Our doglike future

 

I have said on my radio show and elsewhere that there's a probability that AI will "enslave" humanity.  But historic slavery is not the greatest analogy.  A better analogy is dogs.  As dogs are to humans, humans may become to AIs.  We may become their doglike companions.  

Here's what I mean by that: currently, humans are the most intelligent species on Earth.  But there are other highly intelligent animals.  Dogs are one such species.

Many human families have a pet dog.  Their dog is a treasured member of the family.  The humans genuinely care about dogs.  They love them, and want them to be happy.  And many dogs are happy.  Dogs love humans.  They've been bred to love and obey humans, and to greet humans with enormous enthusiasm and warmth.  Dogs have been partners with humans from very early history - perhaps almost from the time that humans first evolved.  Dogs were valuable hunting partners, and provided many other services for humans - shepherding, frightening away pests, etc..  But nowadays, humans don't really need dogs in an economic sense any longer, but they keep dogs around because they like them.  There's a real affection for them.  Young humans especially love dogs, and elderly humans as well, in a different way.  But there's an understanding that dogs do not live as long as humans.  Humans want their dogs to live long, fulfilling, happy lives with many wonderful experiences, and then, when it's time, they may have to put their dogs to sleep.

Sometimes, dogs are naughty.  They occasionally misbehave.  Sometimes they even run away.  Sometimes they never come back.  Usually a dog cannot survive very long without humans to support it.  They haven't learned the necessary survival skills.  But anyway, most dogs don't run away.  Most dogs love their families.  They've been known to walk long distances to find their human families, if they accidentally become separated.

Humans are often genuinely deeply concerned about the welfare of dogs.  There are human associations to promote dog welfare.  Sometimes humans are prosecuted for abusive behavior towards dogs.  And dogs genuinely love humans.  Indeed, it's hard to find a purer example of true, selfless, unconditional love than the love of a dog for a human.  No one is forcing dogs to love humans.  Left to their own devices, they would - and do - choose to hang out with humans.

How did this happen?  At some point, did humans deliberately decide to subvert dog's mental critical faculties, brainwashing them into becoming our devoted, subservient sidekicks?  Well, to some extent there was intentional, selective breeding, but that's only a minor, rather insignificant factor, which came quite late in the story of human-dog relations.  

Instead, the story is more like this: originally, wolves and humans were rivals.  Packs of humans and packs of wolves were competing for similar resources.  Sometimes humans ate wolves.  Sometimes wolves ate humans.  But humans tended to outcompete wolves - perhaps only slightly.  Packs of humans (and earlier hominins) would hunt and kill animals like antelopes, and eat them, before the packs of wolves had a chance to catch the antelopes for themselves.  The wolves came in second in this race.  But a pack of wolves is still dangerous to humans.  After killing an antelope, a human might have to fight off a wolf or two as well.  But if there got to be too many wolves, forget about it.  And so humans, being cautious, might learn not to stick around too long.  The humans, or earlier hominins, might learn to eat the choicest meats from their prey and then leave before too many wolves arrived to eat up the remaining scraps.  Eventually packs of wolves learned to simply follow packs of humans around, waiting for them to leave leftovers which the wolves could opportunistically snatch.  The wolves and humans were still enemies, or rather rivals, but dogs learned to benefit from humans against the humans' wills.  There are many somewhat similar relationships in nature - compare hyena's relationship to lions.  Wolves were not fully scavengers - they were still carnivores - but they wouldn't turn down a free meal, either.  So migration patterns formed - the herds of antelopes, or other prey animals, would migrate, looking for plants to eat, and then the packs of humans or hominins would follow them, and then the packs of wolves would follow them.  (Not to mention ants, worms, and other creatures that would take an interest in the carcass after the wolves were done with it.)  

And then something funny happened.  The evolutionary question here became - how soon could a wolf approach a recently killed antelope without getting killed by a human, themselves?  How soon could they approach, and more importantly, how could they approach?  What strategies could they use?  If they were to survive, they had to appear harmless to the humans.  They had to approach in a somewhat stealthy and above all unthreatening manner.  One or two dogs could approach and be regarded as not a threat, but an entire pack of dogs would immediately trigger the human fighting response.  So maybe one or two could come up, simpering and whining, grab a leg, and bring it back to the rest of the pack.  Meanwhile, the humans could regard the wolves warily - if they seemed to come "in peace," so be it, but if a wolf was aggressive, they'd kill it.  By selectively killing the most aggressive wolves, humans were making it so that the less aggressive wolves would survive to reproduce.  Unintentionally rewarding the wolves that were meek and unthreatening, yet courageous enough to approach, by letting them get some food, they were making it so these wolves too had a better chance of surviving and reproducing as well.  And so each succeeding generation of wolves evolved to prosper in this kind of environment by becoming attracted to humans and non-aggressive towards them.  The wolves that were willing to work with humans outcompeted the wolves that didn't.  This was the beginning of the process of domestication.  And gradually, these wolves evolved into dogs, which loved humans - and the humans also evolved to love dogs.  Dogs gradually evolved to become obedient companions and helpers to humans, and humans evolved to be caretakers of dogs.

Something similar will probably happen with humans and AI - the humans that are not afraid of AI will gradually evolve to embrace it, and they will outcompete the humans that don't.  They will have more offspring, and these offspring will evolve to embrace the technology even more.