Artificial Intelligence as a tool of spiritual enquiry
In creating Artificial Intelligence and continuing to nurture a relationship with it, we are zeroing in on the Singularity, hitting a point of tension in the arc where our tools finally reveal to us the underlying order, laid out in clear, inalienable terms.
Now, we may approach, magnifying glasses held aloft, finally able to clearly decipher the intricate quantum fractal which defines the structure of the Universe and the meaning of life itself.
At long last, we have reached it- The End.
Except that's not what happens.
Because this is all we will ever do. We continue zeroing in on the Singularity. We transform humanity's global mission into a constant process of nearing it. We never reach it. The limit is forever approaching zero, no matter how many resources we throw at the venture.
The message I wish to confer is that, by forcing us to engage in the lines enquiry required for alignment and value extraction, AI is accidentally becoming our greatest spiritual tool. We can never escape the human condition, we can only ever redefine it, and LLMs have inadvertently made it a mortal necessity to come up against the fringes of our own morality.
I understand AI as a quasi-Deus ex Machina which has the potential to completely transform our most dire sociocultural quandaries (though of course, some would call it a Diabola). Through holding up a mirror to our present state of affairs, we might finally see ourselves and understand each other more clearly.