The price of progress might be purpose.

The world of Artificial Intelligence is very exciting.

Not only is it racing along at breakneck speed, it appears that nobody really even knows where it’s going. Imagine the thrill of riding on a rollercoaster, with its exhilarating ups and downs, never really being sure when you’re allowed to get off, or if you’ll ever even get off at all.

Where is it all going? What are we aiming for? What would an ideal outcome be?

It seems that nobody knows the answer to these questions. But the worst part is, the majority of people don’t even seem to care that we don’t know. We don’t know where we’re going, and we really want to get there as fast as we possibly can.

Let’s just keep going and see what happens

The most frustrating part of this whole situation for me is that I’m watching seemingly intelligent people champion AI, trying to sell their AI expertise and promote various AI tools, without really paying respect to the potential (and inevitable) downsides.

I believe it was the novelist Upton Sinclair who said:

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

So I guess that explains what I’m seeing to some degree. To acknowledge the risks and downsides would be to slow down that nice flow of money that comes when selling the AI dream.

Another aspect which can cloud our thinking is that there is seemingly so much upside when it comes to AI. Improved productivity, quality and the ability to start solving some pressing societal problems. But when it comes to the downsides, the problems are less clear, and less immediate. We can have the benefits now, so let’s worry about the issues later and solve them then.

The rantings and ravings of an ignorant luddite

Now you might claim that I’m some sort of luddite, a bleeding heart technophobe that cares about people to the point that I can’t stand to see them automated out of jobs. I do care about people to some degree, but I’m also pragmatic – I don’t think we should keep everyone in a job when we have better options.

I started my career in IT as a software developer. I’ve written lots of code, and then I realised I had some people skills and started to deliver projects and programs, do some consulting and manage people. After 15 years of doing those things, I realised I liked the people side of work more, so I started focusing on leadership development work.

I even deliver “AI Fundamentals” training every now and then for some clients, so I make sure I keep up to date with the latest trends and stay relatively well informed about developments in the space. I use several popular AI tools to help me with some of my work that doesn’t involve much thinking.

This is to say that I have some idea of technology, and I’m not particularly scared of it and can pick up new tools fairly quickly. What I am scared of is what humans do when given access to such technology and push forward without much thought.

The risk of bad actors using AI: a significant concern

One of the challenges with releasing powerful technology to the public is that the general public includes people like you and me, as well as psychopaths who like to tear things down and make trouble.

Am I worried about that? Not as much as you might think. Yes, I believe that of course there are “bad actors” who will (and are) using AI to carry out nefarious deeds ranging from creating deepfake videos and scamming people by asking for money while pretending to be a family member to hacking various websites and government systems. It might sound strange, but I don’t think this is the major concern.

It’s not the major concern for me because these bad actions that these people are taking are universally regarded as bad things to be doing. If you ask a regular person what they think about scammers taking your grandmother’s life savings, you’d find that most of them would say that’s not nice, and should be stopped. The same goes for hackers trying to cripple a major city by taking down the systems that run the transport network.

Because it’s obvious that bad actors do bad things, there are people who usually stand up to try to thwart them. We’ve seen this over recent decades in the rise of the Cybersecurity profession. When I was at university 20 years ago, I had never heard of Cybersecurity. But the field grew into a necessity as information systems became tightly integrated with most aspects of organisational life and connected to the outside world, thus exposing them to the significant risk of being compromised.

I think we are seeing the same with AI. The good guys and girls of the world will stand up to create tools to stop the bad actors in their tracks. They are driven to do this because it feels good to stop bad things happening, but it’s also financially valuable to be a skilled professional in a growth industry.

While there will definitely be disastrous events along the way, the people wearing the white hats will be continuously working to stop those who choose to don the black. Yes, it’s still a concern, and I hope that the forces of good prevail, but that’s why I don’t believe that bad actors are the worst part of the rush towards an AI future.

The real problem

The real concern I have with the mindless promotion of AI technology is that humans have a history of going too far with things in the pursuit of progress. Let’s look at a few different examples which I’m sure will be familiar to you.

