Everything Is F*cked

single game.
Read  that  again:  a  mere  nine  hours  after  learning  the  rules  to  chess,
AlphaZero played the best chess-playing entity in the world and did not drop
a single game out of one hundred. It was a result so unprecedented that people
still  don’t  know  what  to  make  of  it.  Human  grandmasters  marveled  at  the
creativity and ingenuity of AlphaZero. One, Peter Heine Nielsen, gushed, “I
always  wondered  how  it  would  be  if  a  superior  species  landed  on  earth  and
showed us how they play chess. I feel now I know.”
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When  AlphaZero  was  done  with  Stockfish,  it  didn’t  take  a  break.  Pfft,
please!  Breaks  are  for  frail  humans.  Instead,  as  soon  as  it  had  finished  with
Stockfish, AlphaZero began teaching itself the strategy game Shogi.
Shogi is often referred to as Japanese chess, but many argue that it’s more
complex  than  chess.
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 Whereas  Kasparov  lost  to  a  computer  in  1997,  top
Shogi  players  didn’t  begin  to  lose  to  computers  until  2013.  Either  way,
AlphaZero  destroyed  the  top  Shogi  software  (called  “Elmo”),  and  by  a
similarly astounding margin: in one hundred games, it won ninety, lost eight,
and  drew  two.  Once  again,  AlphaZero’s  computational  powers  were  far  less
than Elmo’s. (In this case, it could calculate forty thousand moves per second
compared  to  Elmo’s  thirty-five  million.)  And  once  again,  AlphaZero  hadn’t
even known how to play the game the previous day.
In  the  morning,  it  taught  itself  two  infinitely  complex  games.  And  by
sundown, it had dismantled the best-known competition on earth.
News flash: AI is coming. And while chess and Shogi are one thing, as soon
as  we  take  AI  out  of  the  board  games  and  start  putting  it  in  the  board
rooms . . . well, you and I and everyone else will probably find ourselves out
of a job.
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Already,  AI  programs  have  invented  their  own  languages  that  humans
can’t decipher, become more effective than doctors at diagnosing pneumonia,
and even written passable chapters of Harry Potter fan fiction.
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At the time of
this  writing,  we’re  on  the  cusp  of  having  self-driving  cars,  automated  legal
advice, and even computer-generated art and music.
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Slowly  but  surely,  AI  will  become  better  than  we  are  at  pretty  much
everything: medicine, engineering, construction, art, technological innovation.
You’ll watch movies created by AI, and discuss them on websites or mobile
platforms  built  by  AI,  moderated  by  AI,  and  it  might  even  turn  out  that  the
“person” you’ll argue with will be an AI.
But as crazy as that sounds, it’s just the beginning. Because here is where
the bananas will really hit the fan: the day an AI can write AI software better
than we can.
When that day comes, when an AI can essentially spawn better versions
of itself, at will, then buckle your seatbelt, amigo, because it’s going to be a
wild ride and we will no longer have control over where we’re going.
AI will reach a point where its intelligence outstrips ours by so much that
we  will  no  longer  comprehend  what  it’s  doing.  Cars  will  pick  us  up  for
reasons we don’t understand and take us to locations we didn’t know existed.
We  will  unexpectedly  receive  medications  for  health  issues  we  didn’t  know

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we  suffered  from.  It’s  possible  that  our  kids  will  switch  schools,  we  will
change  jobs,  economic  policies  will  abruptly  shift,  governments  will  rewrite
their constitutions—and none of us will comprehend the full reasons why. It
will  just  happen.  Our  Thinking  Brains  will  be  too  slow,  and  our  Feeling
Brains  too  erratic  and  dangerous.  Like  AlphaZero  inventing  chess  strategies
in  mere  hours  that  chess’s  greatest  minds  could  not  anticipate,  advanced  AI
could reorganize society and all our places within it in ways we can’t imagine.
Then, we will end up right back where we began: worshipping impossible
and  unknowable  forces  that  seemingly  control  our  fates.  Just  as  primitive
humans  prayed  to  their  gods  for  rain  and  flame—the  same  way  they  made
sacrifices,  offered  gifts,  devised  rituals,  and  altered  their  behavior  and
appearance to curry favor with the naturalistic gods—so will we. But instead
of the primitive gods, we will offer ourselves up to the AI gods.
We will develop  superstitions about the  algorithms. If you  wear this, the
algorithms  will  favor  you.  If  you  wake  at  a  certain  hour  and  say  the  right
thing and show up at the right place, the machines will bless you with great
fortune.  If  you  are  honest  and  you  don’t  hurt  others  and  you  take  care  of
yourself and your family, the AI gods will protect you.
The old gods will be replaced by the new gods: the algorithms. And in a
twist  of  evolutionary  irony,  the  same  science  that  killed  the  gods  of  old  will
have built the gods of new. There will be a great return to religiosity among
mankind.  And  our  religions  won’t  necessarily  be  so  different  from  the
religions  of  the  ancient  world—after  all,  our  psychology  is  fundamentally
evolved  to  deify  what  it  doesn’t  understand,  to  exalt  the  forces  that  help  or
harm  us,  to  construct  systems  of  values  around  our  experiences,  to  seek  out
conflict that generates hope.
Why would AI be any different?
Our  AI  gods  will  understand  this,  of  course.  And  either  they  will  find  a
way  to  “upgrade”  our  brains  out  of  our  primitive  psychological  need  for
continuous strife, or  they will simply  manufacture artificial strife  for us. We
will be like their pet dogs, convinced that we are protecting and fighting for
our territory at all costs but, in reality, merely peeing on an endless series of
digital fire hydrants.
This  may  frighten  you.  This  may  excite  you.  Either  way,  it  is  likely
inevitable.  Power  emerges  from  the  ability  to  manipulate  and  process
information, and we always end up worshipping whatever has the most power
over us.
So, allow me to say that I, for one, welcome our AI overlords.

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I know, that’s not the final religion you were hoping for. But that’s where
you went wrong: hoping.
Don’t  lament  the  loss  of  your  own  agency.  If  submitting  to  artificial
algorithms sounds awful, understand this: you already do. And you like it.
The algorithms already run much of our lives. The route you took to work
is based on an algorithm. Many of the friends you talked to this week? Those
conversations were based on an algorithm. The gift you bought your kid, the
amount of toilet paper that came in the deluxe pack, the fifty cents in savings
you  got  for  being  a  rewards  member  at  the  supermarket—all  the  result  of
algorithms.
We need these algorithms because they make our lives easier. And so will
the  algorithm  gods  of  the  near  future.  And  as  we  did  with  the  gods  of  the
ancient  world,  we  will  rejoice  in  and  give  thanks  to  them.  Indeed,  it  will  be
impossible  to  imagine  life  without  them.
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 These  algorithms  make  our  lives
better. They make our lives more efficient. They make us more efficient.
That’s why, as soon as we cross over, there’s no going back.