AI Utopia

Here's another guest column from a friend that I have published here before. "CL" presents an interesting outcome to the AI/robot future, while borrowing from science fiction and experiments on mice. 

AI Utopia

by C.L.

Elon Musk pontificates about how his Optimus robots and xAI superintelligence will bring limitless wealth and leisure to everyone. His thesis appears to be that his robots will produce such abundance that humanity will henceforth live in the lap of luxury.

Perhaps he imagines a future not unlike the antebellum South where a legion of slaves provided for the needs of their masters. Optimus robots will be the new slaves, of course. And it is fitting since the original Czech word robota means "forced labor" aka slave.

I wonder whether such a utopia is capable of sustaining a civilization. In the 1950s-1970s, John Calhoun designed a "rat utopia" (actually dozens of them) to see what would happen if a colony of rats was given everything that its members needed - food, water, shelter, etc. These experiments all ended with the eventual death of every colony member as a result of maladaptive behaviors - commonly the loss of interest in reproduction, foraging, etc. The rats died of disinterest in living, it seems.

You may remember the 2005 movie Serenity in which colonists on a distant planet called Miranda died after "The Company" added a chemical (Pax) to the atmosphere that suppressed all aggressive behavior in the population. The colonists lost their instinct to struggle and simply lay down and died.

Calhoun didn't argue that his rats lost interest in living but that they ran out of roles to fulfill. What happens to humanity when everything that needs doing is being done by robots? When there is no reason to make new music or art because AI produces both better than the masters of yore? When there are no more barriers to be broken or struggles to be overcome?

Nearing the end of each of his experiments, a subgroup of Calhoun's rats emerged that devoted themselves exclusively to eating, sleeping, and grooming. Calhoun called them "The Beautiful Ones." They didn't reproduce or fight or do anything but exist in an introverted, narcissistic state until they died.

Now, there's something to think about.