Are We Undoing Millennia of Social Evolution?

The real threat of AI and automation

Image created by Gemini

The mainstream scientific view is that empathy is an evolutionary trait. It is not hard to imagine that a lone human at any given time in human history had very poor odds of survival. Groups that had empathy and cooperated outperformed groups that did not. Groups filled with constant internal conflict and hostility did not survive.

The main factor in the evolution of empathy is the fact that no individual possessed every skill necessary for survival. Therefore, cooperation became advantageous. Helping others and keeping the group strong increased the chances of survival for everyone. Communities needed hunters, weavers, medicinal experts, builders, and tool makers. In modern times, there are even more diverse specialities which have made humans even more interdependent. Over thousands of generations, the capacity for empathy and cooperation has become one of the traits favoured by evolution.

Our world has been built by all humans since the days of cave dwellers. Someone thought of the needle to sew, someone noticed bird nests and made a basket, someone cut their hand with a rock and thought of a knife. In modern times, even though it may seem like one person invented something, that invention is still the result of many other small components and knowledge that had accumulated previously. Human civilization has always been a collective achievement. Through all of this, humans have always needed each other for everything.

What if that need is taken away?

Today, machines have already taken on many of the physical tasks. AI is now beginning to do the same to the intellectual ones. As robotics and artificial intelligence continue to mature, they will increasingly replace not only individual jobs but entire organizational functions. It is reasonable to think that one day machines will be performing much of the work humans depended on one another to do.

In addition to this, increasingly, AI is beginning to replace thought, advice, creativity, and even companionship. For the first time in history, machines are not only changing what humans do for one another, but also what they seek socially and emotionally from each other.

In that not-so-distant future, what our world will look like? More importantly, what will we each look like inside? What will happen if humans no longer depend on one another for everyday necessities of life?

Will we lose our empathy?

Will we lose our humanity?

What will happen to our social structure then?

Will future generations gradually become less empathic if it is no longer essential to daily living?

Will it matter?

This is not an argument against artificial intelligence. AI may improve healthcare, education, science, and countless aspects of our lives. The question is different. If technology changes the conditions under which empathy evolved, should we also be thinking about how to preserve the social bonds that made civilization possible?

Human societies have evolved naturally, imperfectly, but naturally. But if we are introducing artificial intelligence to the world, shouldn’t we also introduce artificial social engineering? Shouldn’t we deliberately engineer the social institutions that keep humans connected, cooperative, and compassionate?

Shouldn’t we be talking about this in parallel with the development of AI? Shouldn’t we talk about this before we talk about profits?

Note: This essay is part of my ongoing series, Reclaiming Humanity, reflections on dignity, meaning, technology, and the future of our shared world.