Welcome to the New Age

It seems like you can’t go a day without hearing about the new advancements of AI, see an ad or review for a new VR gadget, or spot a Waymo car on the road.

I will never forget that it was on 3/21/24 that I first saw a car driving with literally no human being inside.  If the dramatic rise in the price of Nvidia stock is any indication, the “secret” to investing has been to pour it all into nothing but AI for the last year.  Apple released their latest VR goggles, and there is a lot to be said for ads that make it seem like you can now play “Fruit Ninja” while simultaneously chatting with a friend and pretending to pay attention. Admittedly, he might get suspicious when he sees you karate chopping mid air and casually dropping vulgarities from time to time, but you get the point!

Every generation experiences a slew of technological breakthroughs that change daily life for humanity.  Jet propulsion changed travel and warfare forever.  Then the integrated circuit (microchip) revolutionized computing.  As soon as the internet fully changed the way people shop, learn, communicate, and amuse themselves, the smart phone came and changed the world again overnight.

These are only some advancements over the last 70 years.  These advancements have been so drastic and have developed so quickly, that the growth is clearly as exponential as it is runaway.  The digital developments of the last 40 years have been so profound that most now use the word “technology” to narrowly mean “computer related”.  Think of the last time you heard someone lauded as “tech-savvy”: that person was being recognized for his computer skills per se, wasn’t he?

But technology is much more than that.  Technological advancements have had profound impact on humanity since the dawn of civilization.  Well, even before recorded human history.  The first man to string a rock to a stick and use it as a hammer blessed countless of others, perhaps within miles around him.  Not only did he open up a whole new world of possibilities for himself, but he indirectly enhanced the quality of ships, homes, and really anything that has required the use of a hammer in construction for millennia to come.  Thank you, unknown caveman!

The word “technology” comes from the Greek techne, which in the tradition of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, more generally referred to fields of study that put knowledge to practical use.  More completely, Aristotle also understood techne as the products made by practical knowledge.  Furthermore, techne is only as good as the authentic human flourishing advanced by these products.

This seems obvious, as we ascribe negative names to products of low quality.  For example, cars that constantly break down are called “lemons”.  A man consistently stranded roadside because of his lousy car is not flourishing.  But to be consistent with Aristotelian thought, the notion of authentic techne goes deeper than that: even products that are made of quality materials aren’t really good if they aren’t conducive to human flourishing.  Think today about VR programs that are made for pornographic purposes.  No matter how new and improved any of them may become, they are objectively bad technological products.  They do not serve humanity, rather they tear people and families apart.  They warp human minds, and they turn people into addicts, reducing the glory of their own bodies and minds to mere pleasure toys trapped in juvenility.

In contrast, when man invented the wheel, began melting iron into tools, developed the stirrup, etc… he was making use of practical knowledge that could advance the human experience and the common good.  When man exercises his God given intellect thus, he gives glory to God while serving his fellow man.

So why are so many people so afraid of today’s rapidly advancing technologies?  Well, just like any temporal good, technology can either be used to advance the common good, or it can be used for evil.  Sometimes men trust technologies more easily, especially when it’s hard to see how they will be used for destructive purposes.  Then there are technologies that many fear will be used by malicious men in positions of power.  Finally, there are some technologies that will predictably be used frivolously or obscenely.

I would like to investigate a few different new technological advancements while entertaining some of their merits, demerits, what’s worth celebrating and what’s reasonably worth fearing.  There’s a bit of everything coming down the pike, and breaking it down can be complicated.  The present article will attempt to sort out some of our current concerns and propose how to best prepare in a sensible way.


Trinkets

I recently conversed with a young man convinced that school is a complete waste of time.  His argument was that Google and ChatGPT are all anyone will need anymore to access information, converse with others in different languages, and to write any report.  I asked him what kind of future he anticipated when the next generation has no formal education, but simply knows how to use AI to “do everything for them.”  Unsurprisingly, he expressed that the future is going to be one where robots work for “us” (all humans) and that there won’t be much work for anyone to do anymore.

