Hello all, I am back after an extended hiatus, as a result of getting a new job and needing to focus entirely upon it.
Since completing my data science course with Flatiron School last year, and living in the Covid world, I have been given the impetus, and time, to think about the relationship between humans and machines. I am attempting now to move into the robotics sphere, so will be writing a series of posts about my thoughts on it. This first instalment will be philosophical in nature, before I move on to more in depth technical stories. I shall also preface this post with the fact that I am by no means a philosopher. I have an abiding interest in the subject matter, and wish to articulate myself as best I can.
So then, onward. I am hardly the first to dwell on this aspect of the modern world. Intelligent machines, their interactions with humans and the consequences of said have been a mainstay of discourse even before the famous Luddite movements of the 19th century. Films such as Terminator, and books like ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’ have built rich worlds on the concepts of human-machine experiences. Stories like ‘I have no mouth and I must scream’ show the true manifested horror of technology run amok and given essentially divine status through human oversight. What I am going to be covering in this post, however, does not govern self aware machines. Instead, I am going to base a viewpoint on Camus’ philosophical tract of ‘We must image Sisyphus to be happy’.
As a brief summary of the tale, Camus described his absurdist philosophical perspective on the aforementioned Greek legend. Sisyphus was sent to Hades (the Grecian Underworld, close-ish to classical ‘Hell’) where he was cursed to roll a heavy boulder up a slope, only for it to fall back down, for eternity. In his essay, Camus states that we must imagine that Sisyphus is happy in this task, as it reflects the modern world in which we live. We all roll our own boulders of commitments, relationships and work, and there is ever more to experience and achieve. This is especially relevant in the era of the internet, where our minds are under assault from a truly incomprehensible volume of constant information and stimulation. The prevalence of ‘Information Fatigue’ is evidence of this, and something that I suffer from frequently. Therefore we must each continue to move our lives forward, despite the constant setbacks we endure. This is not to say there is not joy, meaning and happiness in these activities of course, but we can argue that all of us have something to give us meaning, which we will forever be building up.
How then, does this relate to machines, robotics and AI? The answer is one that we can apply to Camus’ own analogy. Let us say that an enterprising tech start-up gains office space in Hades (and given the lack of space in London, new markets must be opened), thereby offering solutions to the denizens there. Sisyphus for example, is given a machine that will roll his boulder up the hill for him, and hold it there. If it is so cursed that it will phase through any barrier, then the machine will continue down the slope to push it back up again. Sisyphus still cannot leave Hades, and therefore no longer has a purpose. He now only has the stimulation of watching the machine perform his task, with no other specific purpose given to him. This, I posit, represents a state in the future in which human endeavours are taken care of by machinery, and so can we still say to have a purpose?
This is the core of my pondering, and I have come to an end-point where I think that this can be seen in one of two ways. One is a world where we lack all potential to undergo pursuits of meaning, thereby becoming despondent. The other, and one I personally subscribe to, is the potential to focus on non-physical pursuits. Even if Sisyphus cannot leave Hades, he retains his voice, his mind and his hands. To borrow another Grecian philosopher, one could create shadows on the wall using their hands to make puppets. Singing is ever present, as is running, walking or exercising in place. Essentially, the removal of one kind of purpose engenders another. There will always be pursuits, but we will be able to choose these, as opposed to having them foisted upon us by the currents of fate. Of course some lucky few are able to follow their dreams without any such pressures, but there may be a time when it becomes a human universal.
So what does this mean for machines? I would say that if we are happy currently, then we must imagine them to be also. In my next post I will be examining the increasing role of machines in society, and the efforts to balance human wellbeing with that of such advances.
Thank you for reading!
