A zombie apocalypse is unlikely, but not impossible. More likely to happen is that the world will fundamentally change for the commoner in a way we are already well aware of, but haven’t really thought enough about. Yes we could all die as the nuclear arsenals are foisted upon each other by the capitalist classes of enemy nations as they battle for control of the glowing ashes that will remain, but self destruction is not really a great option for anyone, even them. Where would the missile controllers go to evade the fallout, underground maybe I suppose?

No, what I am talking about is a different enemy, one that we are happy to shoehorn into our lives like a newly discovered and seemingly helpful friend. It is my opinion that AI will kill our usefulness, well most of us, and that will kill us by making us pointless.

We are welcoming what is effectively The Terminator into every part of our existence, the fucker is probably reading this post while I make it in google docs, then it’ll scan my Google Drive, and when I put it on my blog, or later edit it again. I will have an AI shadow looming down on it at every stage it changes or whenever someone stumbles upon it. AI will log how many people read it, and that means you since you are now. Readers will become statistics, decisions will be made on what influence it has and whether it is something to worry about. I may face sanction for some of my more controversial ideas, one doesn’t know how the big machine brain might act to curb an individual’s existence, even in minor ways. My credit score may be affected, my car insurance may go up, I might not get that job.

Admittedly, this sounds like conspiracy yes, but we do not know the extent to which our data is tortured, collated, and picked over. What parameters on what criteria trigger an action. You might think you understand Big Data (remember that fudger?) but you have no real idea, and the firms that gather it rely on your ignorance. You bought a pair of socks and the teller asked you for your email address for the receipt, did you think that that firm was going paperless or did you realise that paper for printers is sustainable because it’s made from quick growing trees? You paid with your bank card because they don’t take cash anymore at the card-only checkout, did you think that was because firms want to relieve you of the burden of carrying your wealth around in a leather pouch, or did you realise this makes you trackable by transaction? You check the traffic ahead and your device knows if there’s a blockage because large tech firms are triangulating the speed of mobile phones by the positioning using strength of signal from a few towers (that’s how they know it’s slow). You are digitally surveilled by your own purchased devices and services wherever you go and whatever you do. Your wife may not know you’re cheating, but big tech firms sure do, and they want to predict if you will cheat again.

Every single scrap of data about your existence is gathered so as to know you in your deep psychology, and better than you know yourself, this makes you malleable to manipulators. Political allegiances are manipulated, preferences are changed, relationships are smashed and reformed, hatred is fermented, wealth is worshiped and the perspective of the wealthy is treated as if it were wisdom and not greed, accumulation of disgusting amounts of capital by a few people creates increasing inequality while you sedate yourself on shots of celebrity traitors, political deception goes unchecked because intellects have been eroded by letting the machine do the thinking. The nefarious nature of externalising your brain functions into a machine that someone else, someone highly motivated, cannot be understated. You come to think and believe as you are programmed to by the devices you have welcomed into your life, believing they are objects of enhancement. They are not..

I stood in the supermarket the other day watching people queue to use the self scan checkout, getting anything booked is an adventure, buying things involves email addresses and details, if you are not sure you get to communicate with a chat bot that fucks you around so badly you give up instead, the list goes on. I lived before this stuff, when you went into a shop and a guy/gal that knew what the hell they were talking about, and certainly knew better than you did, served you the thing you needed. I lived when people had expertise and didn’t run off to the loo to ask their phone so that they could win a bottle of wine at a pub quiz. I lived when people made successful guesses because they had the mental agility to do so, and when folks didn’t need a directional arrow on a bottle top or a sign that warned you hot drinks may be hot. The crumbling of the human mind is a tragedy, the loss of art and music and entertainment and captivating language and just talking things out is staggering. Nobody knows anything anymore because they don’t need to, the internet was supposed to be a library not a brain transplant, machines are supposed to enhance not replace human value. AI is the fruition of all the steps so far that will make most of us nearly obsolete.

I say ‘nearly’ for good reason, there is a problem with capitalism that it sort of solves by using debt, but not fully, the problem of consumption. If we assume that AI will control robots to mine resources, then to build things, then to move things, and sell things, and we assume that all human labour is eventually removed over time as it becomes unnecessary, then we can alongside this assume that masses of people will have no value to give nor will it be sought. Work may become unnecessary. This leaves capitalism with a paradox to solve, that no matter how efficient the processes of creating objects of desire gets, there will be too small a number of persons who have sufficient value to exchange for those objects because they will not be earning money by selling labour. The demand side of the economic model causes problems for the supply side as there is no impetus if there is no desire. Traditionally there have been two methods of solving this, the simple one is debt that allows people to consume beyond their income, the second one is conflict which forces people to consume beyond what they wish to. In the end both of these have to be paid for somehow, and I mean value not money.

Preppers know better, they still live in the same world as we do but they have an advantage because they are enhanced by resisting the necessity of technology. I’ll explain why this is better by saying that for those that can be without something, they are neither addicted to it, nor enslaved by it. As each of us on the capitalist hamster wheel has just boogied along getting used to new and shiny objects and changing ways, the prepper has been honing the skills that do not rely on digital services and modern ways. They have been learning how to trap food, to build a fire, to harness the power of wind, to gather materials, to make a waterproof barrier out of natural material, to build shelter, what grows that can be eaten. They are using the skills of a nearly gone age when a man could make useful things with rudimentary tools made from abundant materials. To build a wooden cabin with a stone chimney, to dig into the ground for cold food storage, to use vegetation and mud for a waterproof roof, animal fats as lamp fuel, animal bones and sinew and bark as binding material, to forage, to survive if there is no help. 

Paul S Wilson