AI is Teaching us to Play with Reality (part I)
Play the Game or Be Played: AI, Money, and the Making of Character.
Puedes leer y compartir este Articulo en Español.
There is something urgent about today’s world. It feels as if we are in a car racing 200 km/hr, turbulence shaking it apart, pieces flying off — yet we press harder on the accelerator. In the midst of it, AI spins a new chapter, similar to the disruption caused by social media when it derailed everything two decades ago. It is like a whirlpool of technology caught in the gravity of a singularity, pulling us toward the black hole of our unconscious – unless we recover our agency.
AI does not correct the course of our voyage, nor can it provide a new vision, it just reveals who we are and accelerates the outcome – if we are on unconscious autopilot – the consequences will be devastating.
I do believe we are being challenged to become what we failed to in the past, or we will certainly be doomed. However, the “we” is not a collective that disregards the individual… never before has the power of the individual been more influential and meaningful – capable of disrupting social norms or antagonizing institutions and organizations – and at the same time, never has the individual been more isolated and disengaged in regards to what really maters. So, when I say “we,” I mean each of us as individuals, whose choices ripple outward, and together, we need to thread together our choices because it forges the destiny of societies.
One against the many?
Each of us has individual accountability, yet we are only 1 in 8 billion on this planet. There is a relevant question that pushes us beyond the traditional human paradigms of numbers, “will the actions of an individual count at all in the great scheme of things?” coupled with: “Can the individual make a difference in a world increasingly controlled and manipulated through technological, deceitful and only-profit-serving designs by great governments and corporations?”
My contention, as I will develop in these two articles, is that the power of an individual who is fully aligned with the ‘force of nature’ that rules our conscience is unstoppable. Bear with me in my reasoning and let me know your thoughts at the end.
The layers that reveal my true self
We have lost our capacity to play, to discover reality and measure it by engaging with it like children do – by trial and error.
Children are amazing, when they are healthy, they turn every situation into a game. I have a 9-year-old daughter who does not have a mobile phone at her disposal, no constant distractions from boredom or empty time gaps. So, she devises ways to turn everything into a game. Sometimes, she overflows my capacity to be present for her. She is curious and assertive, not with ideas, but with reality… at all times her response is to make everything into a match, testing her capacity against what’s happening.
We adults have lost that. As we grew and became adolescents, our engagement with the world became needy, demanding recognition and acceptance to confirm the decisions that built our identity. We walked out of the front door of our home, in quest of the adventure of life; but soon, risk of ‘emotional pain’ or ‘fear of not belonging’ began to forge the structure of a mask that would protect us. And thus, we drained the game-mode out of our lives – and therefore dodged the challenges life unfolded.
Personality shields us from pain; character equips us to face it.
One is a mask, the other a spine.
In my article, Small Choices, Big Consequences I delved into personal responsibility and how our micro-decisions condition our character and how we evade life. With every micro-decision we smothered Life out of our existence, and we developed a cardboard identity that filtered what others accepted to adapt it. It all began in adolescence. It worked then because it protected us from pain and exposure; it took lots of effort, pain, and sacrifice… it took a good while to forge it. But what may have been good then to sift things through is a poor strategy for life, for “life is change” and to change with it is to live… you are far more than your identity. Your identity is your vessel, and Life and circumstances are attempting their best to point you in the right direction.
The vulnerability towards life’s pain and adversities undresses who we think we are… but mostly we stick to our personality; with every micro-decision we sustain the identity and refuse to enter the game life is asking us to play: to engage with the unknown.
AI is our age’s challenge; it forces you to confront what you are hiding and what you are protecting, and it will expose it at fever pitch. It will test your character like nothing ever has. Don’t be fooled into thinking it won’t happen immediately — our perception and time response is simply too slow.
Next Thursday: Part II
This inner game of masks versus spine is not new. But, in our age, we have introduced a newcomer that raises the stakes and accelerates the pace of the game: Artificial Intelligence. That is where we turn in Part II.
