“I NEED to ask you, what actually is AI?” 
    
That’s how my mother began our last long-distance WhatsApp call. And really, it’s not a stupid question. I mean, I don’t have an answer. Not a good one. And I’m not altogether convinced anyone else does either. I don’t know. 

Maybe that ought to give us some pause for thought. Maybe Sir Keir Starmer can tell us? After all, he’s just pledged our money — £14 billion of it — to an AI Opportunities Action Plan. Mind you, if he’s asked during Prime Minister’s Question Time, I can well imagine some glib reply like “machine learning” or that old chestnut, “simulated human intelligence.” 

To which, we might respond, is my spellchecker learning? Are images generated online with Midjourney, simulating the wonders of our cognitive capacity when they mistake hands for feet?   

Truth is, unless we’re ready to go down a philosophic, Pascallian rabbit hole, we’re better off admitting we don’t fully understand what we’re getting into. And if that sounds scary — good. It should. 

When the Luddites of the 19th century lit the match beneath their power-looms and stepped out from their factories to watch them burn bright against England’s leaden skies, they knew exactly what they were doing. They recognised they couldn’t fight the future, yet knew they had the power to send a message. 

Today, we’re a little less radical, a little less creative. A little less pyromanic. Given the fact we’re facing an existential threat comparable to climate change and nuclear Armageddon, I find it surprising. But then, tech bros and techno-sycophants pulled out all the stops to reassure us, to prepare us for a great cybernetic convergence. 

Oddly enough, I’m not particularly excited. Being human’s a limitation I’m quite content with. That being said, how about we circle back a bit in true, algorithmic fashion? What does AI mean, right now? And where’s it going in, say, the next couple of years?

According to Elon Musk, the self-proclaimed messiah of digital fascism, AI will surpass human intelligence in 2027. Obviously, such claims are ridiculous. But that doesn’t mean AI won’t get there, eventually. The real Turing Test comes when artists are eclipsed.

However, as I’ve argued with AI enthusiasts in the video games industry again and again, that can’t happen until machines become sentient, until they learn to feel. Indeed, to exceed the inner empire of our intellect, a wellspring of emotional intelligence is essential; it’s what defines us and makes human intelligence, well — human.

Still, we shouldn’t get complacent. Nor should we go and Google “electromagnetic pulse grenade” in preparation for the Robocalypse. AI has a lot of positive potential. Consider it like you would a useful “tool” — albeit one liable to self-replicate exponentially and consume the world in a chittering mass of nanometric, grey goo. 

The flip side is that AI could manage socialism. It could oversee complex economic decision-making without fear, favour or prejudice. It could ensure an equal distribution of wealth and, with the proper regulation, even manage data in schools and, yes, dare I say it, NHS hospitals. But how realistic is this? Are we in danger of slipping into science fiction? 

Honestly, it’s more science fact. Think Project Cybersyn, Salvador Allende’s visionary plan to revolutionise Chile using statistical modelling systems and a super-advanced economic simulator. The enterprise might have worked too, if the hardware hadn’t been smashed by Augusto Pinochet’s forces during the coup d’etat in 1973. 

Evidently, the prospects for AI are nuanced. In my line of work, for instance, I use AI-enabled programmes to automate processes and regularly for research. But I draw the line when it comes to using it for creative expression.

The trouble is, not everyone in the industry feels the same, and not everyone believes in the role of the artist. Some are lulled into a shallow sense of accomplishment through a few clicks and a text prompt.

Others, namely studio execs, believe they’ve found a magic jar to bottle lightning. Why employ workers when OpenAI can run the show? The results are fairly predictable — a race to the bottom.

At worst, AI’s empowerment through virtual and augmented reality, robotics, the metaverse and quantum computing will reinforce the cultural hegemony of the ruling elite, leaving many of us to grind the opiates of digital sedation.

At best, we may slow down, course correct. Run a collective checksum. If we’re lucky, we might surprise ourselves and wrest AI from big tech for a working-class agenda. Let’s not forget, the blade of capitalist innovation cuts both ways. But even in this more upbeat scenario, jobs will be affected. Indeed, AI-ification has already begun and it’s biting hard. Few occupations will survive the onslaught unscathed. 

So where does all that leave us? Do we follow in the footsteps of the Luddites and pull the internet up by its fibreoptic roots? Seriously, what is to be done?

I can only reflect on HG Wells, writing in A Mind at the End of its Tether, a short book about humanity being replaced by a more advanced species of being. His prescience is as frightening as his sober words are pertinent: “Adapt or perish, now as ever, is Nature’s inexorable imperative.”

Either we ignore AI then, and accept defeat, or we use it to build a better world. It’s our choice.