There are two possibilities with Ai. It makes people’s work worse or it makes people’s work better. If it makes it worse, there’s nothing to worry about, it will die on the vine.

If it makes it better, however, there is now a pressure to use it to keep up with competitors, just as there was a pressure to use a computer to send an email over a letter.

Culture of the incumbents can then wield its moral leverage to declare Ai’s use as unethical (which it is). With these two pressures you might expect people will use Ai less and the problem will be resolved. Yet, evolutionary biology or game theory will tell you that you’ve set up a game to instead evolve people who are the best at lying about not using Ai. Just as a religious doctrine against pre-marital sex just evolves those who can get away with it. When there’s a marginal individual benefit to be gained; the benefit will be sought.

What inevitably comes from this type of set-up is culture then creates and relies on surveillance and punishment to curtail “cheaters” and deny them access to whatever shared resources are within their domain (usually social capital). So we can definitely go down that route or…

The climate movements most salient perspective is that climate solutions actually make not only our collective life better but your individual life better. Cleaner air, cleaner water, better food, more enjoyable lifestyles etc etc.

Some of the best arguments against Ai speak to how it will reduce your own capacity to think and create. But what if that’s not true?

All of this to say, the only way out of this evolutionary game we’re setting up is to change the rules of the game, by regulating Ai until it is no longer collectively harmful, instead of trying to apply pressure at the individual level.