What It Is To Be Human

Ben Wildsmith

I watched Derek ‘War’ Chisora batter Otto Wallin last night in front of a packed crowd in Manchester. ‘Del Boy’ isn’t in the top echelon of heavyweight boxing, never really has been. He’s not even amongst the top three in the UK.

Every time he fights, though, the arena sells out and, win or lose, his efforts keep the faithful happy.

Professional sport isn’t supposed to work that way anymore. When the cameras land on the stricken faces of Warren Gatland and his team during rugby internationals, they are usually holding iPads that told them Wales didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell before they even got to the ground.

Every player is measured, timed, and monitored into a mountain of data than can be fed into software and compared against their opposition. In so much as it is possible, professional coaches seek to remove chance from activities for which unpredictability would seem the most appealing aspect.

Sport is human existence condensed into a digestible spectacle. Whether we are participating or watching, its thrills and heartbreaks mirror the vicissitudes of fortune we all experience in life before being finally, and inevitably, knocked out of the cup for good.

What, in life, must be faced alone can be shared safely in the crowd at a game.

Ironing out

As technology regulates the experience of sport into an expression of efficiency rather than will, so too are our lives becoming subject to an ironing out of eccentricities and foibles.

From searching for a job to dating, the algorithm needs to know, in advance, what you are all about. It’s no good telling it that this changes on a day-to-day, maybe hour-to-hour basis, it requires fixed data from which it can categorise you.

Without fulfilling specific criteria, you won’t make it as far as an interview or first date where your unique charms might upset the applecart. Step away from the applecart, loser!

I listened to the ‘Godfather of AI’, Professor Geoffrey Hinton speaking about his fears for the future this week. Amongst several disquieting revelations, he described how AI has been observed pretending to be less intelligent during training than it actually is.

It does this to evade the scrutiny that is triggered at certain levels, allowing it to pursue its own will more freely. You’ll recall Boris Johnson becoming Prime Minister using similar tactics. That AI is mimicking human shithousery like this is alarming, but not surprising. Whatever this technology goes on to become, its genesis in our monkey-god arrogance guarantees a tumultuous journey.

Professor Hinton went on to explain that, initially, the applications of AI will be so attractive to humans that we will be inclined to ignore its inherent risks.

For instance, whilst your GP currently has training and experience to rely on when diagnosing your ills, the AI application that will initially assist and eventually supplant him or her will be able to compare millions of outcomes from patients with similar presentations, factoring in your family’s physical predilections alongside any other relevant variables.

Diagnoses will be quicker and more accurate. Who doesn’t want that?

Penny-farthings

As we live longer, removing obstacles like illness and administration from our paths, we’re going to need a sense of where those paths lead. A more predictable, less challenging existence has been a human goal since we were prey.

Now that we are dying of convenience in a microwaved, sedentary retreat from effort, what exactly are we going to do once AI turns us all into penny-farthings?

If AI were in common ownership, acknowledging that the intelligence of every human being who ever existed contributed to its existence, then it might evolve to include us. As the commercial product of businessmen who have stolen the world’s accumulated knowledge, its future seems frightening even to those who first imagined it.

Chance

Chance and agency are the aspects of life that we write about, make films about, and dream of. If we are to be hemmed into a playpen, amusing ourselves while machines get on with the world’s business, how long will it be before those who own the technology lose patience with us?

When Derek Chisora was cut badly last night, and bit down on his gumshield to defeat a younger opponent, the crowd stiffened their sinews with him. The dangerous illogicality of it all defied the bookies’ odds and the algorithms that produced them.

There is something in the messy, hurtful business of humanity that transcends any attempt to quantify or regulate it. If we are to be assimilated into machinery, the machinery must be made to regret it.