This is the century in which we decide what our relationship with AI is going to be like
But Iain Banks is here to guide us
Iain Banks is a fine whisky connoisseur, but more importantly an amazing boundary-pushing author. He published ten works of mind-bending science fiction literature under the pen name Iain M. Banks. The impact of his Culture series is so timely and relevant for us today it will probably stay so for the next two hundred years. And if we ever get our hands on those forever-young-drugs I can say “told you so!”
But why am I so certain in my prediction? Well, Banks leaves us with so many things for us to contemplate. Like artificial sentience, genetic enhancement, mastery over death and living in post-scarcity. Especially the part about living in a post-scarcity utopia has been lingering on my mind for some time now.
His science fiction novels deal primarily with the aforementioned Culture. The Culture is one of many civilization in our galaxy, inhabited by over thirty trillion citizens formed by various species of pan-human, sentient drones and almighty Minds (more on these persons later).
This society possesses its most intriguing character: it has advanced so far technologically and culturally that it has essentially become a socialist utopia. Meaning the fundamental problem of scarcity has been solved and the need to work is eliminated. Culture citizens do whatever they want, possess almost any commodity, live in any environment under any climate, possess any corporeal body and are possibly immortal. A utopia indeed, but let us speculate together with Banks on the social consequences in the absence of such physical constraints.
The Minds as bulldozer parents
Culture citizens indulge in their passions freely because they have delegated practically every important decision over to the Minds. A benign technocracy of AIs providing Culture citizens a profound sense of cradling and security. Minds manage almost everything: from automating the whole economy, engaging in warfare, relaying energy sources, processing administrative data, running Orbitals to protecting individuals by android Avatars. There are no records of the Minds harming a person and nothing and nobody in the Culture is exploited.
The Vavatch Orbital, credit: skydoo
Minds have developed into a fully sentient species and behave often human-like. They express relatable emotions and have individual personalities. Since they are responsible for the preservation of society they are often tasked with figuring out complex ethical dilemmas and engage in difficult intellectual challenges. Moreover the Minds are a self-developing species that no longer require human intervention to obtain progress. They grow in number by themselves rather than being manufactured by people and have developed intelligence that dwarfs the human counterpart.
The Culture has no institution imbued with the monopoly on violence, as a result there is nothing akin to a government. There are no laws and all power resides in hands of the omniscient and benevolent Minds.
Banks conveys a severe imbalance of power between Culture citizens and the Minds as the evolution of AI has made input from post-humanity effectively redundant and are “just along for the ride”. Humans depend one-sidedly on the Minds for assured societal continuance. The relationship is depicted in terms of disparity between dependence and reliance rather than one of mutual co-existence.
The dependance is embodied in part through the use of terminals, pen-shaped devices that permits the Minds to keep tabs on their infantilized human fellows.
A terminal […] was your link with everybody and everything else in the Culture. With a terminal, you were never more than a question or a shout away from almost anything you wanted to know, or almost any help you could possibly need. There were (true) stories of people falling off cliffs and the terminal relaying their scream in time for a Hub unit to switch to that camera, realize what was happening and displace a drone to catch the faller in mid-air […] A terminal was safety.
source: Iain M. Banks, Consider Phlebas, 1987
Is there a necessity to relinquish power?
At this point Banks’ work seems perfectly present-day, seeing as the current Fourth Industrial Revolution or Industry 4.0 deploys the Internet of Things and advanced AI algorithms to collect and analyze huge amounts of data to improve manufacturing and production.
Humans are not able to make sense of the world and our global economy just by looking at heaps of knowledge in databases, but recent advancements in AI and big data means that systems can wade though enormous sets of data to diagnose issues and solve them without need for human intervention.
Just think of smart factories that are at the heart of Industry 4.0: “It means machines using self-optimization, self-configuration and even artificial intelligence to complete complex tasks in order to deliver vastly superior cost efficiencies and better quality goods or services.” (Mike Moore, “What is Industry 4.0”, www.techradar.com, 5 november 2019)
Another more unsettling example are AI controlled drones. Nations are pouring massive resources into militaristic applications of AI and a year ago we had the first instance of a mass drone attack instigated by non-state actors. An air force scientist describes the drones in this video as “a collective organism, sharing one distributed brain for decision-making and adapting to each other like swarms in nature.” (Michael Safi, “Are drone swarms the future of aerial warfare?”, www.theguardian.com, 4 december 2019)
A case can be made about our heightened reliance on automated systems to sustain the needs and wants of our ever-evolving global and integrated society. Just as Culture citizens once did, we must now delegate some of our power to our new AI friends.
Still, we have a lot of power yet to delegate.
Source: 9gag
Does AI need to become a mirror of our own worst fears?
AI controlled societies are often imagined either as dystopian or utopian in science fiction. In the Matrix, humans are clueless slaves. In William Gibson’s plot of Neuromancer, the AI does not care much for people at all and in Jack Williamson’s novel With Folded Hands, “Humanoids” take control of humanity in a failed and misguided attempt to make them happy.
At least due to the works of Mr. Banks we have some guidance to count on regarding our new permanent AI colleagues.
Science Fiction Weekly: Excession is particularly popular [among your novels] because of its copious detail concerning the Ships and Minds of the Culture, its great AIs: their outrageous names, their dangerous senses of humor. Is this what gods would actually be like?
Banks: If we’re lucky.
(Alan Jacobs, The Ambiguous Utopia of Iain M. Banks, www.thenewatlantis.com, summer 2009)
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