The Questions We Need to Ask

What happens to us if we continue to condition and rewire our brains to depend on God-like technologies?

Hi friends!

I am making this week’s Friday letter open to all because I genuinely want more people to start thinking about these questions I’ve been asking myself. Share away, if you feel compelled to.

One topic has been dominating my mind this past month—what are my values?

Naturally, values shift as we mature and encounter new experiences. But with where we are today, this age-old question feels much more urgent—especially in the age of artificial intelligence and God-like technologies.

What we’re confronting is unprecedented. Among the algorithms, smartphones, and OpenAI’s latest blockbuster acquisition (complete with a Hollywood director crafting the mostly empty promotional video), acquiring a once-unknown startup (io) from possibly one of the most influential inventors of our time—the world as we know it is about to dramatically change.

Well, once this mysterious “device” that was never shown or explained is unleashed.

If you’re confused about the perils we face, read Rolling Stones’ “People Are Losing Loved Ones to AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies” for an intriguing yet alarming read. If these stories indicate the trajectory we’re on, we should feel the urgency of this call to question.

What do we want our relationship with AI and our ever increasing “smarter” technologies be?

These machines were invented by us, but AI is made of independent agents—which is why the tag ‘intelligence’ is appropriate.

Even Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, admitted in a keynote interview for AI for Good Summit 2024 that he doesn’t fully understand how it works: “We certainly have not solved interpretability.”

Interpretability, by the way (for us AI novices) is about understanding how AI “thinks.” The more complex the model, the harder it is for humans to understand its decision-making process—even for those who built it.

As Sam puts it, like how it’s impossible to understand each other and “what’s happening in your brain at a neuron-by-neuron level,” these companies, their engineers, and scientists, also cannot fully comprehend how these machines actually ‘think’. Friends, trust me, this is new news to me!

But it does ‘think’.

I can’t escape the duality of awe and freight. We humans have managed to create a non-sentient thinking thing in the image of our own brain—the brain that made us the dominant species—yet we’re at a loss about how it actually operates.

The greater irony is we’re trying to recreate something—like a brain—that we also have yet to master ourselves. Neuroscientists will tell you that the brain is still a mysterious frontier.

So, what should our relationship with AI be? (If you’re not already contemplating it).

We need to define and define our values.

We can dream and create compelling visions, but we’re terrible at predicting the future. Let’s not even attempt to worry about the ripples of consequences we’re already setting in motion—the future is always beyond our knowledge. (Unless one of us invents time travel or a time machine!)

As social creatures, longing for belonging and following the herd feels natural, but creating space to think deeply become of great importance. While eradication is extreme (and likely impossible), so is a total surrender.

How dependent do you want to be with AI?

I need to define for myself where I sit on this spectrum.

Making space to exercise our agency by choosing to use our brain and mind to live a life on our terms is part of the core guiding principles of this community.

So, as we increasingly rely on algorithms, machines, and AI, the real questions are: how do we preserve our connection with ourselves and the intelligence within us? How do we preserve our connection with nature and the nature within us? How do we retain our humanity?

As in the face of these God-like technologies, our humanness is what’s being threatened.

I fear that without realising what we’re creating is a momentum that’s slowly eroding our humanity. By conditioning ourselves to rely on AI and ever intertwined technologies, we’re also detaching ourselves further from what makes us human.

Like how accidentally leaving my phone at home creates a sense of something’s missing or how we’re only just grasping the real-world implications of social media on developing brains, mental health, and the general fabric of reality—I wonder, what are the consequences we cannot yet see with these God-like technologies in our midst?

There’s a reason why there’s been a wave of resistance against social media and a reassessment of our phone use lately, but unfortunately, a decade too late.

We can try to deny we are partly living as a bionic society.

Our phones and gadgets are extensions of ourselves—as can you imagine a life without your phone? I can’t.

Perhaps the only solution is to try to learn to coexist by thinking through our values and boundaries—to navigate every update with intention. If we want to thrive through this next decade, simply following the herd is how we’ll falter.

Let’s not wait another decade. As what will become of our intuition and intelligence if we continue to surrender to the empires of tech and condition a culture of outsourcing our thinking, feeling, and sensing?

What do you think? I’d love to know.

Side note: I am also still very pleased about cancelling my Oura ring subscription, and I am going strong without any wearables interpreting my days.

Thank you for spending some of your day with me.

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