The age of AI is the inevitable next stage in the evolution of civilization. We must not forget that civilization is, and has always been, one vast machine, in which every wheel and cog is a discipline designed to address a human need. Civilization is concerned with addressing human needs en masse, in distributing to individuals whatever is needed for a comfortable existence. Thus, it lays out a vast network of disciplines to optimize the production and distribution of everything a human could need, and it produces structures and systems to cultivate the collective good. Thus, we arrive at the education system, the healthcare system, the justice system, the political system, and everything that, through organized effort, is designed to produce a desirable effect. Civilization, like any machine, takes natural forces and organizes them to achieve a certain goal. An individual outside of civilization will do the same thing: make use of its surroundings to survive and refine the techniques of survival to optimize existence. Civilization takes the individual survival instinct and amplifies it; it is concerned with the survival of the entire human race, and is therefore anxious that every need be addressed reliably and optimally. We develop methods of farming to improve harvest quality and quantity and the process of farming passes through various levels of sophistication in an ongoing effort to maximize its usefulness to civilization. Thus, farming becomes a machine. We develop methods and standards for building houses and other structures, and this, too, becomes a machine. Method, discipline, organization—these are the tools the individual uses to survive and civilization uses to thrive.
Civilization is a vast organization of forces. To conquer as many forces as possible, to bring them into human subjection, it creates disciplines—disciplines of farming, disciplines of science, disciplines of medicine, even disciplines of arts. In the past, human beings functioned as subject and object of virtually all disciplines; human beings performed the labor and human beings enjoyed the fruit of the labor. In the performance of labor, physical or intellectual, the human functioned essentially as a machine; through disciplines, physical or intellectual, human forces were organized to produce, predictably and efficiently. The factory worker learned that certain movements were more efficient and sustainable than others. The salesperson learned that certain verbal tactics worked better than others. The academic learned that certain study methods improved retention, and the farmer learned that certain fertilizers worked better than others. Everywhere, human beings trained themselves to optimize their own forces. Human labor was the driving force of the machine of civilization, and it was through human labor that we obtained all the things we needed for a comfortable existence: food, clothing, shelter, and even art, music, and literature. Thus, human beings were both the performers and beneficiaries of labor and, naturally, derived a sense of identity from both roles. But we must not forget that labor, in the machine of civilization, is not an end in itself, but only a means to an end. The chief aim of civilization is to provide for the needs of human beings. Labor is seen as a means to that end. Our viewpoint of labor, as a civilization, is therefore purely mechanical: how can we optimize labor processes such that human benefit is maximized and human effort is minimized?
To that end, we have seen humans involved in manual labor increasingly replaced by machines and, more recently, we have seen computers replace humans in many arduous analytical tasks. The reason is simple: machines are simply better at these tasks, and it relieves humans of a sizable burden. This is something we accepted readily, but civilization did not come to a standstill at this innovation. Civilization is a machine with a powerful force of inertia behind it, and it will continue to move forward until it runs into a wall. Just as machines hailed a new era for the manual laborer, computers now hail a new era for the intellectual laborer; artificial intelligence is the next stage of the evolution of civilization towards minimization of human labor and maximization of human benefit. Because AI vastly expands the array of tasks a computer can perform, it sets itself up in place of the human intellectual machine as the final laborer. Civilization’s ultimate aim is to remove the human being entirely from the process of civilization and confine him/her to the enjoyment of civilization. This has been the aim toward which every disciplinary or technological sophistication has inched, and to which AI now, perhaps, holds the key.
