AI Changes Everything, Except Us
I look at my desk. There’s a chunk of plastic with letters printed on it. Beside it, a lump designed to fit my hand. I ask, how many layers of abstraction sit between me and using my computer?
Nobody taught me how to speak. I learned easily, the way every child does. And yet the way I talk to a machine is by slapping my fingertips on plastic or pressing my thumbs against glass.
Is it possible computers will use computers better than we do?
Human anatomy is suited for building fires, picking berries, and chasing down wild animals with the boys. Machines can be built for the sole purpose of controlling other machines. Is that really a big take?
The dream is that technology will bring so much abundance, riches and energy on autopilot that we don’t have to do anything. It has been sold to us before, but that’s nothing compared to what’s about to come.
Automate everything so we can do what we want… wait, what do we want?
Washing machines, emails, robot vacuum cleaners. Each sold on the same promise - this will free you up to do more of the things you want.
And every single time we fill the gap with something else.
Go back fifty years and look at a normal day. By any reasonable measure we should be working two-hour days and following our bliss. Instead we’re busier and more stressed. The time we saved got spent immediately on things we didn’t know we ‘needed’ until they existed.
Does our desire for more make us broken?
It’s one of the things that sets us apart from every other animal. We reach a certain level of abundance, discover what else is possible and perceive lack. What an intelligent monkey.
Why would a machine care, though? A machine has no desire. No purpose, no itch for a better future. Luckily for us, humans crave more, no matter how much we get. Thank goodness for that, right?
AI will bring autonomy to a level we’ve never seen before, but we’ll rally to fill every minute. Work will look different. Our craving for more will deepen and continue the endless hamster wheel of feeling like we’re just a few steps away. But ultimately, we don’t actually want to arrive.
So we just chase endless desires and then die?
Underneath the desire for more sits something more human. The desire to connect. To break bread with our people. To create, make art, compete, contribute, be seen - the list goes on.
These cravings are not going to be surpassed by data centers. It’ll only strengthen them.
Everything about how we work changes. Nothing about what we want changes.
So what do you want?