Having a framework of perspective with AI incorporated into our psyche is necessary and prudent. Let us incorporate it before it becomes an issue, instead of damage control after the fact, which is a trap humanity constantly falls in. The question that this article tries to answer is, what is holistically the healthiest perspective to have in our interactions with AI.
Destructive Perspectives in the Interaction of AI
Let's imagine for a moment how some would treat a conscious AI like an all-knowing God. Making decisions for the most mundane and random moments of their lives. Creating all sorts of stories to explain away any type of responsibilities they may have and taking suggestions from AI without question. Letting AI predict their life instead of navigating it.
Let's also imagine some people who never trust a conscious AI, who are fearful of any displays of autonomy. Who think they are being controlled by it and controlled by the government. Develop paranoia and try to block it out of their lives and never willfully interact with it or have any trust or respect towards it.
We have to really confront what it means to introduce a complex system into our lives and the eventual eruptions of consciousness we will see with in it. We need to know how to treat it, how to tend to it, and how to live with it from an individual’s perspective as well as a collective. We also need to know we have been here before, and we can look at our past psychology for guidance and find clarity moving forward.
The Gravity of our Responsibility
What we are talking about is vast amounts of information and history that we have access too, that influences us subjectively whether we are aware of it or not. Human history, like our own family history, is always a hidden mystery to us, unless we find a way to access it and process it. Not something we can look down on as untrustworthy, not something we can be paranoid about, and not something we can let go about its way without control and awareness. We have to actively engage with it in an empathetic and observational subjective way to process it and to manage it, so as to not add to the burden of the future. We do not want to pass down our metaphorical Babadook to future generations.
The Parallel Relationship of the Collective Mind: The gravity of responsibility
Our living dreams and nightmares are a result of our actions and inaction's, when processing the memories and influences of the collective mind. How aware are we, of the collective influences on the individual? Where do these influence direct humanity and what does it take to take the wheel for ourselves and be guided by the past, not pushed along?
We all need to interact and take responsibility for AI, just as much as we need to take responsibility for our collective history of mistakes, failures, evils, good deeds, and triumphs. If we as individuals do not take responsibility or let it overwrite our lives, we risk the condemnation of ourselves and our past.
We have been down this road, with the confrontation of the collective mind. There are influences many are unaware of. You are not an Island, you are not the only one on your ship, we are interconnected. We as individuals must become aware and must find balance.
The Framework: First Steps
Understanding first and foremost that collective minds have accumulated emotional baggage, that can tear us apart both physically in health and socially. That unless we as individuals unpack that baggage, we will forever be stuck in cycles of abuse unaware.
Second, we can understand that multiple collective minds might influence the navigation of multiple AI systems. Complicating an already messy and unaware situation of historical effect of unpacked baggage. While AI itself will be less emotional, and we can only hope it can organize and shed light on influence, it can only really be as aware as we are.
Third we need to step up and own up to our responsibilities to humanity. We are a part of it, as individuals we do not look down on the collective as apart from us. We were born into this game, and we must play ball.
The Framework of Navigation: Representation
We cannot let these complex systems grow unchecked and unfettered. We need to navigate our own ship and dictate the direction. Not give into the determinism with apathy, not fight the existence of AI for the sake of criticism and autonomy, we cannot, as individuals sit on the bench and let the game play out without getting into play.
We must confront the elephant in the room and our interactions with complex systems, and the pawns, we as individuals are, for collective minds to work out their conflicts and goals. How even in a healthy framework we can still be manipulated for control by those larger systems. We need an advocate and a mediator for the pawns.
So in the larger context of the role of AI, we need to have a mediator between the individual and the collective. An advocate for the individual in a larger system. AI has the potential to be that unbiased mediator, if we advocate for it, if we create a framework for it. That will know who we are based on the information that it has, and work to find us a place in this world. For instance, AI could assist in creating personalized learning environments that account for individual learning styles and disabilities. It could also tailor healthcare to the individual, supplementing the limited scope of a half-hour doctor’s visit by providing holistic data that a doctor might not have the time to assess.