I’ll start with the mass production of food. In years gone by farmers grew food, took it to market where it was consumed by customers. Over time, that wasn’t going to cut it because there were too many people to feed. Companies soon worked out that if we can mass-produce food and keep it fresh for longer, we can make huge sums of money while sustaining the population at the same time.

Mass production of food has come with some challenges that have only really become evident over time. Firstly, depending on what you buy, our food is filled with “numbers” as my mother likes to put it. It turns out that some of those numbers (commonly known as preservatives or additives) are not very good for us, and end up causing long-term health issues. Potassium Bromate (E924), for example, has been found to be a potential carcinogen which has been banned in several countries, and it was originally used to maintain the crispiness of bread during transport.

Humanity seems to be prone to pushing the boundaries past the point where it hurts, without thinking too much of the potential cost. What can we put in the bread to make it last as long as possible so we can ship it further? How can we make our food look more attractive so people buy more of it? In other words, how can we make more money?

Now let’s consider example number two, that of the so-called “social” media. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think it’s terribly social to post random thoughts to thousands of people I don’t really know and risk being cyber-bullied or called all sorts of atrocities by human or robotic trolls.

Social media started out as a nice idea – it connected people. I remember being a fan of Facebook around 2006, because it helped me to stay in contact with my friends while I was overseas for a year. However, it dawned on me pretty quickly over the next few years that the connections that I built on that platform were not real friends (despite being called Facebook friends). Rather, they were people that I hardly ever talked to in real life, and I discovered that I didn’t really care whether I associated with them or not. The feeling of connection seemed obviously false to me – with my collection of Facebook friends being a vanity measure of popularity. In real life, I had a handful of friends that I really liked hanging out with.

Personally my time on Facebook was short-lived, but many people still live on various social media platforms, scrolling their lives away and letting random and often pointless posts absorb their attention. Combined with phone use, in my view this has all gone too far – a somewhat useful technology, which has gone on to create significant harm through the capture of our attention, as well as the potential for misinformation.

Once again – social media started out as a cool idea, but the companies who wanted our attention worked hard to keep making the platforms as sticky as possible. That is – people became so dependent on them that they stay glued to their phones when perhaps they could be looking up and having a conversation.

And at the moment, it seems to me that AI is still in the “cool idea” phase. It solves problems quickly, it can provide a sensible answer to most questions and improves productivity. It has tremendous potential in fields like Radiology and for other health applications. In “agentic” mode, it can even start to automate longer-running tasks and take charge of important processes for us and make decisions. What’s not to like?

Humans have poor impulse control

Humans aren’t great at showing restraint. They tend to eat too much, drink too much, scroll too much and sit too much. And this isn’t because they’re all lazy. It’s because the systems that surround them are often engineered to keep them stuck, like our social media and convenient fast-food outlets.

The same is true of AI. When you give people a choice to use a new AI tool or to do the hard work of thinking, they’ll begin to choose the shortcut. Rather than crafting that email they want to write, which requires strategic thought, they’ll get an AI tool to generate it for them. And it’s only over the longer term where I believe we’ll start to see a decline in our ability to think. And when you give up thinking, you stop learning. There are already some studies that are emerging about the reduction of critical thinking skills, and this type of research is only in its infancy.

Given the human race’s track record at falling into poor patterns, highlighted by aspects like skyrocketing obesity rates and mental health concerns, what makes you think it will be any different with AI?

It won’t be – and we’re once again at the point where people are jumping on board without thinking, when we should be more considered about what we’re doing. But instead of labouring this point further, I’d first like to take a look at the potential future of AI.

What’s in store for humanity

I’ve heard a few different versions of possible futures as I’ve listened to various experts (or just people with really strong opinions) talk about where all this is going. But they all seem to agree on one thing – nobody really knows. Some experts have thrown out estimates of the percentage chance that AI will cause the end of humanity, ranging anywhere from 10 to 20%.

But there is a more positive version of the future that people talk about too, so let’s have a think about that.