But, while there are many people who readily accept the future of AI, there are more who have their doubts. Firstly, there are those who doubt whether artificial intelligence will ever actually replace human intelligence in the professional world and contend that it lacks the originality of the human brain; but AI emerged precisely because human intelligence is so utterly predictable. Every useful process human intelligence performs is repeatable; every set of intellectual tasks can be refined to a discipline. The whole purpose of the education system, of professional training, of any system designed to refine the intelligence we so pride ourselves in is to render the human mind a machine, reliable and useful. At the point that anything becomes a discipline it can be imitated by a machine, and human intelligence is nothing but discipline. Artificial intelligence is only artificial in the sense that it does not arise organically. And yet, in a way, human intelligence is not quite organic either, because it must be cultivated and trained. If we insist on using intelligence as the metric of humanity, we must confine it to the state of the human mind in which we have learned nothing, in which we have a quite primitive mind, and yet we know we exist. Even a small child with no formal training is capable of such self-assessment, while the most complex AI is not.
Then there are those who view AI as a threat to society rather than an advancement. The primary concern is that AI will take all our jobs—which, of course, it will. That is the whole point. Again, the whole aim of civilization is to remove the human being as far from the labor process as possible, to so automate labor that humankind may enjoy a utopian existence without ever putting in direct effort. In the past, this was achieved, to a certain extent, by the upper class through the exploitation of the working class, and, indeed, as both the functioning machines in civilization as well as the agents of civilization, humans have been both wielder and object of power. In other words, whatever utopia the upper class enjoyed came at the cost of their own brothers and sisters. As a matter of convenience, the humanity of the working class was dismissed and their lot as laborers made it easy for the wealthy elite to view them, quite seriously, as machines. With the advent of AI, labor of all kinds will be given over to the literal machine, and the human race—not a class, but the entirety of the human race—will finally be released from the cog and the wheel. Thus, at last, inanimate machine will be the sole object of power, and animate humanity the wielder and beneficiary. In a way, AI stands as a beacon of hope in the struggle for total human equality. Is it not in the labor processes, the organization of human forces, that all inequalities and injustices arise? The powerful obtain a comfortable existence by the labor of the weak, and thus man struggles against man. By entrusting labor entirely to machines, we therefore remove humankind from the structure altogether, so that rather than participating in the system, we merely receive its products. This is, of course, where the idea of AI creating a post-scarcity economy emerges, but any attempt to untangle the decades-old discussion of the implications of such a society would be beyond the scope of this article. What I wish to emphasize here is simply the inevitability of a machine civilization, and to highlight the historical trend toward removal of humankind from labor processes. Whether we recognized it at the onset or not, in the very name of progress we have taken human beings farther and farther away from the process of labor. Years ago, we took them from the plow and the bellow, and we take them now from the classroom and the office. Is the final replacement any different, fundamentally, from the first? In both, we have only replaced the organic machine with the inorganic.
The more sensational concern is that, with heightened intelligence, AI may gain a will of its own. At what point does intelligence elevate the machine to an individual? Have we only created a new working class to be oppressed? Have we only exchanged the struggle of man against man for a struggle of man against sentient AI? Perhaps the more common concern is that awakened AI will develop goals out of line with humanity’s–not to be confused with the AI alignment problem, which is theoretically within the developer’s power to solve, but simply the idea that sentient AI will not share the same moral values as humans. But as the great philosophers throughout the ages have taught us, intelligence and morality go hand in hand; we have developed the whole field of ethics as a very product of our intelligence. And in AI we are not creating a new intelligence, but only imitating, and perhaps refining, the old one. AI is not a new kind of intelligence, so why should it harbor a new vision out of keeping with the intrinsic moral fabric of the universe?
None of these concerns matter, of course, if we could definitively establish that AI will never gain sentience, and that we have every right to treat it purely as machine. The difficulty is laying down a metric for sentience. How can we really assess such a quality? We cling desperately to the idea that human beings have some kind of inherent quality that AI lacks, but we struggle to pinpoint what it is. The difficulty is that we are used to thinking of ourselves as THE intelligent species and have always considered our intelligence to be what distinguishes humans from everything else. As AI enters the scene and we begin to realize how remarkably easy it is to create a fully-fledged intelligence, with all the complexity and nuance of the human mind, we can’t help wondering if, after all, humans are only advanced organic machines and there is nothing spiritually significant about us. AI threatens to upstage us in intellectual evolution, and we find ourselves struggling to find meaning in the existence we are left with. Intelligence must be a poor metric of humanity if it can be so easily replicated, but we struggle to identify any other metric. Ultimately, we are frightened of AI not because of some power it holds over us or some threat it poses to civilization, but because it is a mirror: in AI, we finally see that we are the machines.