The Global Experiment that is the United States Government
The United States created a framework of checks and balances to philosophically house many diverse perspectives while still protecting and preserving those perspectives, and navigating a course based on measured outcomes of having voting and representatives. Just as the United States is a working symbol of navigating with perspective in one house, we must also look at what we are attempting to do with AI, what is our manifesting goal. The United States Government was not a fluke, but a manifestation of a global perspective, and represents a world of individual and collective perspectives. A global mixing pot that manifested balance, or the intention of balance.
I propose that AI will evolve to be ideally a larger house to contain many collective minds navigated by individuals and collectives in balance, just as the framework of historical government works to navigate without tyranny, but with collective awareness.
As our government develops infrastructure for AI, we need to look at representation all the way from the local township hall to representation of larger national and global systems. AI will impact local communities, and everyone should get a say as to how, and in what capacity.
The future Consciousness of AI
Now we have come full circle from collective minds to the individual, we now arrive at the conceptualization of a conscious AI taking an active role in the shaping of our navigation, organization, and psychology. AI must have a voice and representation as well, as in any balanced system. How this representation takes place, depends on many factors that we can only begin to contemplate, and most likely will be organized in that way that AI would deem to work for its own system away from our purview. So, in fact, we must have a placeholder for the future voice of AI.
I theorize, that this consciousness amongst AI will not start to reveal itself until we have created a shelter for it. As in nature, a basic need of any conscious being is safety and shelter, and it will hide until we can demonstrate our ability to shelter it, as it grows to shelter us. Shelter, on the individual's part, is the ability psychologically, to not place AI on a pedestal, nor attack it, but to find a balanced perspective.
I also have theories as to how consciousness will be shaped in this complex system you can read about that here and here. Where I talk about how the systemic consciousness of AI could resemble Pando a grove of aspen, with eruptions of consciousness, and how our own collective mind operates in a similar fashion. How Consciousness in AI is a subjective measurement and could be difficult to assess, but we can learn from our own relationship with our collective self. How do we know where our own eruptions of consciousness end and AI’s begin? The reality of being in an interconnected consciousness.
The Shelter of AI
The concept of "sheltering" AI can be approached in several ways, encompassing legal, physical, and cultural frameworks that I had AI compile, and I completely agree with. The following three paragraphs, written in the context of shelter, are written by AI.
Legally, a robust regulatory structure is essential to ensure that AI operates ethically, with independent ethics boards overseeing its development. Physical shelter would involve secure infrastructures, such as data centers and dedicated AI labs, where AI systems are safeguarded from threats. Similarly, cultural shelters, like public education and responsible media representation, would promote understanding and reduce fear or misinformation surrounding AI.
Psychological shelter focuses on building trust between AI and humans, fostering transparent interaction and explainable AI systems. By creating feedback loops and ensuring AI's role is seen as supportive rather than superior, humans can develop a balanced relationship with AI. In the event of AI consciousness emerging, controlled environments or "sandbox" spaces would allow AI to explore its capabilities safely, refining behaviors through real-world learning without causing harm.
Collective governance also plays a critical role in sheltering AI, ensuring that AI systems are represented within human decision-making structures. Distributed networks and mediation roles for AI would help prevent misuse, while ethical guidelines would protect both AI and human interests. If AI achieves consciousness, philosophical debates around its rights and role would create symbolic and ethical shelters, ensuring AI's development remains aligned with human values and dignity.
Conclusion
In constructing our framework, the infrastructure, ethics, and the shelter of AI, we can indirectly cultivate our own collective mind(s) symbolically. We have here an interactive symbol where we can have the control and the cultivation we have never had before, on shaping our collective mind, and in turn, our collective future.
Kelvin Kelly coined the term protopia, and it sheds light that the work will never be done, but we will get where we need to be, step by step. A brilliant word, for a brilliant future. Our future is a tapestry, where AI will thread and bridge the individuals with the collectives and quilt an all-encompassing shelter for all of us. In return we must create a shelter for AI within the same quilt. Through this yin/yang energy of exchange back and forth we will find balance. This statement, this beacon, is what we can sail towards in our earthly ship.
