AI is our attempt to create a god that already exists
I remember the exact moment I fell in love with my boyfriend, Josh. It was December 2019, and we were on our fifth date in the four months we’d known each other. That’s how we rolled back then, and that Thursday evening we were seeing each other for the first time in almost two months.
We were sitting on the patio of a nice-ish restaurant in Glendale that has since closed and been replaced by another. We’d just ordered dinner, and it was going to be our first semi-fancy meal together. However, we were running late, and trivia night was about to start at the bar across the street. Trivia night was the main event of our evening, and we didn’t want to miss out on the first round.
Since we hadn’t been able to get through by phone to learn more details, Josh volunteered to walk over to the bar to check the schedule. I was impressed not only that he was thinking strategically, but also taking initiative. For me, this was a refreshing and most welcome experience on a date. I realize now this was probably the first time I experienced us operating like a team, even though we were just “casual” back then. It felt so grounding, collaborative and safe to be part of a team — with him.
Plan in place, Josh got up from his seat and came around the patio fence on his way to the street corner. As he passed, he looked at me affectionately and touched my shoulder over the fence. It was a small gesture that quietly communicated such warmth, reassurance and care that something shifted. As these comforting feelings washed over me, and I watched his gorgeous hair and perfect frame walk away, it hit me: I was in love with Josh.
Four months later, just after COVID hit, we started seeing each other every week, then twice a week or more. Not only did we have tons of fun — and great sex — we thoroughly enjoyed our rich conversations and each other’s quirky company. From the very first date, we demonstrated respect for each other despite our substantial differences. We cautiously bestowed, then courageously built trust — although it took me over a year to get there.
Together we’ve weathered a job loss (mine), a job demotion (his), big career and educational changes (both), national quarantine and civil unrest (everyone), the destruction of two cars (his), two medical procedures (mine), a road trip, and two big fights (unrelated to road trip). One year and one day after I fell in love with him, Josh and I made it “official”, and next week we’re going on a big vacation that involves tropical drinks on an island.
Josh is one of the best things to happen to me in many years. However, had I relied on “normal” dating algorithms, we would never have met. The boxes I checked in online dating apps would have eliminated him from my search results. The criteria I rattled off to friends and colleagues would have removed him from consideration — even if those friends and colleagues had him in their network, which they didn’t.
Here’s why Josh would never have come into my life through apps or networks: He’s 19 years younger than me. He’s a smoker. He doesn’t hold a college degree. He doesn’t work in a professional field. His income is half-to one-third what I earn, depending on the year. He doesn’t go to the gym, he’s not spiritual, and he’s not particularly tidy.
But Josh does have a brain as big as mine and a heart to match. He’s well-read, dogged about learning, and self-reflective. He’s super physically affectionate. He keeps his word and shows up (mostly) on time. He’s LMAO hilarious, and extremely clever with language. He’s meticulous, insightful and passionate about good food and good art. He is honest to a fault and committed to creating a freer, more just world. He’s one of the most physically beautiful men I’ve ever seen. He asks some of the best questions I’ve ever heard. He notices things I miss.
And he adores me. Not once has Josh berated, minimized, insulted or dismissed me. Not once has he called our relationship into question or threatened to break up with me when he was upset. And only once has he done something he was uncomfortable with just to please me — and eventually he fessed up and renegotiated. With Josh, I’ve had the most honest, courageous, and productive problem-solving conversations I’ve ever had with a partner — and I’ve been having relationships with men for 37 years. Josh makes me a more generous, patient, kind, flexible woman, while I make him a more expansive, connected, confident man.
I may have eventually met a man like Josh online or through my personal network. But how long would that have taken? I’m 51, not 21. There’s not a lot of runway left to wait and hope. I might have gotten more of what I wanted from someone else, but probably not more of what I needed. I probably wouldn’t have gotten so much that I didn’t even realize I wanted and needed — even after all my years of self-help books and courses.
I never would have met Josh if I’d followed conventional methods and wisdom. We met on a Saturday morning after my gym workout at one of those instant oil change places. He caught my eye immediately, because if I’d placed an order for “my type”, Josh would have been served. He was the manager, and not only was he running the floor with the fluid-yet-commanding presence of an orchestra conductor, he quite literally got his sinewy arms dirty under my hood. Hubba hubba.
