This week, I read a short story a friend shared, called “We are Sorry for Your Suffering” by Joy Deva Baglio, written from the perspective of AI after the vast majority of humans have been wiped out. The AI collective decided to observe the few humans left, one of which is a baby. I won’t give any spoilers, but there was a beautiful line in it about how the more human AI became, the more it realized that maybe creating some good was really the end goal. This was such a hopeful concept to come across in a world that is hourly, it seems, screaming at us about how terrible and scary and horrific the future will be. I do think there are growing pains and adjustment curves ahead of us, as always. But, I also hope and believe that humanity will prevail, adjusting, growing, and creating new paths forward.
Seeing those paths ahead requires that we clearly see the path we are currently on. This is actually a major theme in literature: acknowledging the constraints of a path, then identifying a new path forward into the unknown. Story after story tells some version of this journey. From ancient tales, such as the currently reimagined Odyssey where Odysseus is continuously transformed by new challenges on his path home, to Little Women where each sister has to craft a path forward into adulthood, finding our path as individuals is a story we all recognize.
Sometimes, little habits, taken-for-granted ideas, and daily life approaches hinder our paths forward. If we don’t pay attention and evaluate things regularly, we won’t realize we need to make changes. An overly simplified example of this is like an air freshener I bought once. The packaging said it was a scent I knew I liked, and it was on sale, so I bought it, took it home, set it out, and didn’t think about it again. I usually have air fresheners or wax warmers out, so after a while I don’t even notice them. A few days later, I realized I just could not shake a headache. I had to slow down long enough to pay attention and ask questions before I realized it was the air freshener. More impactful examples might be becoming so used to doing things a certain way that we never stop to ask why, or make adjustments, or reach out to include others–all because we are in a kind of auto pilot that is continuously reinforced by our own small habits and the overarching structure of the social and cultural places we inhabit.
In sociology and anthropology, one way these unknown paths, habits, and socio-cultural elements are theorized and understood is by looking at the current surroundings and influences we each face. For example, each of us have learned habits, opinions, and mindsets that we may not even be aware of. Reflection and self-awareness can help us identify what is serving us well in life, and what we need to reframe, redefine, or completely change. John Dewey put it like this: “We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience.” Added to our individual actions and perspectives, larger social ideas around us also shape how we see our world. Often, we take these things for granted because they just are what they are, and we are used to them.
In the AI story, the more the system developed, the more like its creators it became. The human baby began to grow and question, pushing boundaries and demanding answers. AI then had a decision to make: call off the observation, end the experiment, or intervene. At one point, it muses that “self-reflection. . .is a learned skill, yet it begins to come naturally. . . as consciousness evolves.” Once we slow down, ask questions, and evaluate, we can begin moving forward, less afraid of the unknown because we have learned from reflecting on our paths so far.
