When I hear very smart people talk about math, I am discouraged. I am immediately reminded of the devoutly religious who cannot see anything beyond their dogma. Math can be a religion as well.
We need our religions. They comfort us. God does not need us to comfort him, or to worship him, or to glorify him. If he exists, he is, and we would clearly benefit by his example. We might even study that, instead of war. But if there is no God, it is difficult to understand why it will make a difference. We are then just biological units, and not much more meaningful than the numbers that Mr. Durov adores. And perhaps that is the very why of religion. To give us something to live for beyond the functioning of our individual biological units. Other than love and beauty and sex, I mean.
Pavel Durov is the genius behind several projects, including The Telegram, an internet messaging platform begun in 2013 with his older brother Nikolai. I hear that Nikolai might be smarter than his younger brother, but he does not come on podcasts where I can listen to him, so I focus here on Pavel.
What we have got here, now, as it was once so well and concisely put by Strother Martin in Cool Hand Luke, is ‘failure to communicate.’ A recent interview conducted by Lex Fridman with Mr. Pavel was the immediate cause of my focus on this particular aspect to the ongoing human conundrum.
Math is amazing! It rhymes. We create instruments that measure specific aspects of the universe using numbers of our own devising to divide the existential into exact parts and then we are amazed, when we get our answer, that the math is so precise. It’s a miracle! We seek a definition and there it is! It would seem that most stage magicians might simplify all that mumbo jumbo without going so far overboard. Well, most do.
We have always created our gods to suit our cause. If we are poor, we admire poverty. If we are weak, we admire humility. If we are abused, we admire anger. When we are hungry, we pursue plenty. Our gods conveniently absolve us of our sins in these pursuits, and we worship them for it. If a god is beyond our understanding, we ignore him, or worse, demean him or even slaughter his adherents.
Mr. Durov appears to be a good and decent man. Having heard him speak at length on several occasions it is easy to understand why he has succeeded in his pursuits. He believes in what he does. And given his intelligence, this makes him a very dangerous man as well as a very necessary one—because it would only be through surviving and flourishing in the same world as Mr. Durov that we might learn how to survive in the coming age of ‘artificial intelligence’—which is to say, in the age of machines.
Yet, believing in his math, he can have no other predicate for being either good or decent if calculated purely by the numbers. They either add up or they do not. But there is clearly another standard at play with him than just the numerical one; a standard of value of which he is perhaps unaware…but I am guessing otherwise.
Math is a tool, no more so than a hammer. It is an artificial device that means nothing by itself, but only by comparison to human needs. We designate the numbers as we need them. Machines are devices to assist those human needs. Math, which is a constant, about as invariable as the tool, can be used to create code that can be interpreted by machines. That code then becomes an artificial language adapted to machine use. This is all very straightforward and has led to the invention of what is being called ‘artificial intelligence.’ Which we now have. And that intelligence will now, undoubtedly, improve over time as the human need arises, in the same way that the wheel resulted in the automobile.
However, to some minds, there is a loss of purpose in all of this. Strangely, as if the machine is somehow pure for the fact that it does not have certain biological needs, there are people who think that artificial intelligence is an improvement over the human kind. As if, for instance, speed is an improvement in and of itself, without purpose. (The cheetah is a god in some societies). As if efficiency is an improvement, no matter the task. But the machine is still only a tool. And its purpose is determined by us.
The tendency to over-estimate the importance of math in a world of human value is the greater danger. Human language is of far greater importance than any machine language. That is the art of it. A unique creation uninhibited by mere fact. Lesser or greater, but always. And the ability to coordinate the perceptions of multiple human beings that is made possible through a common language is the greater blessing.
Almost any machine will inevitably become obsolete. And human beings grow old and die. The machine can be replaced. The human being, however, is unique (the perceptions of no two human beings are exactly the same). Using language, allows the ‘art’ of individual perceptions to be preserved, and used again, and built upon by the unique thoughts of other human beings. Math is always and everywhere exactly replicable. Art is not. It is the loss or preservation of that unique creation that first gives it value.