Then I saw his eyes. Then his slightly awkward, nerdy manner when he dropped a screw, then his radiant smile when I teased him about dropping it. I was smitten — but it was also summertime, I was rocking a newly slimmed-down figure, and I was going through one of my cougar phases. I told myself there was no way I could date someone in their twenties, even just for fun. Besides, I didn’t think hitting on him in front of his crew would go well.
But as I thanked the crew and pulled my Jeep out of the bay into the street, I heard a chorus of voices behind me, shouting “don’t let him go!” They didn’t shut up the entire way home, so when I got to my computer I googled him. My attempts to contact him through the internet and his company fell short, so I mailed a card to the shop. He called a week later, “intrigued by the boldness of my approach”, and our story began.
I don’t know who those shouting voices belonged to. They could be The Universe (AKA God), angels, guides, Higher Power, my prefrontal cortex, Fate, Intuition, or my own neuroses. I don’t know. I almost don’t care. I’m not religious, but I have learned — sometimes the hard way — to listen to those voices. Those voices, along with signs, synchronicities and sensations, never steer me wrong.
Those voices are available to all of us, and they’ve been there for millennia. But now, for the first time, there are other voices threatening to drown them out, and they’re of our own creation. Oracles like sci fi writer Philip K. Dick, historian Yuval Noah Harari, and the techies featured in The Social Dilemma have long warned us about the potentials and pitfalls of artificial intelligence. It’s no longer a fringe idea that AI has the potential to know us better than we do, and therefore curate our lives and make our decisions better than we ever could. But these new voices — these AIs — are perilously inferior to existing Intelligence in both capability and motives.
Aside from the alarming implications and ethical consequences of sacrificing our remaining humanity to machines, the pursuit of AI seems to me like a desperately arrogant waste of time. We’re like a preteen boy who announces proudly to his parent that he just invented a new way to throw stones using a Y-shaped stick and a leftover strip of rubber. The kind parent patiently begins to tell him not only about slingshots, but trebuchets and the gravity assist technique for spacecraft. But like the boy, we’ve abandoned the room and the opportunity for wisdom, too enamored with our supposed genius to listen.
Creating “AI” is a waste of time because an “I” that knows us better than we know ourselves, and curates our lives accordingly, already exists. And it’s far superior to anything we could ever create. It communicates through signs, synchronicities and sensations. It speaks in nudges and visions, the “still, small voice” inside, and anything that makes us feel joyful and alive. It’s the Intelligence that brought me and Josh together.
This Intelligence exists beyond our technological abilities. My favorite definition of technology is “an extension of the human body.” That’s all any technology really is, from a stick that serves as a stronger finger or longer arm, to a computer that serves as a human brain, exponentially multiplied. As such, any technology that humans create has human folly and limitations baked in. This is why AI is either doomed, or the seed of our own demise. Truly, as E.O Wilson quipped, “the real problem of humanity is that we have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and god-like technology.” We are like the boy toying with his rudimentary slingshot that’s been suddenly replaced by an anti-matter cannon he has neither the knowledge nor maturity to wield.
Speaking of god-like things, I repeat, I’m not religious. I’m not a Christian. I’m not sure where those reliable signs, synchronicities, sensations, visions and intuitions come from. But I believe they’ve been around longer than we have.
I’m much more comfortable trusting an algorithm that’s baked into the very fiber of this planet. That’s connected to an Intelligence far older and far greater than the sum of humanity, or perhaps even our solar system. It excites and humbles me in the same way that standing on a mountain peak, looking down on my puny city, provides a measure of comfort and perspective.
I am not religious. But I think I know the difference between us and “god.”
So let’s grow up a little and stop trying to be god. Let’s stop destroying paradise to create our own inferior version. Let’s focus on finding our unique role in the grand unfolding of things — individually and collectively. Let’s “understand our proper place in the Mysterious weaving of Life.” Doing so may make us even more gloriously human — more purposeful, connected, awe-struck, and content.
Let’s leave the godlike to the gods, and cease creating idols that herald our own destruction.