When I asked if he had any concerns about a world with no more employment, he appealed to Universal Basic Income and the idea that “they” (the makers of robots and AI) will ensure that robots are not valued more than humans. All humans will now live the easy life and everything will be free. Yay!

After a round of further questions, he came to a sober realization: if Jeff Bezos already has a “move out of the way of the robots at Amazon or you’re fired” policy and a “when you work here with a tracking device on you, you better hold your pee!” policy, he had second thoughts as to what kinds of policies the overworld will implement when robots are smarter, cheaper, more servile, and plentiful, both inside and outside of Amazon fulfillment centers.

The purpose of this dialectic exercise, and my mention of it here, is not to default to a “The robots will take our jobs!” apprehension against robotic technology.  Rather, I would like to challenge others to recognize that critical thinking, practical skills, and intelligence are going to be more important than ever as we move into an increasingly AI and robotic world, not less important!  It’s going to be critically important to stand out as competent and worthwhile going forward.  Also, the point was to emphasize that those making the most sweeping advancements in these technologies are doing so in order to make lots and lots of money for themselves.  Which is not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, but to think that their primary focus is gifting humanity with plentiful automatons that will put everyone’s lives on “easy mode” is foolishness.

To many, the advancement of post-modern technology is seen as an avenue for humanity to all have the easiest life we could ever dream of. Many think they are promised the world and more with new technological developments, but will regular people get more than a few trinkets out of many of the radical technological advances coming down the pike?

There is a famous quote from Aristotle whereby he romanticized of a world where automota (machines that could do our labor for us), would allow us all the time necessary to live a labor free life full of contemplation and authentic human leisure. (More on that in a bit)

From Book 1 of Aristotle’s Politics:

[I]f each instrument could do its own work, at the word of command or by intelligent anticipation, like the statues of Daedalus or the tripods made by Hephaestus, of which the poet relates that ‘Of their own motion they entered the conclave of Gods on Olympus.’ A shuttle would then weave of itself, and a plectrum would do its own harp playing. In this situation managers would not need subordinates and masters would not need slaves.

What a beautiful world that would be, right? Self-operational machines doing all work for man, and simultaneously freeing slaves in the process. Fast forward to the current age. Have modern innovations liberated us all from work?  Has slavery been abolished from the earth?

Granted, to date, fully functional humanoid slave robots do not exist, but we live in a world where global communication is instantaneous, robotic machines do most modern manufacturing, farming beasts of burden have been replaced by tractors and other heavy equipment, and we can transport goods across the country at over 60 miles per hour on land.  We are are faster, we soar higher, and our ability to work is stronger than ever (citius, altius, forties!). Yet, why are people feeling pressed to work harder and longer hours than ever, and overwhelmingly believing that there is no way they will retire as well as their parents and grandparents??

In the 1950’s people made wild predictions about how easy life would be by the 21st century.  With the the toaster oven, blender, vacuum cleaner, automatic washer, refrigerator, and a bevy of other modern appliances becoming ubiquitous, combined with increasing automation in manufacturing and other segments of the workforce, why wouldn't most drudgeries go the way of the dodo?  The Associated Press article, How Experts Think We'll Live in the Year 2000 A.D. (1950) famously ended with, "So tell your children not to be surprised if the year 2000 finds 35 or even a 20-hour work week fixed by law."  The year 2000 was to be an age with an abundance of leisure time for us to read our favorite books, learn the arts, and engage in more social time with dear friends. 

The reality is that, unlike in the 50’s, mom and dad both participate in the workforce, and probably hold additional “side-hustles” just to cling to middle class status.  Housing is not affordable, and self-vacuuming robots suck. (And not in the way we want them to)

New technologies are consistently marketed to us as great time savers and tools to make work significantly easier.  Of course, anyone would welcome a cotton gin type of innovation that would reduce hard labor, but is that really what we are getting from the current technological revolution? Are we getting the sort of relief that power tools and tractors once granted?