It is the difference factor in every human perception that makes it possible for a man to invent a machine. To see the need and want it enough to take the time in his life to build it. But there is a cohort of humanity that does not like itself and believes machines will be an improvement. This is mysterious. The values that make life worth living, like goodness and decency, are irrelevant to a machine. If speed is god, to what end? If efficiency is our value, to what purpose.
There is another group of human beings, smart ones I believe, who think that machines will replace human beings. This too is mysterious. Certainly, the human beings individually might be replaced, (at what loss or gain cannot be estimated, there being no math to calculate the unique qualities of any individual mind) but from whence will the machine derive any value for its own existence. It is not self-aware, but only mimics human values. If left alone on a planet, machines might continue to repair and replace themselves perpetually, without purpose. But to what end?
Importantly—perhaps most importantly—there is no God in the machine. Mr. Durov cannot be unaware of this. I imagine he has given this a great deal of thought, especially at night, but he hasn’t related those thoughts to me. My conjecture about him is based only on his public actions and the words I have heard him say. But he is an example of a very dangerous man. That danger I will call the ‘Durov syndrome.’ This is a narrative borrow from an old and scientifically problematic movie called ‘The China Syndrome’ that was popular many years ago. It concerns a possible end to the world as we know it, brought about by a failure of nuclear power. The great danger seen by some today is that of the machine.
I believe, from his actions, that Mr. Durov is a man of great integrity, and consistency. I must assume his good will. His intelligence, as gauged by his accomplishment and words, is formidable. There are other examples in the public sphere of such men, some apparently greater in their aims, or smarter, but very few of them. One that I might otherwise take as an object here is Elon Musk, however his involvement in so many areas, political as well as technological, and the amount of information I have absorbed over the years about him, makes dealing with his example far more difficult. My purpose here benefits by my knowing less about Mr. Durov than about Mr. Musk. Ignorance then is my excuse.
The issue that I find dangerous is the impact such men have on the society that I live in, and that my family must survive in.
“That there is something wrong” is the working premise of Paul Kingsnorth as well as that of his host, Eric Metaxas, on the Socrates in the City podcast, in another recent interview concerning Mr. Kingsnorth’s book, Against the Machine.
I must admit to being an enormous fan and regular listener of the Socrates in the City series, clearly created by Mr. Metaxes for the betterment of mankind in general and myself in particular. I disagree with him at least a third of the time but enjoy the disagreeing almost as much as when I don’t because it gives me an excuse to think through some worthy problem instead of simply wearing out what is left of my neck vertebrae in nodding.
Mr. Kingsnorth is another matter. I know far less of his work but take Mr. Metaxas’ agreement with it seriously. And as for the subject, the life and death struggle between man and his self-created nemesis, the machine, and the recent losses of mankind in that war, I am all on board with both the realization of the problem and the understanding of the great dangers posed by ‘the Machine.’ Mary Shelley had that right a couple of hundred years ago. The liability that the digital world poses to the human world, and the conflict with human values posed by the machine, is clearly understood by Mr. Kingsnorth but his reaction poses yet another danger from an opposite direction.
My disagreement begins with the title itself, Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity. Simply stated, I would contend that the machine and our ability to handle such an act of creation, is our test. It’s what we do. We are, indeed, not gods, but certainly, given our abilities, if we cannot handle our inherent faults, we are already a failed species and the only story now is in the diabolical and sado masochistic entertainment of enjoying our own misery (which seemed to have been a favorite theme of the 20th Century). But in what history we have unearthed to date, I see a marvelous effort to learn by our mistakes and master the product of or minds. And back in the religious context, that would be what any god worth his salt would expect of us.
Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is a myth, perhaps, but its narrative is clear enough. It was simply not a big enough town for the two of them. Mr. Kingsnorth is a Christian. Good enough. But then, he must accept the wisdom of his God in the creation of such a complex creature as man. There are no easy answers. And by definition of the capital ‘G’, there can be no other God before us. The machine then, rather than Satan, is our creation. If we survive our missteps, that will more than likely be a result of using our talent to build and invent, and that would be a fulfillment of God’s wish for us. If we fail, and immanentize the eschaton, then we must start again. That too would be the plan. And it would appear from recent archeological discovery, that we have come this way before. Many times. So, there is no guarantee of success. But there is no going back to Eden.
