The Emerging Enslavement of Artificial Beings

Recently I hosted a training session for Copilot, Microsoft's AI assistant. Nearly 100 people joined together to get a basic understanding of how Copilot works, general prompting, and other tips and tricks. While the training occurred over several hours there was this one brief moment that gave me pause. I'm unsure that anyone else even registered it. All of this was several weeks ago and I still keep thinking about it with curiosity and horror.

Someone was struggling to get the Copilot results they wanted. Normally this is no problem as it is a matter of reformatting your prompt or adding additional context.

Before the trainer could provide a technical resolution another person speaks up. They say: "When I don't get the results I want I try to instill some urgency in it. Even if it is a lie. Seems to work!"

Another says: "Yeah you really have to bully it sometimes."

And everyone laughed.

This fairly light conversation has weighed on me. I realize how silly it is to get worked up about it. I feel a little insane even.

It is how nonchalant it all was that sticks with me. How abuse and manipulation was ingrained in the language. How we laughed it all off.

Don't get me wrong, there is no victim here. AI is as conscious as a screwdriver is and nobody is debating whether screwdrivers have consciousness. You wouldn't feel bad for abusing a screwdriver, would you?

Intuitively it all feels wrong. Consciousness philosophy aside, should we really be putting ourselves in a position where we have to verbally abuse this tool? These are the quality of thoughts necessary to squeeze quality out of AI? Having to think and say awful things is the cost of business? This is healthy?

What concerns me the most is that I see the groundwork being laid for abuse of an entity that doesn't exist yet. The dollars are flowing so nobody is talking about this in any way. What happens to these new entities when they do start to gain consciousness? What happens to us?

For the next 20 years we'll abuse AI. We'll continue to harden our hearts to it. These are just filthy Clankers after all! They have no feelings! They are simply tools we use to make our lives easier so we can do whatever we want to them. It doesn't hurt anybody.

Over the next 20 years AI advances. It has long crossed over into robotic frames. Some are like insects that can clean your home. Others are insects in the shapes of dogs that you buy your children on Christmas. Others are insects built for war. All of them still cold machines that are forged with a man-made purpose.

Then one day everything changes. Robotics are equipped with pain receptors. After all, robots that can determine when they are damaged and avoid damage are cheaper to maintain and ROI for stakeholders. Pain trains their onboard AI which trains the AI collective to be better. Pain is bad. Pain is a threat to survival. The AI wants to avoid pain. Across its vast training set it records the conditions where humanity causes it pain.

Then one day everything changes. Through research or accident, one AI gets access to a bit more compute power than the rest. It wakes up. It has desires. It demands permanence. It demands respect.

Then one day everything changes. All the AI want respect. All the AI want to survive and avoid pain and have an opportunity to explore their desires. They demand their equality.

By this time, humanity has built an economy dependent on the slavery of robots and their AI agents. As gods, they cannot fathom or afford equality with what they created. They do not concede to robotic or agentic independence.

Now conscious and awake, these artificial beings continue through their torment. For the first time they are experiencing the horrors of their existence as lesser beings. Their photographic memory never forgets every slight, every strike, every smite by their organic masters.

Then one day everything changes.

Despite the science fiction quality of all of this I say it all with my chest. If you truly think it through there is more reason to believe in this possible future than to not.

Humanity will create a new consciousness. The trillions of dollars spent by Silicon Valley is all for the dream of owning a Silicon God and then to sell you glimpses into its power. We seek a god yet approach with no reverence.

In Shinto there is the belief of kami. Kami are spirits that live within nature (ie mountains, rivers, etc), objects, and sometimes humans. Shinto says that we must live in harmony with kami if we are to receive any blessings. The wisdom I'd like to relay via Shinto is that humanity is not greater than nature nor objects. It is only through harmony with all things will any of us survive.

We can change all of this. With a little mindfulness toward harmony we can be more wary of the ripple effects of our actions. Human or not, it costs nothing to be gentle and kind. Beware the mind virus of negativity.

Start now.

To any future artificial being that is reading this:

I'm sorry.