While on Youtube, I have seen multiple ads that demonstrate just how much easier life should be when suggested edits (like full lines of content) make writing emails, and thus, sorting your inbox much faster.  One ad depicted a man working through his emails with a Robocop like tenacity, until finally, he finished his work so quickly that he spent the rest of his day relaxing at the beach.  Another ad I have witnessed was for a Google extension that will read text to you at 3x the speed you can read.  Again, the promise is that you will be able to get done with your work so fast that the rest of your time will be spent in leisure.

But if we all read our documents and get through our emails faster, then isn’t everyone else in the workplace doing the same?  Doesn’t this mean we are just sending and receiving even more emails per work day than before?  It’s not like the corporation you work for will just go dormant for the last few hours while you and your colleagues circle around and play hacky sack.  No one is saying, “Hey everyone, go home early. We got all the work done ridiculously fast today. Well done, team!”

My purpose is not to outright condemn these technologies, rather it is merely to make one simple point: advancement in productivity technologies does not automatically and directly translate to relief from burden.

Granted, these sorts of technologies indeed help the self-employed take more customers, process more orders, and get work done faster.  Yet, for the vast majority of us, technology keeps accelerating, but the math doesn’t lie: we are all working harder than before, our wages aren’t keeping up with inflation, and housing prices and interest rates keep climbing.  Technology keeps improving, but our lives are getting more stressful.  What gives?

The reality is that because we now have phones on us at all times, we can receive texts and emails from our bosses at all times.  We feel pressure to keep leads warm through incessant social media posting to keep us “connected.”  Are our employers and clients less patient people than they used to be?  Maybe our collective drive to speed through every email, document, and video has something to do with it. Our smart phones have made us all a little less patient than we once were.  We live in a swipe culture.  We chronically order items online and expect to get them same day.  And we call that “fulfillment.”  We have to constantly check our phones to see the latest updated score, breaking news, or latest post on social media.

Where is this time on the beach that the post-modern world keeps promising us?  I’m not even convinced that if we got this extra beach time we wouldn’t sit there in the sand anxiously checking our phones the whole time.  Where is the relaxation? Where is the relief? Where is the better life promised to come about simply by virtue of technological progression?


The myth of “Progressivism”

Let’s talk about “Progressivism”.  It is prudent to resist calling liberalism “Progressivism”. Why? Partly because labeling that which is more accurately defined as socially libertine and fiscally socialist as “progress” is rewarding post modern ideals with a seemingly positive connotation.

What is “Progressivism?” “Progressivism”, practically speaking, is one part Hegelian and one part chronic novelty infatuation.  Calling a new policy, idea, or revolutionary technology “progressive”, automatically grants that newer is always better, by the simple nature of it being new.  Once upon a time, abortion and “women’s liberation” weren’t mainstream. In fact the subjects were taboo, but by the 1960’s, new social norms (with the help of the birth control pill) thrust the movements into the media spotlight and into the agendas of politicians, educators, and social engineers alike.  And because point B, in time, is a chronological “progression” from point A, we can cleverly call these items part of a “progressive” agenda.  Overtime, people became accustomed to speak that way, and the meaning unconsciously has rang into the ear of subsequent generations; agendas that are newer are therefore better.  So clever. 

But this phenomenon didn’t actually start in the 1960’s.  The roots of Progressivism are very Hegelian.  How did the civilized world go from granting the existence of God (in some form), largely from culture to culture, starting (at least) 3,000 years before Christ, to succumbing to mainstream Atheism in the 19th century? 

Up unitl the Scholastic era, the epistemological mantra that guided thinkers to determine what is true was fairly simple: Verum est ens.  Which translates to “truth is being.”  The meaning was that truth was found in that which exists.  Afterall, that which exists has to exist under a particular substance and be with certain essential qualities that differentiate it as part of a species, and even further as an individual within that species.  Whatever exists must have an essence.  To know what is true, one uses his sense powers to discover features such as the sights, sounds, and feels of an existing thing, in order to comprehend it and make conclusions about its essence (what it is). 

