The place of humans in machine society

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about my dog, Jasper. Jasper is half-lab, half-whippet, which means he’s very muscular, very fast, and obsessed with fetch. He’s also quite dumb, even by dog standards, which may be due to his whippet heritage¹. He repeatedly fails to solve doggy puzzles, gets bamboozled every single time by fake throws, and still has not figured out how to enter my fiancee’s office, which is set off from the bedroom by curtains. He just stands outside of the curtains, crying, even though he could literally just walk around or through them.

Jasper lives in a world he does not remotely understand. He relies on humans for every single need. His water comes from a sink, which he can’t operate. His food comes from a container that he can’t open. In hot months, he needs a human to put on the fan. In cold months, he needs a human to put on the heater. His path to the outside world is blocked by doorknobs which he can’t operate, and cars speed down the roads outside of my apartment obeying rules that he cannot fathom.

This is not a world that Jasper chose for himself. His mother was a stray dog in Mississippi, and he could have conceivably been one, too. But he was picked up as a puppy from the ditch he was born in and entered into the world of humans. He was vaccinated, neutered, collared, and passed from clinic to foster family to, eventually, my home in Boston. He’s been there ever since, following me from apartment to apartment.

The boy himself. This picture may be a metaphor. It’s also a great picture. Being jet black makes him look great against a variety of backdrops, although it also makes it very difficult to see him at night or on my black couch.

I don’t think he leads a bad life here in Boston. In fact, I think he leads quite a good life. He seems to enjoy himself most of the time, especially when we go to the park or he gets to swim in the river. But there is something undeniably sad about how he is completely, utterly useless in the world he lives in. He cannot help with any part of either his or my life. Even his attributes that are undeniably superior to mine, like his speed, hearing, or smell are just fun novelties at best. It’s great that he can fetch faster than almost any other dog at the dog park, but fetch is something that is entirely for his benefit, anyways.

The reason I’ve been thinking so much about Jasper is a combination of two things:

1. I’m in the midst of reading an excellent, meticulously researched, occasionally tedious book called The Rise and Fall of American Growth, which argues that the scale of transformation in American daily living from 1870-1940 vs. any other 70 year period of history is underappreciated.

In 1870, we were largely a rural society, living at the end of dirt roads, with no running water or electricity, walking everywhere, never leaving our hometowns, eating seasonally, washing occasionally, and wearing the same two outfits every day. By 1940, we were much more urban, connected by paved roads, sewage pipes, and electric wires, migrating across the country to look for opportunities, eating a variety of foods shipped from coast-to-coast, and consuming an immense variety of consumer goods through department stores and mail order catalogs.

2. I’ve started to become freaked out by the pace of AI and scientific development.

From 1940 to 2010, our society did not transform that much, in terms of daily living. Our biggest changes were in terms of our entertainment, our communication, and our air conditioning. Still, I can imagine myself going back to 1940 and doing ok. I’d have a lot more paper in my office and need to spend a lot more time writing letters, but I think I’d adapt relatively quickly. A young person in 1940, by contrast, would have a miserable time going back to 1870.

But now it feels like, given the pace of AI and scientific development, the next 70 years might see as big a change as 1870-1940 did. I’m starting to wonder if 2095 is going to be as foreign to me as 1870 would be to a 1940ite.

And then, my biggest worry (which is why I started with my anecdotes about Jasper), is not just that the world will become different, but that it will become incomprehensible. AI today is smarter in every single intellectual activity than probably 95 or 99% of humans. In some things, it’s smarter than any human, like in its ability to design antibodies, as a headline I just saw announced today. The only thing it’s below average in is physically moving through and manipulating the world. AI powered robots are currently better at physical movement than a severely disabled person, but worse than an able-bodied program.

But that’s just the state of AI right now. It’s progressing rapidly. AI capabilities are exploding, including in its ability to physically manipulate the world. This is a bigger deal than it seems. Right now, one of the biggest barriers that AI has to challenging scientists or engineers is that it can’t actually run any experiments. It can come up with really clever hypotheses based on the literature, but it lacks any tacit knowledge.

Once AI can pair what it knows about what’s written down with the ability to run experiments and learn about the real world, it will be able to take humans out of the loop altogether. Frankly, humans will no longer be needed to make the world run.

And so the world my children will live in may need them as much as my world needs Jasper. Jasper lives in a world closed off by doorknobs designed for human hands, water sources high up off the ground and out of his reach, and food that’s ordered on the Internet and stored in dog-proof containers. His world is designed by humans, for humans, and he exists as a cute accessory to this world. There is nothing productive that he contributes to this world, and this will not change anytime in the future. If Jasper wanted to get smarter, or faster, or stronger, his ability to participate in the world would not change at all.

Maybe my children, in 2095, will look back at 2025 and be utterly baffled how I ever lived in a world that relied on me and humans like me to make it run. They will shudder to imagine the work I put in to earn money, keep my apartment clean, feed myself, and, yes, take care of my dog. All of their needs will be taken care of by creatures far more capable than them in every way that matters, and it’ll be an easier life for them.

But that’s not a world I’d want to live in.

1. Labs I’ve had in the past have not been quite as dumb.