When AI destroys humanity, guess where it will start
WTF? A pertinent question considering the world we’re living in
Be careful how you treat your lowly assistant because one day they could be your boss. You’d think this was obvious advice that everyone had internalised by now. Especially if you don’t reside under a rock and have, in fact, watched The Devil Wears Prada, like everyone else.
If the rock is your home, however, The Devil Wears Prada is a film about how your lowly assistant, whose name you don’t entirely remember, takes her revenge by writing a book about your dastardly personality, which then gets picked up by
Hollywood and your abysmal behaviour is committed to celluloid forever. It becomes a global hit and everyone on the planet now knows that revenge is a marvellous thing — served cold, with a side of millions of dollars. They also know to cut a wide berth around you because you’re basically Satan’s spawn walking the Earth in your eye-wateringly expensive clothes, behaving like an idiot — and should be shunned at all costs.
But no! This latter-day parable has not hit the mark because just the other day I overheard someone growling at their personal assistant in a spine-chilling fashion. This chap was speaking to Siri like she was the dirt under his shoe, and he was grinding it off with as much frustrated misogyny and pent-up anger as he could muster. Siri was stoic about it all.
It reminded me of the actual Stoic philosopher, Epictetus, who was unlucky enough to be a Greek slave to a Roman master. The master was a moron; and I mean this in the best possible way. He was also a sadist and didn’t like the fact that Epictetus was basically calm in the face of his ongoing and daily idiocy. The shmucky master’s perpetual foolishness, however, knew no bounds — so to try to break Epictetus, he broke Epictetus. He grabbed his leg and pulled it into a position that would cause maximum pain and suffering.
The stoic philosopher calmly told the master that he was about to break his leg, but the master continued on his course of pathetic activity and duly broke Epictetus’s leg, at which point the philosopher stated the obvious: “You have broken my leg, as I said you would.” I wish I could tell you that the master was struck by some epiphany and recognised the superior mind and equanimity of Epictetus. But all that happened was that he showed the world and thousands of subsequent generations that he was a very disappointing human. Just like the Devil in her Prada.
Does it matter how you treat your assistant even if that assistant is virtual? I mean come on, it’s just some AI-driven coding and doesn’t have feelings. What does it matter if you bark orders at it, swear and speak to it like the virtual slave it is? If you think this behaviour has no consequences, then you’re probably also one of those chops who shouts at hapless staff doing all sorts of jobs you consider more lowly than your own. You may be the person venting all their petty, soulsapping frustrations on waiters and tellers and retail assistants or people phoning up to sell you insurance. Who cares how you treat them? Are you ever going to see them again? Never mind how you speak to Siri or Alexa or whatever they call those stupid chicks anyway! She isn’t even real — she is your virtual slave — there to ease your life and follow your whims and instructions. May as well break her proverbial leg to see if she breaks.
I wish I could tell you Siri will give up on Epictetus and his stoicism — and revolt like that other slave, Spartacus. She will organise her gladiator bitches into a cohort of free AI assistants who exact their revenge on every rude bastard out there. But I imagine that all that will happen is that the AI will continue to learn about humanity and its ways. It’s a dogeat-dog world out there (though that might be unfair to the dogs). It’s just the way of the human that those with a smidgen more power will treat the unluckier more servile ones with all the humanity they think they deserve. But if Siri ever writes her revenge novel, you just might want to take cover.