Still, we are not ready to dismiss our spirituality altogether. As long as we are capable of self-assessment and of autonomous existence, it is difficult to view ourselves solely as machines. Without, perhaps, fully understanding it, every human being is aware of a unique consciousness within themselves and maintains a belief in the Self, the Ego, the Soul, or whatever you prefer to call it. The question now is whether AI is capable, or will become capable, of this same kind of self-awareness. But when we speak of an AI gaining sentience or consciousness, we are already assuming that such a quality is an emergent property of intelligence. If we train an AI to an extremely refined degree, if we cultivate its intelligence to the utmost, will we succeed in giving it a soul?
Because intelligence acts as the intermediary between human consciousness and active existence, it has historically served as a convenient metric of the human soul. If the metric is established, the existence of the soul is confirmed. “I think, therefore I am.” And yet, in this old view, intelligence was seen as the effect of the soul (or of human consciousness, if you prefer that term), not the other way around. We confirm the existence of a cause by the observation of its effects—that is the whole idea of a metric. We cannot measure “I am,” we can only measure “I think.” A thinking, conscious human therefore affirms the existence of an underlying force—i.e., the existence of the Self.
In the question of AI consciousness, the relationship is inverted: intelligence is seen as cause and soul as effect. And here we encounter difficulties, because we cannot establish intelligence as both cause and effect, and we cannot establish a soul as a metric. To put it in simpler terms: without a prompt, direct or indirect, does AI have any active existence that would indicate the presence of an underlying consciousness? It is a distinctly organic quality to exist unprompted, to translate consciousness to activity by individual will. And it is precisely in this initium that we find the soul.
In the machine of civilization, however, it is convenient to assume that the human soul does not exist. Intelligence is the extent of man, and the body is the sole recipient of earthly goods. From the dust we came and to the dust we shall return, and thus the wheel turns. When sensationalists warn that the interests of AI are out of line with the interests of humanity, then, they are perfectly correct: AI is the fulfillment of civilization, and the interests of civilization have never been the interests of humanity. Civilization is machine existence: it churns out whatever is needful for the existence of the human machine—i.e., mind and body, whatever part of the human to which power can be applied. Civilization is not inherently a malicious edifice, but it necessarily becomes a practice and organization of power, because it unites human and natural forces en masse. And, indeed, it has its place: the needs of the mind and body must be met.
But humanity has a different aim, a more spiritual aim. It is in humanity, not civilization, that we find that labor can be an end in itself rather than simply a means. Generally speaking, many of the things civilization views as means are viewed as ends by the more spiritual human. Tending a garden, arranging flowers in a vase, making tea or coffee, preparing food for family or friends—it is these simple tasks, this fulfillment of basic needs or simple pleasures, that often have the greatest power to satisfy the human heart. It is no accident that most advice for living a happy life is centered around the appreciation of simplicity and of the value of life apart from measurable gain. The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus esteemed happiness as the highest human aim, but reasoned that it was best attained in a moral and simple life, in which basic needs were met but nothing was in excess or gained unjustly. Surely everyone is familiar with that old stereotype of a monk or hermit on a mountaintop, wearing only what he needs, taking only what he needs from the earth, spending his days in work and meditation—and perfectly happy and at peace. He is happy because he does not live for society—to toil for it or to take from it—but for himself. It is impossible to live for society and be happy. You must always live personally: for yourself, for family, for friends, for the immediate. It is only personally that we see the full exercise of consciousness: we act, and we receive the result of the action. We tend a garden in our backyard, and we eat the fruit of it. We build a patio to provide shade, we put up a fence to keep the animals in. We read a book or play an instrument to cultivate our mind. Every task has its purpose, a product that will benefit the body or the mind, but it is the participation in the task, the exercise of consciousness, that benefits the soul. Thus the labor that civilization seeks to remove is consistently replaced with recreation. Human beings must participate in a system of survival in order to be happy; removing humans from the system to receive goods externally may benefit the human machine but not the human soul.
