Rethinking Human Meaning In the AI Era
How can the concept of "emptiness" inform the future of AI interaction?
As humans begin to interact with increasingly advanced AI, we will be confronted with complex and difficult questions. What does it mean to be “human” in a world where human inventions begin to think for themselves? What meaning might an AI have? Attempting to answer these questions now - before such an AI exists - can help us prepare for a likely inevitable future.
Content disclaimer: This post discusses aspects of Buddhism and how they might relate in an AI world. As I am not a practicing Buddhist, my descriptions here may be unintentionally incorrect. I have done my best to stay respectful to the teachings and beliefs discussed below.
For our discussion of human meaning, we are going to look at one human in particular - Maria. Maria is 32 years old and lives in Denver. She is a senior software engineer working on data analytics for an air logistics company. In particular, she has enjoyed building automation for real-time data visualization.
She and her partner have a small apartment that they share with their dog. They live a relatively simple lifestyle, choosing to spend most of their non-working time with in the company of their close friends and their dog in the Rocky Mountains - especially hiking and mountain biking. She enjoys vegan food, but wouldn’t describe herself as strict vegan. During the cold months, she enjoys videos games, reading mystery novels, and watching stand-up comedy.
Maria’s specific story is unique, and we can start to look at what are the things are that make her uniquely her. We can see her relationships - both human and canine. We can see her joy for the outdoors and a healthy lifestyle. And we can see that she enjoys her career.
However, it gets really tough to nail down what is definitional about her, verses situational. What if she lived in Florida, worked as a financial analyst, and had a cat instead of a dog? Would she she be truly the same person?
The Buddhist idea of emptiness (Sunyata) - offers a potential answer to this question. The basic version of the teaching is that no person or thing has inherent meaning or identity; they are empty of static meaning on their own. Rather, the teaching of emptiness says that meaning comes from the dynamic existence and interaction with other people and things - an idea called known as dependent origination (Pratityasamutpada).
Consider the part of Maria’s self-definition of being a hiker. In an overly simplified way, she is a hiker because she hikes. So, Maria being a hiker requires a dynamic interaction between her, her hiking gear, and the trail she chooses to hike. She gives meaning to her gear by using it on the hike. And the trail becomes a hiking trail because a hiker is hiking upon it. Apart from this interaction network, the specific meanings described don’t actually exist.
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These concepts have been the foundation of Buddhist philosophy for millennia. However, in a world of rapidly evolving AI, they can help us answer the question of what it truly means to be human.
The concept of emptiness points us to the idea that this question cannot be answered precisely because there is no precise definition of human meaning. The static physical and biological nature of a human can be defined, but the meaning of that person cannot exist in a vacuum. As AI becomes more powerful, the idea of dependent origination would say that humans would begin to more and more be partly defined by their interaction with AI.
The Buddhist philosophy of impermanence is a concept that acknowledges the ever-changing nature of our existence. In a secular world, this same idea might be seen through the lens of creative destruction. Both concepts point to the idea that what is today will likely not be tomorrow. Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, has aptly referred to this evolving reality as the age of human augmentation, where the increasing influence of AI will redefine the essence of being human in temporal terms. The power of AI will continue to redefine the temporal meaning of being human, but it will not supplant the idea of human meaning altogether.
Digging deeper, we can start to see another question. If human meaning begins to be defined in relation to AI, the opposite can also be thought to be true. A hypothetical self-aware AI could said to have meaning through its intentional interaction with humans, other AI entities, and the world around it - both physical and virtual.
The way we define AI holds significant implications, particularly regarding its ethical implications and potential self-awareness. Currently, many approaches to evaluate AI's intelligence, such as the (deeply flawed) Turing Test, focus on how closely an AI can mimic human behavior. However, we may need to reconsider our definition of artificial life. Instead of solely measuring its level of self-awareness comparable to biological life, we could define AI based on its ability to transcend being a mere tool by generating conscious thoughts that foster meaningful interactions with other forms of life, be they biological or virtual.
The rapid development of AI raises complex questions about human identity. As AI evolves, the definition of humanity may become entwined with our interactions with AI entities. However, the essence of meaning that makes us human will be transformed, not supplanted. Preparing for an AI-augmented future can help us navigate this new era with understanding and clarity.
Author’s disclaimer - Maria and her story are all fabrications for purposes of this essay. Her photo was AI generated using This Person Does Not Exist. All other images created using DALL-E.
A big part of what makes us human has more or less always been our interactions with technology. We’ve already been through several tectonic shifts in our “humanness” driven by tech disruption. Anthropology often delineates eras based on the tools used and I think that most of us wouldn’t feel like cave people were as human as we are. Maybe similar but still a different category of human. I can’t help but wonder if future humans will simply be our creations who have become conscious and escaped these shells we live in but continue to carry on the essence of humanity and the thirst to understand and model the world around us.