Do We Care More About Humanity or AI?
What future do we want?
Photo by Igor Omilaev on Unsplash
We live in an incredibly self-centered world. We think highly of ourselves while millions of people suffer each day. We are proud of our high technology. It’s true that technology has eliminated a lot of suffering on planet Earth, but we still don’t understand the clear picture.
Despite our robust technology, people still suffer. We put far too much emphasis on AI and advanced tech than regular people.
Food or AI?
It’s estimated that there are 783 million people in the world who don’t get enough food to eat each day. That’s a staggering number.
Incredibly, we spent 154 billion on developing AI and related systems in 2023. Imagine how many people could have been fed with that amount of money. We care more about the development of machines than the suffering of flesh and blood human beings.
Houses or AI?
Over 150 million live without adequate housing, sanitation, or water. These are the basics of life, yet human beings don’t have access to them while we build fancy robots to do our household chores for us.
Poverty or AI?
In 2022, over 712 million people lived in extreme poverty. We spend billions on creating machines, yet we can’t help people lead a basic life with what they require for survival.
Education or AI?
Over 250 million children worldwide don’t attend school, with many of these being in Africa.
AI and the Future
I’m all for advanced AI and robotics if we use this technology to improve the lives of people on planet Earth, but will we really do this? I can imagine we’ll build armies with robots and use AI to enrich the lives of the already rich while the rest of humanity continues to suffer.
In a perfect world, we would use our technology to enhance the lives of every single citizen so no one goes hungry, without shelter, and without education. We won’t do that because all AI will do is enhance the lives of the rich and powerful. it will take jobs and drive even more people into poverty.
Here we stand upon immense technological advancement. Will we do the right thing and enhance the lives of everyone? Will we continue on our merry way while only a small percentage of human beings on planet Earth get to live a life of luxury with their new robotic butlers?
Waiting for answers.
I actually see it differently. Setting aside the idea of a perfect world, technology is innovated from incentive and no other way. The old emotional concept of feeding the world with surplus from the rich, while noble in sentiment, is a dead end endeavor. Taking technology or resources from others to give to the "poor" (a subjective term) kills technological incentive.
You can feed all the world for a day, and they will still be hungry the next day - to our utter dismay, it will have done little and seemingly nothing. What might sound like it costs 500 billion dollars, is actually a bottomless pit of complex wants and needs from the needy and greedy (yes, the poor and rich alike).
That said, I do appreciate the sentiment. We should absolutely try to help those in need. But if you're wondering why we don't just solve poverty forever if it looks so simple - it's because it's not solvable in the first place. We can only incrementally make it better, and we are. Contrary to the common narrative, the poor are not getting poorer; absolute fact: globally, extreme poverty has declined significantly - because of the heart of the helping and the mind of the technologist.