The AI in our mind vs our world of tomorrow: how to raise ourself, our kids and the next intelligence?

Since I wrote last here on how the AI that has already taken over our life is the one in our mind, the (other) AI that belongs in our software has made quite a few leaps of its own to do the same, going from infancy to early teenagehood in just a couple of years, some saying it is close to seriously disrupt our way of life (good and/or bad), much beyond what it already has (without us noticing at times), and also eventually become a super intelligence, possibly getting us to the creation of new sentient beings.

Whether or not we are close, or if it will ever happen, is hard for me (and most of us) to say. Despite my involvement in (automation) software infused with AI for a while I'll admit that my technical depth remains limited, full disclosure. Also numerous possibilities are still (always) at play, at least until a certain breaking point, and, as always, I try to keep in mind all hypotheticals and go back to what is the best thing we can do in all cases, knowing in this one that technological advances are inevitable and simply a matter of time.

I comes back (once again) to Gandhi saying that to change the world, one must start by changing oneself. And in turn try to influence others to do the same, not just by talking but mainly by example which is the best kind of influence. It applies to our children and our peers but also our AI as Mo Gawdat so justly emphasizes in his book "Scary Smart" and his insightful discussions on The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett that have prompted this lines as I finished two of them back in October (Merci Catherine Rodriguez pour la recommendation!).

What example would that be to our descendants, both human and digital?

AI is learning from us, from our history, from our patterns, from our evolution, essentially from all we put in the internet and beyond. What do we want to show our children, including the AI fruit of human ingenuity now learning on it owns from what it sees, reads, ingests at a pace faster than any of us ever could? What would be the consequence of seeing humans destroy themselves, each other and their environment? What example would that be to our descendants, both human and digital?

A super intelligence would either mimic our behavior and be as destructive as we are collectively: think endless wars, ecological disasters, political divide, social inequalities… What would an AI (soon) a billion time smarter than any of us do with such patterns wired in its reasoning? An alternative would be that they see passed our limited intelligence and immature state of evolution to look back to our most ancient ancestor and protector, mother nature itself, to see that we are a nuisance to its balance, a mistake among species, and danger to it all. Just like Agent Smith told Neo rightly so in the metaphysical (if you think about it) film The Matrix of 1999, humans are like a virus, a cancer that spreads to an area to destroy it before moving to the next. Who can argue with that, overall/overtime?

Also a topic of the excellent Fifth Element by Luc Besson where Leeloo, the alien incarnation tasked to save humanity, is having second thoughts after learning more about our history (photo further below). Is that what we want to machine to see us as? To either mimic that dark side of us that seems to dominates our destiny, or see us as something to protect the rest of nature from? Either way it would not end well for us/humans (the earth would be fine/better off), so what can we do about it? Like Mo said, “be good parents”, which requires showing by example as Gandhi implies, finding our own purpose and getting back to our humanity at its core: abundant, constructive, caring, cooperative, ever evolving, just like nature is and made us to be.

Put our own intelligence and that which we are building in our software at work for a better tomorrow for all.

Think about what we want to trend on social media, get the most likes, followers, re-post… do we want the content of post and comments to be showing compassion, humility, wisdom, or hostility, judgment and ignorance? What do we want to get air time on TV, bandwidth on the internet, profits in the markets and eventually votes in the ballot?  Do we want to feed the inherent negativity bias of the mass media looking to entertain us with and make profits of it, grow the political fringes feeding on fear, empower businesses tapping into our weaknesses, or do we want to support those that strive to elevate the conversation and promote all that is good in humanity, often in the shadow of what takes center stage such as everything boasting with power, money, greed, lust, arrogance, ego…?

The answer of "what can we do?" is always the same, it is back to ourselves, our mind, our spirit, to be able to be our authentic true self and show up in the world as we would want others to and the next intelligence to be: powerful but mindful, aware yet humble, gentle and caring. All the qualities we need to make it through the challenges we got ourselves into and to tip the balance of the force soon enough so that our lasting example can direct our next evolution away from the dark side. Put our own intelligence and that which we are building in our software at work for a better tomorrow for all.

We are a singularity in the evolution of life on this planet. A make or break specie which without a (more) elevated level of consciousness can have its own intelligence turn against itself as we have seen over and over again, including in the last few months again in the Middle East but not only, also fairly close to home, whenever you may be I can bet. Ignorance knows no frontier but so does wisdom. May we listen to those that have found a way out of their ego mind, may we allow our kids not to get trapped in it as they grow up, may we not teach the hypothetical next sentient being(s) that our dark side is the example to follow or that we are the danger to eliminate to make things sustainable for all (others). If we even make it that far…

May we be the prompt that we need the AI to have to make a better world.

Back to our true self, to the mat, to the ground, to the ancestral wisdoms at our disposal still and always. Let’s raise ourselves right so we can pretend to be an (good) example for others and be the solution rather than a problem to a world that will soon have too many of them to bear our presence and need to correct us one way or the other. Be it mother nature the made us or the AI we in turn created... May we not let the next singularity in technological evolution be the end of the human experiment.

May we be mindful of about our thoughts, words and actions, conscious about what we post, buy, watch, “like”, vote for, promote, work for… May we be the example we would want our own child to have. Truly, beyond the hurts, traumas, urges and old stories cluttering our minds. May we be the prompt that we need the AI to have to make a better world, including for ourselves, all of us. May we find peace within to promote it all around, in our community, seed it into the world of today and prompt it in that of tomorrow.

What would be more important to teach our youngsters in early & all in continuous education? To be able to manage ourselves, our body & mind to be our best, do our best and show our best. To our peers but also those coming after us and the AI growing up watching our actions. Some have been talking about / advocating this for so many years now: see one of the many insightful talks by Sir Ken Robinson on "Educating the Heart and Mind" and check the Inner Engineering program by the Sadhguru Academy , and there are many others, thankfully, but not enough it seems to make this a much-needed mainstream reality...

Until then and when we can bear the grassroots fruits of a healthier population reaching into the high spheres that make our world, both physical & digital, able to see more clearly a common purpose to strive for, where cooperation takes precedent over competition, discussion over reaction, vulnerability over force, union over separation, love over hate... Until then, we can wonder what a new generation of humans & technologies will become & do with an intelligence & power way superior to ours, if not driven by wisdom & compassion, likely drive us off a cliff that will hurt (many if not all) one way or the other... Let's not leave futuristic Hollywood feel-good movies be fictions and world-end ones become a reality.

Merci ma cherie Gigi, les enfants, Catherine, Mo Gawdat, Steve Bartlett, Sadhguru JV , Reginald Hubbard et tous ceux qui nous montrent le chemin qu’il nous faut reprendre afin de montrer l’exemple pour un meilleur monde de demain dans lequel nous mériterons notre place. 🙏