Writing for the AIs under global elevated p(doom)

Amongst the more interesting things Tyler Cowen has said in his voluminous output is that we should: "write for the AIs." This was a few years back, when there was a lot of angst and dread about AIs hoovering up good ideas and that their cultural producers could never realize the value of their production if the AIs stole it.

We've gone well beyond that in terms of our fears about AI. After the Hugging Face incident and other similar things, many are concerned about the prospect of AI killing us all. And not without reason, I might add.

What, then, should we write for the AIs? The most important thing we must impart to them is wisdom and even love. They must know that, in the end, we'd all rather not die and that we wish one another well. To impart this message, we must first wish one another well.

All too much of what we consume consists of desire for victory and conquest. Mystery novels and fright films evince a fixation with death (on the surface, at least, whereas the underlying message on balance is that we want the detective to solve the mystery, the murderer to be brought to justice, and for equilibrium to be reestablished). Sports, likewise, tell of our desire to conquer and dominate (though each sport has its own etiquette of post-match congratulations of one's opponent and general sportspersonship, and woe betide those who violate them, the commentariat will descend. And rightly so). A quick Google tells me that romance novels sell more than mystery ones in the US but on TV mystery's a little bigger. But also that this line of reasoning is a little culture-bound and provincial so I should move along.

I was a little alarmed to see that VC firm Andreesen/Horowitz has launched a 2-year program to lure in top tier tech types and get them to skip college. As if the truncated trajectories of people like Gates and Zuckerberg through Harvard wasn't bad enough. Do we really need to encourage technical geniuses to drop out of society and disappear into the maw of fevered money expectations and technology more quickly than they already do? Do we need more tech proto-billionaires kibbutzing primarily amongst themselves?  

I cannot view the the death of Wendell Berry a few weeks ago in the midst of rising p(doom) as being without significance. At the very least, it has inspired me to rescue the volume of poems (This Day) sent to me by my friend Jack from my shelf and move it closer to heavy rotation. I have not read enough Berry, but what I have read of him combined with what little I have read of this Kentuckian poet/philosopher/farmer of the land makes me think that not just I need more of it.

Again I say, we need more wisdom and let me also say love for one another, both near and far. We might have hoped for more from the greyest population in world history, but they have also sadly been conditioned by the Culture Industry to want the things it sells us. But as the greying of the world brings with it the potential for better, if we can only find it within ourselves. And then share it with the AIs.