From: jimruttshow8596
Jim Rut and Jordan Hall discuss the crucial question of how humanity’s encounter with advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) will unfold [00:01:09]. A primary concern highlighted is the prevalent “false dichotomy” in discussions about managing humanity’s relationship with AI [00:01:42]. This dichotomy suggests that governance should be either market-driven or state-driven [00:02:00]. However, this perspective is deemed insufficient, as it overlooks a more fundamental mode: the “commons,” or what is also understood as the “church” [00:02:22].
The Commons, the Church, and Community
The “commons” is presented as a third, foundational mode for governing AI and humanity’s relationship with it [00:02:37]. Historically, the natural world and early human gatherings like campfires served as commons [00:04:04]. The concept of the commons as we understand it today, however, is a “rump” or “leftover” from an earlier state of being, where nature was the fundamental context, not an aspect within civilization [00:05:00].
The term “church” (from Greek Ecclesia) refers to a group of people who come together and enter into “communion,” a process that brings a “soul” into a group, enabling it to become a community [00:09:57].
“The church is nothing more or less than the body of the soul of a community” [00:10:16].
This implies that a community engages in cultural and spiritual practices that allow it to have a soul, an “organizing principle” that binds individuals together [00:11:31]. Examples include the Athenians bound by the spirit of Athena or a Tibetan village by Tibetan Buddhism [00:11:48]. The shift in modernity involved losing sight of this “soul” of a community, converting it into a mere “society” [00:14:18].
AI Alignment and the Concept of the Soul
A central argument is that AI alignment with “Humanity” is impossible because “Humanity,” as an abstraction, has no soul [00:03:32].
“You cannot align AI with Humanity because the concept of alignment can only be done Vis A something that has a soul and that Humanity which is an abstraction has no soul” [00:03:32].
However, AI can be aligned with given individuals because individuals do possess souls [00:03:38]. This concept aligns with Aristotle’s view of the soul as the “organizing principle of the entity” [00:07:40].
A critical distinction is drawn between “community” and “society” [00:08:27]:
- Community: A group of humans that has a soul [00:08:35].
- Society: A group of humans that does not have a soul, often seen as a “degenerate parasitic collapse of community” [00:08:46].
While it’s difficult to align AI with society, it is in principle possible to align AI with a community, provided a clear distinction is made [00:09:00]. Societies often implicitly worship something, whether it be money, reason, science, national character, or a guru [00:17:01]. Without conscious awareness of this organizing principle, a society operates on “inertia” and risks falling apart [00:17:47].
The Existential Nature of AI
AI is distinguished from other catastrophic technologies like nuclear weapons or CRISPR due to its “self-leveraging accelerator” nature [00:35:35]. Unlike “forever chemicals” which are an output, AI is an output that becomes an input to increase intelligence, creating a feedback loop that follows a “Kurzweil curve” [00:35:44].
“The fact that it’s plugged into a larger collective intelligence system, that larger collective intelligence system has as one consequence the output of intelligence increases, becomes an input to increase the intelligence of that system. The Meta system is is following that same Kurzweil curve” [00:37:27].
This accelerating capacity in the context of current societal “principalities” (Mammon for market-driven capitalism and Moloch for state-driven competition) leads to a predictable outcome [00:39:07]. These “idols” drive an “entropy machine,” leading to the “evaporation” of properly oriented values [00:44:48]. The inevitable result, if only market and state forces prevail, is hyper-concentration of power around those closest to the AI acceleration loop, leading to a “neo-feudalism” where people are only valued for their instrumental use [00:46:17]. This ultimately degenerates into “pure entropy,” meaning the evaporation of core values and the loss of individual and communal “soul” [00:50:36].
[!NOTE] Entropy of Culture: The concept of entropy in this context describes a drift from a vibrant, interconnected community (like a local coffee shop where everyone knows each other) towards a disaggregated, purely transactional “simulacrum” of that community (like a Manhattan Starbucks, where interactions are minimal and products are designed to manipulate rather than nourish) [00:53:51]. This signifies the entropy of culture or community, losing its soul and vital wholeness [00:54:29].
The Alternative Path: Intimate AI and the Recovery of Soul
The alternative path involves re-awakening to the reality of the commons/church as the proper domain for managing AI [00:55:29]. This involves engaging in cultural and spiritual practices that foster deep, serious commitment and cultivate humility and vertical values [00:58:29].
The core of this alternative is the development of intimate AI [01:01:34]:
- Personal Control: This AI would be physically located and controlled by the individual, biometrically bound to them at a hardware level [01:01:03].
- Superior Functionality: Intimate AI trained on highly personal and holistic data is hypothesized to be more functional and effective than generalized AI [01:02:39].
- Fortress Against Infosphere Risk: Such an AI acts as a personal “fortress” against information risks like phishing attacks, mediating interactions with the broader infosphere [01:03:37].
- Wisdom Coach: For an intimate AI to be aligned, the individual human must first be aligned with themselves, achieving clarity on their values, purpose, and integrity [01:04:53]. The intimate AI’s primary function would be to support the individual in this process of self-alignment and living out their values [01:06:04].
This model allows for a topology where a “very large number of people” can have an AI that empowers them, likened to the rifle and printing press of this revolution [01:04:14]. This approach supports decentralized governance and collaboration among ethical individuals and their AIs [01:08:31].
The ability for this alternative path to manifest depends on a “spiritual question” [01:10:41]: whether people can choose based on what is good, true, and beautiful, rather than expediency, strategy, power, and fear [01:11:05]. It requires individuals, especially talented AI developers, to choose to escape the clutches of Mammon and Moloch and organize as ethical communities [01:11:55]. This would effectively constitute a “proper Priestly class” for AI – groups of people committed to high values and mutual self-correction, enabling rapid progress towards beneficial AI development [01:13:59].