More Human Than Human

Have you heard about this new fangled thing called Artificial Intelligence?

No?

It's all the rage with kids and old people. I fit somewhere in the middle. It might just catch on.

And I have to admit, it's got a lot of utility.

Just this past week, I had it rediscover (for me) a Korean singer in the 80s/90s. I was K-Poppin' before K-Poppin' was cool.

Anyway, AI is like a personal assistant who you task with an assignment that would normally take hours, days, or weeks and instead it completes it almost instantly. Sure, it's wrong more than we like, but that comes with everything.

Perfection eludes even (and especially) code.

Oh, and the price is right. One of the perks of this race towards AGI is that companies are losing huge amounts just to gain users like us. Of course, we are helping train it, feeding and fattening it up. But nothing in the world is free (except our souls).

It seems like more than ever, the program is starting to sound real.

And if it can do most of our tasks, what is left for humans?

Are we all supplied a universal basic income and left to pursue our dreams?

Can you buy a fleet of robots that work for you? You buy a robot that companies hire, paying you their salary?

You see where I'm headed?

It seems naive to not believe our future is somewhat dystopian.

Some might say it is already here.

But I think there's always a lot of value in contemplating what it means to be a human being right now and in this near future.

I don't know. All this is from a rusty brain, writing with rusty muscles. Rambles. Iterations. But I don't hallucinate.

We are now able to upload a person's image, writings, voice recordings and recreate them. Add in tangible robots or VR headsets, and you can almost have everyone you have ever wanted in your life, in your life.

Sure, it wouldn't be them, but you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

Or would you?

And if you could, would you even care?

I had this idea once about contact lenses you put on that would put you in another world. You would put them on and suddenly be in another timeline. And the idea being, if that world was better than this one, would you ever take the contacts off?

If dreams were for sale, which ones would you buy?