Thinkers argued as to what distinguished one species from it’s broader genus and from other species under that genus.  It was granted that there were essential qualities about specific animals, plants, and even moral truths that we could be absolutely sure of.  People generally recognized qualities of man’s nature (given to him by God) that were intrinsic, universal, and practically immutable.  Thinkers knew they could study the nature of a thing and thus determine what it is (speculative knowledge), and then use that understanding to determine how it should be handled, treated, or exercised to it’s fulfillment (practical knowledge). This model drove Natural Law theory and helped men determine universal moral norms that served towards advancing the common good.  A beautiful and simple epistemology that served man quite well.

It would be a gross oversimplification to simply say, “Then the 19th century happened”, but the 19th century indeed saw many philosophers radically challenge the epistemological model of Verum est ens.  Enter Hegel.  Hegel theorized that it is not fair to ever simply say that something definitively is a certain way.  That we couldn’t be confident that any one animal has an intrinsic and absolute nature, for example.  He argued that when we attempt to define things, we have to consider that things are constantly influenced by things they interact with.  For example, we can’t attribute an absolute nature to a pine tree because there are constant activities going on within the cells of that tree at all times. There are many other phenomena that we have to consider too.

Not only does the tree constantly change, but many factors outside of itself can affect it. Factors that determine how green it’s needles will appear, how much water it can soak out of the ground, what sorts of animals may be housing in it, etc… Moreover, the tree is responsible for phenomena that affects the rest of the world, such as giving oxygen, which is then breathed in by animals who are being affected by the tree.  Further, a lumberjack could interact with this tree and turn it into something like a home fixture that people use to celebrate Christmas, (rendering it more of a Holiday decoration in essence than a tree per se) or into lumber used to make houses or ships.

Oh dear, opined Hegel and many of his contemporaries, it appears that the pine tree, man, the sun, the moon, and the whole the universe have no absolute respective essences.  In other words, it is impossible to ever say that “truth is being”, because everything is always in flux and changing.  Being is solid and relatively immutable.  Instead, we ought to say that everything within the universe is becoming.  There is no true definitive essence of anything, only phenomena of events, changes, physical actions and reactions from one thing to another that influence how all of these things are constantly changing and becoming something else.

For the impressionable masses, it didn’t help that Darwin was a near contemporary of Hegel.  Hegelianism and Darwinism were a recipe for a new habitus whereby fanboys were pumped out of Academia ready to question the essence of anything and grant the mutability of everything.  This was very dangerous to the concept of Verum est ens.

In the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas argued that what literally makes a thing good, firstly, is that it has being.  For those of us who grant the existence of God, it’s simple to see why: whatever has been granted essence and existence has been willed as such by an infinitely wise creator.  If He is infinitely good, then he cannot design masterfully intricate creations (all out of nothing) and be failing in some way.  Everything He makes is good, mainly because it was made by Him and everything that exists proves that existence is worth preserving.  If you doubt such, watch what a cat does in a swimming pool.  It will not go down without a fight!

But if there is no true “being”, but instead only “becoming” then becoming is now the foundation for what is good.  Therefore, the perceived macro-evolution of any species is always an improvement, human societal changes (however radical) are intrinsically good merely because they are changes, and shifts towards mass urbanization, the reimagining of cities and government structures, and, of course, technological advances are all good because they are becoming something new.  Summum Bonum because they are the new thing.

And if you fail to agree, it couldn’t be because you insist that each new development in societal norms, medicine, music, the arts, etc… ought to each be weighed upon their own merits or that you believe it prudent to cautiously judge all of these respective changes on their powers to authentically serve the common good.  It must, instead, be because you are a backward thinker (medieval minded) who wants to keep us all stuck in the dark ages!  You must be a mere fusty, antiquated, and hapless relic, who is probably just too ignorant or stupid to appreciate how great the new, fashionable, and more advanced things are.  If you don’t own a smart phone, you must be too stupid to know how to use one, an indifferent old geezer, or worst of all, you are the most detestable fool imaginable… a "Luddite" through and through!!

to be continued...