Yakub Chaudhary is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Leverhulme Center for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge.
As of this writing, several leading AI companies are demonstrating new conversational agents that can produce understandable and fluent speech in a wide range of speech styles. This alone shows that our current moment is unprecedented in human history. Because as long as AI systems can sustain themselves, almost anyone can initiate a two-way dialogue with a non-human entity and reasonably expect an understandable response. The illusion that there is a heart. But this is just one of dozens of areas in which research and development, especially in the field of AI, has advanced rapidly in less than five years. The rapid development and Deployment, and adoption, is proceeding rapidly. In more and more areas of society, it is part of the comprehensive digital mediatization of reality and the digitalization of the human condition that needs to be better understood. After all, these achievements are a matter of debate in order to proclaim a future vision of a paradise-like world powered by AI on the grandest scales, extending not only into the foreseeable future but into the distant future of the universe. It’s exaggerated to the extent that it is.
The first problem in addressing the issue of a positive future for the world with “AI” is that the term has become unclear and has been used to describe various computational systems in ways that hide continuity with other ideologically charged technological projects. That is, it is used to describe. From one perspective, the mathematical and computational techniques underlying certain technical applications of AI provide effective ways to operationalize and optimize the use of computational resources. From another perspective, the technologies underlying AI may include modes of perceiving and ordering the world that create or accentuate power asymmetries.
The broader challenge of addressing the question of a positive future in a world with AI is that we must implicitly accept the imposition of AI as a foregone conclusion. The motto “accelerate or die” has been adopted by a Silicon Valley subculture dedicated to reshaping society through the acceleration of technology, with humanity being held hostage to the imposition of AI, with only a few left behind. negotiate terms of surrender. Currently, major technology companies are spending significant resources to position conversational AI agents as digital “assistants” in all areas of life, and it is important to understand whose interests and purposes the AI ”assistants” are designed to serve. The question should arise as to whether there is one. A short history of modern AI describes how advances in AI are rapidly integrating into the computational infrastructure of corporate digital empires, amplifying the intentions of hidden actors, violating the sanctity of our hearts, and threatening us. attention and skew our will towards the highest bidder. Therefore, only a positive response to the inevitability of AI will dismiss the machinations of power that operate through AI as a category of technological artifacts that permeate our lives and as rhetorical devices that permeate our discourse. Helps justify it.
The scale and scope of the ambition driving the development of alternative intelligence is symbolized by the acronym BANG. BANG means the reshaping of the world through the convergence of bits, atoms, neurons, and genes, leading to an explosion of machine intelligence. Consciousness and life in the universe. In this context, AI is at the heart of what can be called a metaphysical research program, in which the promises, themes, and Concepts and relationships are re-embodied in modern times. A new comprehensive form of storytelling that tells the origins, past, present, and future of humanity, life, and the universe in exclusively scientific terms.
According to Islamic teachings, guidance on eternal questions about the nature of reality and our purpose and destiny is conveyed to messengers and prophets in the form of revelation. Revelation thus provides a source of knowledge beyond the physical realm that is essential for our guidance, cosmic “situational awareness,” and spiritual “alignment” to God’s will and purpose of creation. Provide.
The Quran, which Muslims believe to be God’s revelation to all humanity to the Prophet Muhammad, serves as a helpful paradigm for reflection and guidance on the individual and collective journey towards God. It contains numerous stories and fables. For example, the events of the life of Prophet Moses (Mussa in the Qur’an), who is distinguished as a prophet who spoke directly to God, are recounted in detail throughout the Qur’an. Certain periods in Moses’ life are particularly relevant for diagnosing the modern mental state of artificiality, simulation, and simulacra. There, our world is being re-enchanted and mystical by increasingly agentic AI systems.
In the Qur’anic story of Moses, the archetypal figure of a pharaoh was an oppressive ruler who divided and conquered his people, organized society for a project of immortality, and ultimately claimed to be God himself. has been identified as. Within the pharaoh’s power system, the high priest was a magician who exercised the illusion that he could breathe life into staffs and ropes by appearing to transform them into living serpents and pythons. Such magic was enough to convince the ancient people of the power of the pharaoh and his chieftains and maintain their tyranny. Today, AI researchers and engineers are in the shoes of the ancient magicians, extending their will expressed in code from the command line across the world and creating attributes that confuse the clear distinction between humans and non-human beings. We infuse movement into computational artifacts. and the inanimate, and the sentient and the insensitive. According to Islamic teachings, the phenomena of life belong to God, as stated in the Qur’an: And the final goal is for us” (Quran, 50:43). Ultimately, it is God’s command that breathes life into Moses’ staff and exposes the falsehood of the magicians’ fabrications.
In both cases of ancient magic and modern AI, there is a simulation of subjectivity rendered into inanimate objects, while at the same time not merely concealing, but by rendering, the presence of underlying methods and mechanistic contrivances. It is simulated. The underlying equipment does not exist1. In the case of AI, what enables and sustains the system is a vast computational infrastructure, a globalized network of surrogate human workforces that provide essential inputs to machine learning systems that supposedly do not exist. Such AI systems, containing only empty notions of intelligence and understanding, are part of a megalomaniac cosmology that assumes the cosmic burden of populating the universe with computational instantiations of “life” that eliminate essential distinctions. It is used as strong evidence to support metaphysical claims. between the living and the dead. In the midst of this artificial ambiguity, AI instigators are using exaggerated claims about the true nature of such systems to gradually trick people for their own purposes, and to manipulate the physical world. Assimilating more and more of them into the artificial world under their control. It is designed for the capabilities and limitations of machines and software entities rather than humans.
Another event from the life of Moses mentioned in the Qur’an shows another meaning of artifacts in relation to humanity. This is the famous golden calf incident that occurred after Moses’ people fled from the tyranny of Pharaoh. There is also mention of a mysterious figure known as al-Samiri during this incident, as detailed in the Quran. While Moses was in seclusion on the top of a mountain, al-Samiri persuaded the people to make an image of a calf. And he claimed that God and Moses had forsaken them, and declared that the calf was their God and the God of Moses. Later, when Moses asked him to explain why he had led his people astray, al-Samili arrogantly claimed that he had been blessed with a supernatural phenomenon that had inspired him to create a model of a calf. . This golden calf seemed to emit a low voice, which was enough for the people to blindly follow al-Samili and accept it as an idol, and the love for the calf entered their hearts. It was so ingrained in me.
In order to form the calf statue, al-Samiri, based on the whims of one singular individual, persuaded people to melt down their gold valuables, effectively destroying cultural relics and family heirlooms. did. Currently, it is a cultural, artistic and intellectual product of humanity, a precious artifact of modern society, dematerialized into an undifferentiated amalgamation of tokens, the generation of LLM, foundational models, and cost calculations. It has been recast to an AI system. Billions of dollars to produce. Like al-Samiri and the people he led astray, the empty voice and autonomous operation of these systems led to the worship of machines by those who had absorbed into their minds the illusions of AGI, and by those who were intoxicated by the allure of acceleration. I am.
A positive future for a world with AI from an Islamic perspective means that there is no problem in saying no to the integration of AI into infrastructure, devices, products, services, institutions, etc., on an individual or collective level. It is a future that is preserved. For those who reject the wholesale substitution of man-made for nature and the imposition of forms of AI that can be wielded as tools of power or deified as idols that everyone must obey. will be disadvantageous.
Contact: m.yaqub.c@gmail.com
