AI and the Ba'ku

2023-03-11

One of my favorite movies in general is "Star Trek: Insurrection"(1998) (There are some spoilers in here, so go watch it now.). It features the Ba'ku, a race living in a hidden corner of the galaxy, in isolation and seemingly without advanced technology.

At about 23 minutes into the movie one of the Ba'ku explains to the crew of the "Enterprise" that they "believe, that if you create a machine to do the work of a man, you take something away from the man."

As advances in technology have throughout history, the rapid development of models such as ChatGPT promises to, if not completely take over, at least significantly impact a lot of fields of human activity. Be it writing news segments, composing music or complex regular expressions, drawing, customer help services and so on. Previously such changes seemed only logical to me, if we automate, say, the production of paper so that fewer humans are required, then the remaining humans can focus on other things. While I felt the appeal of an idyllic village as portrayed in the movie, I did not really subscribe to the quote.

Having started studying for a career that sits firmly in the field potentially impacted by AI in the not so distant future the idea of having my work being taken away from me certainly holds more weight. I do not expect to be unable to make a living of what I am learning but I do understand those who have such fears.

The changes we are about to experience might seem large, but so have previous changes. The beginnigs of the industrial revolution must have been terrifying. Any yet, we, humanity, have prevailed. (Have we though?) It is probably reasonable to assume that life will go on, in manners currently unimaginable, but with room for purpose.

Or we will use AI to destroy every bit of privacy remaining, let ourselves get disposed of by some rogue profit machine that deems us unimportant and so on. We should be careful, yes, but when have we ever been?

Decade Bingo

In a game of decade bingo, making predictions for the next ten years and seeing, which ones turn out to be true, I would certainly bet on someone establishing an "AI-free" society, or at least trying to. Would I go there? Probably not. AI won't stop at imaginary borders, so that place would have to be cut off from the internet entirely. This alone would hardly be possible.

And I don't even want to think about what other, potentially dystopian, policies the same people would come up with. In the end, I don't see such an experiement being succesful. Outside influences will remain and, as with the Ba'ku, people on the inside will grow curious.