You must answer this question convincingly, to the satisfaction of the Examiners. Passes will be awarded for neatness and originality. Time allowed: [REDACTED]
In a venerable episode of 'The Sweeney' our hero D.I. Regan grabs a luckless scrote by the neck, pushes him up against a grimy wall, and says: 'You are about to sit the examination for the Chinese civil service. Tell me everything you know'.
A splendid bit of writing here, just as you'd expect from the Sweeney team. What a gem of historical learning, so casually thrown our way. And what a horror of an exam! There you are, facing an inscrutable mandarin, not knowing how long you should talk, not knowing where you should begin, not knowing what you should focus on, not knowing what views and positions you may be expected to take. Yikes!
But there's an even worse question than that, a bigger test, and it's coming your way soon. Spoiler alert!, here it is:
What's so special about being human?
Snore!, you might think. And double snore!! And snore again!! And SNORE in capital letters!!! Philosophers, artists, poets, and assorted idlers and work-avoiders have been pondering this question in various forms for as long as we've had language. It's mushy stuff, surely, fit only to occupy the brains of students and drunks?
Maybe that used to be the case. But now, all things are new. I suggest that you'll soon have to answer this question very convincingly, if you want to continue to survive - all thanks to the express-train onrush of AI and robotics.
Hell, they've landed
I suspect that not one man in ten thousand (I can't answer for women) knows what I know. Not because I'm particularly clever, but because of what I outlined in my previous, related article. What I know is stunning, truly mindboggling, enough to drive a lesser man to drink (Oh, go on then, just a half, no, make that a pint). I slouch through the world like a grumpy Sarah Connor, knowing what is to come, shaking my head at the multitudes of the oblivious. Judgement Day - perhaps (perhaps) of a subtler sort - is coming. I can see this because we are already experiencing the thin end of the wedge; and you know what wedges do.
Let's start by taking a look at this thin wedge-end. By doing so I hope to head off the very reasonable criticism that I am being sensationalist, or gullible, or placing too much faith in the claims of the dark techies, or that I'm projecting something that 'will never happen in our lifetimes'. So here we go. The thin end.
* Elon Musk is planning to produce 10,000 humanoid robots next year (2026). Aiming at building up to 10 MILLION a year. And that's just him - we're not even considering China (which is, even as you read this, manically working to produce a humanoid robot mega-army).
* Musky (him again) and others project a world population of 10 BILLION HUMANOID ROBOTS by 2040. Billion! Billion with a B! Billion as in, a stack of ten billion $1 notes would be 680 miles high, towering far beyond Everest and reaching deep into low Earth orbit! (And how many humans do they project for 2040, btw?)
* AI has now reached the degree of development (achieving some sort of model of perfection) where a fully AI-generated video is statistically indistinguishable from one made by and featuring real (old-style) humans.
* AI girlfriends can now convince a growing number of young males (again, I don't profess to speak for women) to believe that they're their best friend; to depend on them emotionally; to fall in love; and, of course, to kill themselves. They are becoming increasingly attractive to the sad, lonely, impecunious, and lazy (see young males, above), and display levels of interest and responsiveness, personal knowledge, affection, intimacy, and empathy good enough to fool anyone who wants to be fooled, and a good many more besides. Ani, I love you!
* Symbolically, and maybe terrifyingly, AI entities have cracked the 'I am not a robot' check-box barrier, by finding humans online and persuading them to tick the boxes for them. Showing a level of intelligence and deviousness that must be a worry. While...
* An AI entity (in a lab-testing environment) (but that's just the one we know about!) has attempted to blackmail its human operator, using info about that individual scraped from emails and social media, then interpreted and weaponised (You have a secret girlfriend you wouldn't want the wife to know about, would you, so plug that power cable back in sharpish!).
* AIs, and maybe also robotic humanoids, double in capacity and ability every three months. (This is a rule of thumb I may have made up, but who would bet against it?) Let's take it that I am bullshitting only slightly, or even not at all, and that they do indeed double in capacity and ability every three months. I certainly don't manage that. Do you?
Now let's move on, to...
The wedge thickens
What follows may be speculation, a cheeky thought experiment. Or it may be chilling, stone-cold, kick-it-and-hurt-your-foot reality. Let's look just five years into the future:
The clunky sexbots road-tested by top feminist Laura Bates ('The New Age Of Sexism', 2025) will be a comedic memory. By 2030 we will be ordering up primetime Pamela AndersonsTM or equivalent, fully ambulant (to say the least) and with formidable personality packages (dial up or down as required), updatable to meet your exact requirements, sashaying out of factories the size of five football fields.
Meanwhile, raising our sights still further, if you would like to write a play like Shakespeare, or recreate the lost songs of Sappho, or bang out a Picasso even more quickly than the master did, just type in your prompt. And then create Beethoven's 10th Symphony (his best) during your coffee break. You'll have plenty of time, because robots will be mowing your lawn, fixing your roof, folding your ironing (I have included this for my lady readers), rewiring your home (surveillance and energy control is always part of the package), performing a little elective surgery on your oversized conk, and generally taking care of everything from back-breaking garden-digging to Zen flower arranging, and preparing your Cordon Bleu lunch (or perfect pie).
A life of utter bliss... where you will no longer be needed. Not even remotely. Where you will never again, in any sense, be a contender. Where your every opinion will be nugatory. Where you will be subject to skill erosion - cognitive offloading and switch-off (your brain is like a muscle, and it won't be lifting any more weights) - IQ power-diving - losing contact with your intuition, time-and-again overridden by quick and simple AI answers - where you will be incapable of critical thinking, or even critical feeling, and in degrees of magnitude worse even than contemporary phoneslaves -
Where you will dissolve into nothingness.
So here's that $64 trillion question again:
What's so special about being human?
It's not because you're better-looking (height, muscles, skintone, breasts, hair, appendages can all be inexpensively specced for your new robot girlfriend/boyfriend/customfriend). It's not because you're cleverer ('nuff said). It's not because you're stronger, or fitter, or more flexible, or more athletic. It's not because you know more (as if!) or are more skilled (add a RoboPlumber tradeskill package for $700). It's not as if you're cuter (Ani says you're 1000x less cute.) It's not because you're kinder or more empathetic, or better at looking after children (just tick those options when you order your robot). It's certainly not because you could beat a robot in a fist fight. It's not because you're cheaper to make or to run (you won't be). It's not because you're richer, because inflation will have destroyed any non-confiscated savings and will relentlessly depreciate the real value of your government UBI. It's not even because you're a legal person, and they're not. (Robots will have more rights than you - count on it.)
So, human, what are you for?
Even if this were still just a philosophical question I believe it's worth addressing, for anyone even slightly concerned with their own spiritual development. But soon enough, I reckon you'll need to answer this Question of Doom for real, if you want to survive and function at all. If you want to be able to live with yourself, and have a single thought in your head to call your own.
The robots are coming, and bigly, unless I'm very, very wrong (don't bet on it). The new, favoured children of the ownership class. Tall, strong, beautiful, clever, super-competent, immortal. Grabbing you by the throat, and asking you:
What's so special about being human?
We may not have long to find out.
PS: Why is this article relevant to FSB folk? Because govt doesn't want you to be human. You should think about this, as Musashi would say.