movement. The crisis facing the ill is an extreme form of the crisis facing the majority of the populace. We don't want charity – the form of dependence that makes independence impossible – but rights, and the resources to exercise those rights. Speaking for myself, taking part in anti-cuts activity is some of the best therapy available, an unashamed acknowledgement of social dependence and at the same time a declaration of political-spiritual independence.