I wake up to my alarm, 1 hour and 13 minutes before sunrise (according to timeanddate.com). A month ago, the same alarm would wake me, but it was still light outside. I check the app attached to my exercise watch and it tells me that I’m “maintaining”. The app suggests that if I increase the variety or volume of exercise, I might become “productive”. I feel good because last week the app told me I was “detraining”. I go for a run which contributes to half of my daily 10,000 steps.
Part I: The Problem
I came across some interesting research recently:
In two studies (Study 1: 82 couples who smoke; Study 2: 117 couples who are inactive), days of more shared problematic behaviour were accompanied by higher daily closeness and relationship satisfaction.
These studies assessed some Swiss heterosexual couples who were either smokers or had physical inactivity problems. The couples were asked to diarise daily whether they indulged in their “problematic behaviour” together (either cigarette smoking or shared sedentary activity) and to rate their relationship satisfaction. Higher relationship satisfaction followed times of shared engagement in problematic activity.
So, smokers who smoked together felt happier with each other. Lazy-bones who lazed together felt closer.
Our Robot Competitors
Since writing an article about AI (with the help of ChatGPT) I’ve had quite a few conversations with friends and clients about whether their job would be better done by a robot (computer). Most people are aghast at the thought that we are making ourselves obsolete with the emergence of Artificial Intelligence.
I find that most people’s attitude to technology shows a strong status quo bias. That is, were okay with everything we do with technology and the internet right now, but we feel a revulsion toward a more cyborgian future. I find this interesting, because the things we are doing right now always enable and serve as justification for future change.
But most people, or at least most people I talk with, don’t believe that humans will make ourselves obsolete, because they believe that there is something intrinsically special about humans that robots won’t be able to match.
And maybe they’re right.
But it makes me think: What are computers better at doing that us? What are computers hopeless at? And what aspects of ourselves do we value?
The answer to the first question is things like linear reasoning, wholesale data analysis, some types of learning and making and persisting with rational self-interested decisions (Egoism).
The answer to the second question is all those aspects of humanity that are difficult to define or that we don’t yet understand.
The answer to the third question is that we increasingly value egoism, the very thing at which computers excel, and increasingly devalue those other, more mysterious or messy, aspects of our humanity.
Problematic Humanity
For most history, people have focused their innovative energies on addressing external problems. This is what I’ve described previously as facing the external enemy. If with think about our needs (as described by Maslow and others), we have become increasingly able to sort out the basics: food, shelter etc.
Now, we face the enemy within. Much of what people call “First World Problems” are actually this type of internal enemies. The problems that people come to psychologist with are these types of problems. Problems such as relationship difficulties, apathy, and fear of failure, emerge only once basic survival is taken care of.
In our environment of abundance and safety, we turn our problem-solving capacities to ourselves. This is why psychologists have jobs. We seek to extinguish our internal enemies, the way we rid ourselves of the external ones. Get rid of laziness, greed and indulgence, just like we got rid of food scarcity, wars, and diseases.
Once we get rid of these “problematic” parts of our personalities and psychologies, we will be free to live lives of perfect serenity.
So, what do we value within ourselves? We value egoism. What is the cost of this? Subjectively satisfying experiences and connection.
The problem with Problematising
The penny dropped for me after reading the aforementioned Swiss study.
It’s not just that our jobs will be better done by a robot, it that our lives would be better lived by a robot. Our culture encourages us to feel that the deficits in our existence are the parts of us that are the messiest, most indulgent, most succulent.
Imagine framing the findings of the Swiss study in the opposite way. The study could equally have centred their narrative around failure to indulge together being a serious impediment to relationship closeness. What if the heading was:
Relationships at Risk: Failure to Have Fun Fragmenting Families
This isn’t just a joke by the way, relationship research royalty, John Gottman (in his book The 7 Principles for Making Marriage Work), explains that conflict resolution and avoidance of negative experience is a relationship red herring. Rather than working on avoiding relationship difficulties, according to Gottman, we should be maximising positive experiences together. In fact, we should be having at least 5:1 ratio of positives to negatives. Hand me those cigarettes…
What does all this reveal about us?
Now, computers and algorithms have nowhere near matched human capacities. But, in our ability to synthesise input from multiple organs and maintain homeostasis, we humans are unparalleled. We are good at so many things, machines usually wig out when asked to perform more than just a few functions. And we’re not even close to understanding the basics of how the brain/nervous system creates subjective experience.
But computers and algorithms have surpassed us in one key human domain: making and sticking to rational self-interested choices.
And this is the one thing that our culture encourages us to focus on. To be more machine-like, even as we create machines that have already far-exceeded our machine-like abilities:
I wake up to a clock. I eat what science tells me. I exercise and track my exercise. I try to make sure that my work is done consistently well. I try to make sure my bank balance goes up and not down.
I feel frustrated and anxious when any of these things does not go to plan. Sometimes these emotions hamper my ability to stick to the plan. I feel angry with myself when this happens and accuse myself of self-sabotage.
So, what on earth am I good for, now that a machine can live my life better than me?