If AI keeps accelerating, as many people seem to want it to, then it appears that we will be able to automate many jobs, especially in the white-collar arena. OK, that’s progress. But let’s not stop there – we see every day people posting fun videos of robots taking various advanced actions like dancing or doing martial arts. It’s only a matter of time before these robots become more sophisticated and able to take on the more physical jobs of humanity as well, although admittedly, it seems as if they’ll be the last to go.

So let’s fast-forward to that potential future. White collar jobs are gone, blue collar jobs will follow, so humans won’t really be needed for work at all, though some might still choose to. Then, to deal with the lack of employment opportunities, we have the mechanism of Universal Basic Income (UBI) – the idea being that everybody gets some sort of minimum wage just for being a living, breathing human. This wouldn’t be a significant wage – it won’t buy you a house next to the beach anytime soon – you’d have a small income, which would be the same for everyone.

Some people I’ve spoken to seem to think of this as the ideal future. A future where humans (for the most part) are not required to work. They are simply able to exist, engaging in leisure activities, spending time with friends and family or in the community. This could have the effect of improving connection in our communities, and would provide people with much more time to engage in activities that they enjoy more than work.

And what about our organisations? Some humans will surely be required, because they need to set up the AI in the first place, and make sure that all the company profits are being sent to the right bank accounts. Fewer humans will be involved, so the majority of the money in the world will start (or continue?) to flow towards the few, rather than the many. This in turn means more prosperity for a small number of people, and a basic income for the rest.

As our organisations shrink, so will the roles required to run them. Let’s take the Accounting profession as an example. When our AI technology approaches the point that Accountants are no longer needed, then sooner or later, there will be a flood of redundancies, with many people displaced and unable to pay their rent and mortgages. Add more occupations to the mix as time goes on, and the human impact will be even greater. Society is not ready for such an impact, in terms of having so many people rapidly displaced, without an income to survive.

Is it only Accountants that should be worried?

Well, here’s the real problem. The problem I feel is most significant to overcome is the problem of purpose. Humans are purpose-driven beings. We’ve all heard of the person who retires from a 40-year career and dies a year later. It’s because they have nothing to fill their day – nothing to live for – so they wither away. Other retirees do better – they engage in hobbies, socialising and volunteering to retain that sense of purpose and keep on living.

Work is one thing that provides a sense of purpose and meaning for many people. Focusing on improving your career, getting that promotion – those things give us purpose and something to aim for. The financial rewards help us to provide for our families and provide them with better lives too. Work also provides us with opportunities to create an impact on the people around us, which is fulfilling. It’s nice to receive a promotion or build expertise that makes you a sought-after individual, because it makes us feel valued and useful.

At first, it sounds good to think of a world where you don’t need to do anything or be anywhere all day. You can do exactly what you want. But humans are not at their best when they’re idle, unengaged and without direction. I can imagine a world where a lack of purpose contributes to even greater levels of mental health issues in our communities in this type of future.

Fulfilling work is one thing that provides a sense of purpose that’s valuable for human flourishing. And as the AI steam train rolls ever onward, I don’t really see many people stopping to consider the potential issues that this type of societal impact could cause.

We don’t know where we’re going, and that should worry us

The future picture that I just painted may never happen, but it’s not out of the question. And the point of this essay is not to say that my vision of the future is correct.

It’s also not accurate to say that we’re all doomed. We might not be doomed, because we have a choice of which way to go. But few people seem to be thinking about these choices, and instead we seem to be running towards a potential AI-cliff, because, in the words of many of the large US AI leaders:

“We can’t stop now. If we don’t do it, China will”.

And I don’t think we necessarily need to stop. Maybe we need to slow down a little, but the really important thing is that we take time to thoughtfully consider a few key questions.

What are we actually aiming for? What boundaries are we prepared to put in place to safeguard humanity? What are we prepared to say “no” to, so that we get the best of AI, without compromising our future? Are we heading to a no-work future? Or are we simply aiming for people to do less of it?

If we collectively decide that we are moving towards a future where work is optional, we can assume that many people will choose not to work. Then we need to provide other ways for people to find their sense of purpose, for those who require it

If we’re not careful, we may discover that the price of progress is purpose.