Another year over, and what have we learned?
We have learned to rely on generative AI to give us answers.
So, ChatGPT; another year over, and what have we learned?
ChatGPT Result:
- Resilience in the Face of Challenges: words words words….
- The Value of Mental Health: words words words….
- Connection and Community: words words words….
- Environmental awareness: words words words….
- Flexibility in Work and Life: words words words….
- Gratitude and Appreciation: words words words….
- Technological Advancements and Ethics: words words words….
- The Power of Small Acts: words words words….
While ChatGPT’s self-help guide to 2024 does shed some light on online trends and tendencies, it fails to point out the underlying drivers that prevent the achievement of these eight results.
Here are the two results that are missing;
- THINKING IS OVERRATED: in 2024, we have learned not to bother with thinking. Now, we can finally delegate this brain function to the AI. We can finally outsource thinking to Silicon Valley and get on with our lives. From now on, same as with digesting, our thinking will operate outside our conscious awareness. We live in societies where the entertainment-dominated on-line world promotes fun as the sole social purpose and the only meaningful brain activity. No, it’s not. At least not those of us who still consider it fun to use our brains. If, while seeking answers, instead of thinking, the entire humankind types their question into the browser we will all get the same answer. This opposite of collective wisdom and it leads to a very dark place. One that is much closer to tyranny than to democracy. And this brings out the second result that is missing in ChatGPT’s list.
- DEMOCRACY IS TAKEN FOR GRANTED: More than 60 countries around the world held elections in 2024. The overall result was that people who have been voting are leaning towards more populist, centralist, and authoritarian societies. In other words, the ideal of freedom that is (was) at the democracy’s pinnacle is no longer attractive to the voters—at least not more than the purchasing power, xenophobia, or national identity. (The fact that nearly 40% of the world population lives under authoritarian regimes and less than 8% of humanity lives in full democracies perhaps explains why, within all of the 169 SDG targets, there is not a single mention of democracy.)
With the current grade of inequalities in wealth distribution, AI is turning into THE leverage for accumulating even more wealth and power into the hands of increasingly few.
While Artificial Intelligence’s commercial utility only tends to enhance Natural Stupidity, the dependencies that are getting established put us at risk of losing some of the capabilities that make us human. At the same time, we are also giving away a lot of our ability to preserve and expand freedoms. We are getting further away from finding answers to the question Amartya Sen once posed; «Should we not be concerned with preserving – and when possible expanding – the substantive freedoms of people today ‘without compromising the ability of future generations’ to have similar, or more, freedoms?”
So, if generative AI is the answer, does anyone remember what was the question?
If the question is only about increasing AI’s utility, we are going the wrong way. Without a deeper sense of purpose to increasing our capabilities and expanding freedoms, we are risking the future of future generations and their ability to govern their societies in freedom and prosperity. Without a more teleological and libertarian justice behind the AI’s use and development, the power accumulated among very few will leave our freedoms at the mercy of a few incredibly powerful people. And unfortunately, we don’t have historic precedence where such conditions led to more collective well-being and happiness.
Only by increasing Collective Wisdom we can generate contexts of mutual learning that stimulate personal growth. The generative AI has the potential to build such contexts but it is up to us to inspire and drive the purpose for doing so.
So; my New Year’s Proposition is to have more Collective Wisdom and Take Care of Each Other.
And, looking back to 2024, I WISH US ALL A PURPOSE (NOT EVENTS) DRIVEN 2025!
Events are divisive, and fixating on them distracts us from seeing the longer-term patterns of change behind them. It distracts us from understanding the causes of those patterns. It distracts us from EXPANDING US.
I am not being naïve. I am very much aware of the huge differences between “us” and “them”. But as I wrote earlier this year, I keep the active hope that there will still be some common sense on opposing sides so that we can at least get a chance to disagree better. As long as such space exists, there is a chance for finding common ground—some space that brings everyone together because it awakens the deeply rooted shared human needs; the sense of belonging.
To expand us and be able to disagree better, we need some sort of a global shared kitchen where people naturally come together. We need a space where different tastes, preferences, and traditions blend into a melting pot of the human condition to awaken a sense of belonging to our only home: PLANET EARTH. We need that space because, like in gastronomy, the more local the tradition, the more global it becomes.
Instead of the events-driven, let’s have a purpose-driven 2025!
Boris Matijas 