AI Is an Existential Threat

The Only Winning Move Is Not to Play

Whether card, tabletop, console, or computer, all proper games have at least one win condition. Incidentally, sports being games, the same holds true for them as well. A game without a win condition is, in fact, no game at all. It does not particularly matter what the win condition is — points, the elimination of an enemy force, the completion of a set of objectives; it matters only that there is a win condition. No rational man would play a game with no win condition, for there would be no point^[1].

AI has no win condition. Let us, arguendo, set aside all of the potential horrors; instead, let us focus on the strongest case for the AI advocate: Let us presume that AI, automation, et cetera, create a utopia — no labor, no need, no want. What meaning would remain for the lives of men? Many would argue (and many have argued) for artistic or other pursuits or simply hedonism. Let us take each in turn.

You will never play an instrument as well as an AI. Why would you bother to try? You will never paint as well as an AI. Why would you bother to try? You will never write as well as an AI. Why would you bother to try? Some, undoubtedly, will argue that the same could be asserted with AI swapped out for the best human musicians, painters, and writers, and, to a degree, this approximates a sort of response, but it falls apart upon examination. No matter how large the human population may grow, there will always be a truly finite number of men who are exceptional at any given pursuit. You may not be capable of becoming the best pianist in the world, but you can, perhaps, become one of the best in your town, or maybe even your nation. Against AI, this possibility simply evaporates — any number of perfect player pianos or pianist robots can be created, and they will all be better than you. No one will ever listen to you play when a virtually infinite number of superior pianists are immediately available. Even if your mother may hang some of your paintings, no one else ever will. Even if you are exceptional and would still pursue such endeavors even knowing you can never hope to compete, most men are not exceptional — they simply will not bother to learn to do anything that a machine can do better, and AI can do everything better.

But what of pleasure? Surely a utopia would offer a world of potential pleasures. And yet cheap pleasure — that which neither comes with an attendant cost nor demands an investment — wears thin. Where there is no cost, there can be no loyalty. A world of pleasure without cost would necessarily be a world of pleasure without loyalty — a mêlée of all against all and all against none simultaneously. In the absence of any real cost, can pleasure even truly still be called pleasure? Would it not necessarily degenerate and devolve into some lesser form? Would such a pleasure long be able to hold the attention or even merely sate its own appetite? For a certain segment of the population, perhaps, but even for those it would undoubtedly decay from ecstasy to rote to revulsion to apathy, or into the depths of unspeakably depravity. Pleasure alone cannot sustain an existence worthy of the term.

Some will argue that there must be some middle ground — some via media —, a way to enjoy the benefits of AI, automation, et cetera, without falling into any of the pits — into the abyss. There is, perhaps unfortunately, no such path; the outcomes are inherent in the nature of the tool. If we deploy AI, as we seem very intent on doing, then these outcomes will inevitably and unavoidably follow. It may take twenty years or it may take two hundred — it hardly matters; the longer we walk this path, the greater the (irreversible) harm. There is no win condition when it comes to AI. The best possible outcome is still abhorrent and existentially threatening.

You would not play a board game with no win condition; you would not play a video game with no win condition; you would not play a sport with no win condition. AI has no win condition. The stakes are usually very low when playing a game, but you would still decline in the absence of a win condition. Why, then, would you ever support the development or deployment of AI?