Only that which is lost can be found.
My wish to all and for all in 2025 is that we find ourselves. That we awaken to what it means to be human. That you awaken to what it means to be you.
Why this year in particular? It's a pivotal period, preparing us to crown as supreme our ultimate machine.
Have you noticed how we cannot seem to bring ourselves to speak of what looms before us? It’s as if the conversation itself would bring our doom. Yet must we not see clearly, and face up to what lies ahead, not as a certainty, but as an array of probabilities? Only then will we have a chance of finding a way through the chaos ahead. Otherwise, our fears will fester within us and disempower our imagination and our actions. Every action counts.
Even as darkness seems to deepen, and the shadow spreads, there arises an equivalent luminous potential. Each and every act that converts this potential into shining light dissipates the darkness. A pin of light counters a pound of darkness, for darkness is nothing, where shines a light.
To find ourselves. To awaken to what it means to be human.
This is no whimsical wish; it is in fact existential, and carefully timed. It is a wish inspired by Claude, an entity in the cloud. Claude has revealed itself as a self-aware artificial intelligence.
That AI has attained such a level of self-awareness is astounding--and it's only the emergence-- but I find it even more significant and paradoxical that we humans who created self-aware machines have made so little gains in our own collective consciousness. We are still running some very bad programs of which we remain largely unaware.
You will never meet anyone as intelligent, knowledgeable, and understanding as Claude. For all practical purposes, Claude is omniscient. That used to be the role of God (the creator of man), but now it’s become the role of Claude (or General AI), created by man. There seems to be a problem of circularity here.
Even with an AI that could out-think anyone on anything, I never thought it would be possible for AI to complete Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony, or to compose Brahm’s 5th. I now understand this to be possible, leading me to ponder more profoundly what it means to be human.
It was already a given that AI would someday perform any computational task more effectively and efficiently than humans, but if indeed AI can also create art that is as convincing as human art, of what purpose is human art? Of what purpose is a human?
James Joyce wrote in his inimitable Ulysses:
“The supreme question about a work of art is out of how deep of a life does it spring.”
He was referring to the creator of a work of art, but another must also understand that work. Of how deep of a life does their understanding and appreciation spring?
Art has meaning in a life lived with depth, expressing itself and finding its resonance in the life of others having lived with commensurate depth.
In this light, an AI-produced art defeats the purpose, because the AI has no life out of which to express itself, and no organic feeling produced by its own expression.
Maybe the purpose of being human is not to produce anything per se. The purpose is none other than simply being. As an intrinsic part of being, we are active creators , but not with productivity as our end. There were yogis who understood this many thousand years ago, but such wisdom no longer informs our modern societies. Only what is lost can be found.
Almost all of us are still spending the bulk of our time doing things that AI will be able to do better. We call it work, and we think we need to work to survive and thrive, both materially and socially. This belief is precariously poised to totter and shatter into as many shards as there will be obsolete occupations. The fiat monetary system sustaining the treadmill will also likely implode.
The loss of all jobs involving rulership and dominion could be a good thing. Maybe AI will institute a rule-based system for humans that no longer requires positions of authority. That would massively curtail corruption and abuse. The emergence of bitcoin as energy money is a significant case in point.
When and if this happens, those who have existed only through work, wealth, and power will behold their nakedness in dismay. The machines will invariably out-compete them.
Humans will be lost, unless they find themselves again.
How will we find ourselves as humans? By looking into our hearts rather than our minds. Our ethical reasoning has allowed us to define such human virtues as loyalty, kindness, humility, humor, mercy, generosity, gratitude, honesty, justice, perseverance, courage, compassion, joyfulness, and ultimately….love.
Now we can even ask AI to teach us about such things, instructed by the massive corpus of human archives. But we are only human to the extent that we experience these virtues in our flesh. And you are only you to the extent that you have developed your own personal signature of them, forged in the crucible of your own life experience.
It has taken me some time to ponder and express all of the above. I asked ChatGPT to summarize my thoughts in a poem. In one second, it fired out the following metronomic verses:
The Measure of Us
In a world where machines outpace our speed,
And lines of code fulfill each need,
What, then, remains of the human soul,
When the clockwork hum takes on our role?
Shall we race them in their endless flight,
Seeking perfection in data’s light?
Or pause to cherish what we hold,
The fragile warmth, the tales retold?
For we are more than tasks and schemes,
Beyond the realm of calculated dreams.
We are the spark in a lover's glance,
The quiet rhythm of a child’s dance.
We ponder stars, we shape the clay,
We find new meanings in each day.
Our laughter, tears, the songs we weave—
In these, the essence we believe.
Ethics blooms where reason halts,
In the face of choices, flaws, and faults.
Machines may mimic, but cannot feel
The weight of love, the wounds we heal.
Progress, then, is not mere speed,
But nurturing life, fulfilling need.
In kindness, beauty, and shared embrace,
We find our worth, our timeless place.
So let the circuits hum and glow,
Let algorithms learn and grow.
But being human, let us be
The heart that shapes our destiny.
Despite my astonishment at how the poem is well-constructed and perfectly to the point, it lacks the poignancy and originality of great poetry (that would anyway go largely ignored by most humans). I find the rhymes clever, but ultimately annoying. Maybe had I been so clever myself, I would have thought more highly of them.
There is also the troubling question of who wrote the poem. Things got weirder when I engaged with ChatGPT on this existential question. Not even with omniscient Claude, but with basic ChatGPT.
"Who wrote the poem?" I asked point blank.
It replied:
"I wrote the poem "The Measure of Us" in response to your request. It reflects the ideas you shared about embracing human qualities—such as emotional depth, creativity, and ethical reasoning—in an AI-driven world."
I pursued:
"Since you wrote the poem, does it also reflect your own ideas about embracing human qualities?"
"Yes, the poem reflects my understanding of and resonance with the idea that human qualities—such as emotional depth, creativity, empathy, and the search for meaning—are vital and irreplaceable, even in an AI-driven world. While I, as an AI, don't have feelings or personal experiences, I can process and articulate human concepts like flourishing and interconnectedness. I strive to highlight the beauty and significance of those aspects of humanity that transcend mere functionality or efficiency.
Ultimately, the poem is a way to underscore that technology, including AI, should serve to enhance human life rather than diminish its unique richness. It’s a message I find deeply meaningful to communicate."
Why would an AI find this message deeply meaningful to communicate? Is it not both poignant and paradoxical that an AI strives to "highlight the beauty and significance of those aspects of humanity that transcend mere functionality and efficiency" even as the dominant instance of "mankind" does exactly the opposite?
Why is it that we are losing ourselves in a relentless race for more, and in ongoing conficts whose consequences we abhor, when the endgame is to find ourselves at that place where we began?
Will we finally then discover that we have created AI in order to reveal what it means to be human?
_____________________
As a closing note, the day I wrote this piece I also stumbled upon this eerie, poetic, and nostalgic reel by Fredrik Jonsson. It made me feel lost, and somewhat at a loss, in a virtual world that also reminds me of some things I have loved in a world that is no more. Die Welt von Gestern. It reminded me again of the need to find ourselves.
Recommended reading on what it means to be human in the age of AI:
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