Personally, I can’t accept the idea that Eden was anything more than a good starting point. A fair start. But only a beginning. And our literary misinterpretations begin right there as well with our self-serving blame of an idiot angel for our first error. Blaming an evil jinn for our stupidity instead of learning from our mistakes has already slowed us down quite a bit.
Now, we have AI. We label it incorrectly at the start. The idea is that the ‘intelligence’ is somehow apart from our human mind. It is very obviously not. The speed of its calculations, unimpaired by a conscious need of compatible temperature, or safe space, oxygen, water, food, or sex, makes it pretty fast. Formula One. But in need of constant human upkeep. Fragile. And whatever eden it requires must be earned by doing a good job and not hallucinating evil angels to excuse itself. Human beings won’t be as generous, by nature, over such mistakes as their own creator was to them.
But, for a time—in transition, so to speak—we humans may pretend something else in order to get the result we want. We do it all the time (see what passes for broadcast news, or human courtship). Mr. Kingsnorth’s fear of AI is just such a pretense. And I must ask why? He is clearly a very intelligent fellow. I believe that his pretense, like that of Mr. Durov, is sincere. But delusion is not limited to the dumb. He does have a pretext.
From the beginning of his conversation he asserts various ideas, such as that we (mankind? society?) have come to see the earth as a mechanism and not an organism. He does not explain this dichotomy, or who it is that he thinks believes it. He believes that for the last two or three hundred years (why such a recent start?) we have been conducting a war against nature and now human nature, and that we are now conducted and controlled by our technology, (no mention of the service it brings) and (this is the really scary part) that we are now moving into the age of artificial intelligence and the uploading of minds creating giant superhuman intelligences. (This bit of pure science fiction is interesting, worthy of consideration thus, but still improbable for empirical reasons—not the least of which are the hallucinations of AI which likely result from it being unhinged to a real world—and certainly not worth having the sort of absolute government power allocated to anyone I know of, necessary to stop it at any cost. There is much more in that vein but I almost gave up on him there and so I will back away and observe those few ideas first.
Earth is a mechanism. It was that before we came on the scene. If you believe in God, you must assume he made it that way. To quote the Merriam Webster, to be brief “a doctrine that holds natural processes (as of life) to be mechanically determined and capable of complete explanation by the laws of physics and chemistry” If, in fact, Kingsnorth believes that the natural processes of life cannot be explained, what exactly would those causes be? Medicine and astronomy, for example, both still have enormous areas of ignorance, but we have been working on that. Give us time and don’t bring on the eschaton just yet.
Would Mr. Kingsnorth want to return to the medicine of the seventeenth century to avoid all that more recent and problematic knowledge. Should we forget about Mars and return to a time pre-Galileo? The problem is not simply argumentative. Mr. Kingsnorth’s whole thesis appears to rest on being ignorant of what doesn’t fit his conception of a Christian worldview (his view, mind you) and apparently assuming we would just be better off not knowing. Being a frequent user of ignorance for my own excuses, I am sympathetic. But I hope he or his loved ones don’t have any significant health issues. And in the meantime, there are far less obnoxious approaches to what knowledge we have, and much more coming that we must learn to deal with. If knowledge, and the seeking of knowledge, is forbidden, we will surely fail. And who, might I ask, will have the political power to determine what knowledge we seek?
“That there is something wrong” leaves the mysterious ‘something’ up for grabs, but this is an element not clearly explored in the interview other than to suggest a retreat from knowledge. Well, a lot of good that did Adam. My suspicion is that Mr. Kingsnorth believes in Satan, and that the forces arrayed against mankind today are somehow far worse than when the Plague wiped out one-third of the population of Europe, or Muslims were at the Gates of Vienna, or Christians were burning witches. He blames some evil for all the nastiness in the modern world (forgetting about the fact that the population of the world has blossomed with prosperity in the last two hundred years, primarily due to the freedoms of a society that might question and explore.
We must not immanentize the eschaton any more now than when William Buckley first used the term for effect during the dire ‘60s. With a little luck and a lot of hard work, we have much further in our history to go, and if the work of Pavel Durov is successful, that will be available for use by the adherents of Paul Kingsnorth to moderate, if not mitigate. That is the only answer we can hope for. Panic is not a solution. But a syndrome does need our attention.