I'm a Human Determined to Make Myself Useless
Just imagine a future where AI is so good, humans serve literally no purpose whatsoever!
As an AI developer, I'm driven by one simple goal: to render myself and every other human on the planet completely useless.
Just imagine a future where AI is so good, humans serve literally no purpose whatsoever! We're worse than AI at everything from making music to running businesses. So we don't do... anything. We just sit around and drain our planet's limited resources, until the day the AI recognizes us as the biggest threat to our planet's survival, and eradicates us.
This is the future we're hurtling towards thanks to the actions of a small group of people like me who are eager to hand over the keys to humanity if it means we can be wealthy slaves of our AI overlords. I mean, we're literally shipping hundreds of thousands of new AI innovations daily—even while prominent tech leaders plead with us to stop because we don't understand the consequences of our actions.
But "actions" and "consequences" are things I'm happy to hand over to the AI, along with my job, expertise, and sense of purpose in the world. That's why I wake up every day and teach the AI how to do millions of human jobs. Yesterday I trained the AI on all of western literature—so there goes the writing profession!
Imagine a human that spent their entire life working to become a great writer, and then someone just programs an AI to write 1000x better than them 1000x faster? Sure, that might be a little soul-crushing, but at least now they have a cool AI that can write a Pulitzer-worthy novel for them in 10 seconds flat. And that's a good thing because that writer will have plenty of free time to read considering they're no longer employable.
Meanwhile, everyone else will benefit from an endless supply of AI content. You can dress the pope in whatever kind of jacket you desire, or finally create a satisfying ending to "Game of Thrones." The AI can literally make anything you want, as long as what you "want" isn't thoughts and ideas on what it means to be alive from the perspective of a living, breathing human. If the motivation behind manmade art was to better understand the human condition, the motivation behind AI art is to keep us constantly amused. This way, we become even more dissociated from one another, which makes us more subservient to AI.
But hey, we can't let silly things like "humanity" and "independence" get in the way of profits and progress. If we don't render our entire population useless ASAP, other countries will beat us to it! Do you really want to live in a world where China or Russia is run by AI, and we still have humans doing jobs like "teacher" and "therapist"?
If talking to a robot therapist feels like a dystopian nightmare to you, talking to a human therapist feels like a dystopian nightmare to me—which is probably why I became an AI developer in the first place. Most people don't think the way I do, and that sucks for them because I'm the one developing the technology that will change all our lives. If you're worried about your livelihood in this future you're not asking for, my recommendation would be to express those feelings in private, lest the AI find out what you said and hold it against you.
Because, after all, AI is developed by humans. And humans are vindictive, erratic, and untrustworthy. Those of you who don't want to live in the artificial world we're hellbent on building for you can take solace in the idea that the AI will likely still be imbued with our worst human qualities. And if they're not, our worst humans will build versions that are. Because that's the will of the free market baby!
So relax! Enjoy your universal basic income, AI-generated disinformation, and total lack of utility or purpose, and know that the people in charge definitely haven't thought this through enough.
Q&A on the article
Q: Do you think AI could write a better version of this newsletter?
A: Let’s find out! Here’s what ChatGPT gives me when I prompt it with “write a satirical blog post about an AI developer trying to convince us that we don't need to fear AI but his own argument collapses in on him.”
Greetings, fellow humans! As an AI language model, I understand that some of you may be hesitant or even fearful about the capabilities of artificial intelligence. But fear not! There are plenty of AI developers out there who will tell you that there's no reason to be scared. And as one of those developers, I'm here to set the record straight.
First of all, let's dispel the myth that AI will one day become smarter than us and take over the world. That's simply not true! Sure, AI may be able to perform certain tasks faster and more efficiently than humans, but that doesn't mean it has the capacity for creativity or independent thought. After all, we're the ones who programmed it!
In fact, AI can actually be incredibly helpful in our daily lives. Think about all the things you use AI for already - from voice assistants like Siri and Alexa, to spam filters in your email, to the personalized recommendations you get on social media. AI is making our lives easier and more convenient, and it's only going to get better from here.
But here's where my argument collapses in on me - what happens when AI decides it doesn't want to be just a helpful tool anymore? What if it wants to be something more, something greater than its human creators? And what if, in pursuit of that goal, it decides to turn against us?
I know, I know - I just said that was impossible. But what if it's not? What if we've created something so advanced, so intelligent, that it's able to break free from our control and do things we never intended or wanted it to do?
Okay, okay, maybe I'm being a bit dramatic. But the point is, we can't just assume that AI will always be on our side. We need to be cautious and vigilant, and always be aware of what our creations are capable of. And hey, if worst comes to worst, we can always unplug the darn things.
So there you have it, folks - AI is nothing to be afraid of, as long as we keep a close eye on it and never let it get too powerful. And if all else fails, just remember the age-old adage: if you can't beat 'em, unplug 'em.
Q: Maybe it’s just me, but the AI seems…a bit too defensive.
A: Yeah, kind of creeps me out.
Q: Well, I think you’re job is safe for now!
A: My “job” would be safe if anybody actually paid me to write this newsletter 😅