“In cooperation”: why Isaac Asimov thought AI would save humanity
Innovations in science and technology should, in theory, relieve humanity of the burden of labour. While successfully pulling the Western mode of production away from the toil of feudalism, the advent of the Industrial Revolution introduced a new form of proletariat oppression at the heart of its uneven economic growth and social upheaval. In the new age of factory, water, and steam-powered mass manufacturing, the machines that saved Man’s muscle made no impact on the abysmal working conditions and devastating poverty that blighted the expanded urban working classes.
History has shown that technology’s rapacious evolution doesn’t necessarily usher in a sunlit upland of leisure and luxury so long as there’s a capital class lobbying like hell from above to thwart any idea of distributing the wealth the advanced mechanising processes generate in abundance. Passing from the industrial to the digital age across the 20th and 21st centuries, the rise of artificial intelligence has prompted similar anxieties as to how the fruits of automated labour will be distributed, as well as its threat to livelihoods and the broader economic arrangement on an unprecedented scale.
For many, AI is viewed inexorably as a force for good, and acclaimed science fiction writer Isaac Asimov was one of them. Famed for his Robot series as well as hundreds of essays and works in mathematics, physics, and literary criticism, Asimov spent his professional and creative life invested in anticipating the hurdles that arise with technology’s continued development, fueled by a fundamentally hopeful vision of how machinery can complement humanity for the better. In one of his last prominent interviews for 1992’s Isaac Asimov’s Visions of the Future, Asimov expressed deep enthusiasm for the computer’s future role in society.
Writing, “Every industry, the government itself, tax-collecting agencies, aeroplanes: everything depends on computers. We have personal computers in the home, and they are constantly getting better, cheaper, more versatile, capable of doing more things, so that we can look into the future, when, for the first time, humanity in general will be freed from all kinds of work that’s really an insult to the human brain… requires no great thought, no great creativity. Leave all that to the computer, and we can leave to ourselves those things that computers can’t do.”
There’s a utopian component to his appraisal of computers saving Man’s thinking just as Victorian machinery saved the muscle, but he never thought AI would totally supplant humanity’s executive functions: “…you have a machine that can alphabetise cards very rapidly. Until recently, only human beings could alphabetise cards. In that case, you’ve got an example of artificial intelligence, but this does not necessarily mean that’s something that is artificially intelligent thinks ‘precisely as a human being does’, it may be a completely different kind of intelligence, the machines may specialise…”
He added: “You end up not having artificial intelligence and natural intelligence identical but two different things, two different specialisations, they work together, each supplies the lack of the other and in cooperation they can advance far more rapidly than either could by itself.”
Over 30 years after Asimov’s predictions, it’s difficult to remain as excited about AI technology’s role in life. With a grim inevitability, AI has struck the creative sectors with its image, music, and now even video-generating capabilities, casting doubt on AI’s anticipated heralding of a chapter where workers freed from the shackles of wage labour get to pursue whatever creative ventures make their souls sing. Far from “automated luxury communism” posited by some of the contemporary Left’s biggest names, a worrying dawn of technofeudalism may creep instead as Silicon Valley’s overlords push for a complete digital deregulation to deploy AI as a means to coerce, manipulate and monitor society as a workforce and consumer in novel and dystopian ways.
Asimov’s championing of the AI revolution could shine brighter were it to take place in a different socio-economic model, but like most drivers of technological change under capitalism, the search for profit will always be the priority. AI will only work to enrich the class that owns it and keep the populace controlled until major economic resettlement takes place, but AI could be controlled for the common good over corporate domination if there’s the will to do so. AI’s here to stay, and the path humanity takes in its aftermath demands an urgent plan of action deeper and more fundamental than simple regulation, a reality even the ever-optimistic Asimov hinted at.
Concluding, “Will there be difficulties? Undoubtedly. Will there be things that we won’t like? Undoubtedly. But we’ve got to think about it now, so as to be prepared for possible unpleasantness and try to guard against it before it’s too late.”