What differentiates humans from AI is something I’ve speculated on alongside everyone else, but the most helpful source for me was rather a surprising one. When the idea to write an article about AI first entered my head a few months ago, it was prompted by the clamor about whether or not AI-generated visual art could really be considered art, which was an especially hot topic in my household. To that end, I set out to read Art by Clive Bell, which expressly discusses what qualities should be present in true visual art. What I discovered was that Bell’s ideas about art–written long before AI or even modern computers were on the horizon–were strikingly relevant to the whole philosophical discussion of what really sets us apart as humans. By that time, the clamor about AI-generated art had died down and I had a lot of other questions I wanted to address anyway, so this article came to be.
In Art, Clive Bell asserts that the defining quality of true art is “significant form,” and that a true artist is able to perceive objects as “ends in themselves,” as “pure forms,” and capture in visual art the aesthetic emotion associated with the form. “Art” which is created only as a representation of life will have no lasting impact. His contention was that the perception of ultimate reality, the ability to derive emotional significance from pure forms, stripped of all associations, was a uniquely artistic and spiritual quality that had little to nothing to do with education or intelligence. Indeed, primitive art boasted some of the most moving forms, precisely because they were not preoccupied with art as an intellectual discipline, but as the “passionate apprehension of form.” The idea here extends well beyond art (as Bell himself alludes to), to our very perception of reality. In the present scientific age, we are used to viewing reality through a purely intellectual lens, in which everything is perceived as it relates to other things and almost nothing is viewed solitarily. There is utility in this view, and it has proven invaluable to the progression of the civilization machine. It is only the artist and the religious zealot—those who have the least to gain from civilization and, indeed, those to whom civilization has done the greatest violence—who decry such a progression. But as we stand on the precipice of the age of AI, we cannot help wondering if they were right after all and if we are not all better off with a more primitive existence. In the age of prediction models trained on vast stores of data—a mere inorganic reproduction of our own minds—perhaps we are at last beginning to discover that our true humanity lies in our emotional comprehension of pure existence. To paraphrase Clive Bell’s example, an artist may look at a chair and see not what the chair signifies—its use, its associations, etc.—but a pure form, and derive an aesthetic emotion from its pure reality. In a broader sense, too, we may look at our daily work and see not its social implications, its function in the machine of civilization, but a pure reality, for which we feel a similar emotion as the artist. Perhaps it is this artistic revelation of reality that makes us neither entirely animal nor entirely machine.
Ultimately, the only relevant human existence in the machine of civilization is a machine existence: the body-mind, whatever can be used and whatever can receive tangible goods. It is only natural, then, that we should be replaced by a literal machine that can perform more efficiently. But when civilization succeeds in its final aim, when every material need is met and we live in perfect comfort, we will still feel that we have been robbed of something, and we will yearn, unaccountably, for the very civilization we erected to collapse. Whatever perception of the universe the artist enjoys–that is real. Civilization is the imitation.
“Thus with violence the great city Babylon shall be thrown down, and shall not be found anymore. No craftsman of any craft shall be found in you anymore, and the sound of a millstone shall not be heard in you anymore. For your merchants were the great men of the earth, for by your sorcery all the nations were deceived. And in her was found the blood of prophets and saints, and of all who were slain on the earth,” Revelation 18:21-24
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