Let’s talk in fire: What about crazy ideas?

It has been my longstanding belief that humans have been given chances time and again but have inevitably failed at the task at hand. Governance. Making laws, enforcing them, upholding citizens’ welfare, dignity, freedom, and all the other intangible promises. At the end of the day, in my opinion, every political system so far is flawed. Yes, even democracy: My issue with majority. And I believe its time for humans to relinquish control, not to animals or insects of course, but to the next level of intelligence: AI

All the different arrows of governance.

Most people’s first reaction was, of course, bafflement. The word relinquish, is quite scary, but is that the only reason why this idea sounds so outrageous? Is it because we deem no intelligence to be superior to that of Homo Sapiens? Or is it that all the sci-fi movies seem to terrify people beyond their wits about the danger of AI? These are not attacks, merely questions to probe into the root of human ideology. The only thing that’s powerful enough to stop human potential is the human mind.

The whirlwind between societal limitations and potential

Let’s break down this idea. Why is it so bad? We use technology and AI in every single sector of our society from education to finance, so why is politics bubbled up away from development? As for the movie argument: it’s simply indoctrination that “AI bad” and “AI scary” that leads us to believe that the only outcome is an apocalypse. Did the world end in 2012? Conspiracy theorists aside, the consensus seems to say not. So there we have it: science fiction is not a determiner of science. What most people fail to realise is that we’re already past the point of no return. Technology has been embedded so intimately in humans that it forms another stage of evolution altogether. If “sentient machinery” decided on an uprising, we’d honestly be helpless. And we assume machine morality to be equal to that of human morality. Human with power = dangerous, therefore machine with power = even more dangerous. AI morality may be light years ahead of ours.

And I’m not even suggesting something drastic like an AI dictator. I simply mean an AI aided governance system that combines objective and subjective viewpoints to create a completely efficient working. I mean risk calculation, algorithms in determining population distribution, and decisions based on predictive analytics. I mean technology-aided polls for the general population to input on decisions, technology-aided transparency and AI representation in advisory teams. People ultimately have the choice to overrule AI suggestions, but must provide a reasonable explanation to the public as to why. Thus combining the best of both worlds: sentience, and AI.

And why stop there? This is just a suggestion from a person with minimal knowledge of politics and AI. Why do we box up knowledge into little pieces that should not interact with each other? I am no expert on these topics and these might be silly suggestions, but why not use physics in biology? Deconstructing viruses by atomic composition. Why separate psychology and the arts, when the arts can provide such a meaningful insight into human thinking. Knowledge is a globe, and all the little sectors are all like continents: separate but fitting together like a puzzle piece.

Continental drift

I hope to contribute to a world where people’s words are light on fire and crazy thinking is deemed revolutionary, not just after it’s proven. We all have something inside us that dares to dream differently and shoot for the stars. Mine says a lot of things, that children can contribute to think tanks, we can manipulate astroparticles, and make people’s worst SciFi nightmare come true.

What about you?