Part I | Introduction
On November 30, 2022, the world underwent a silent revolution, what may with time be described as a techno-cultural revolution coinciding with the release of ChatGPT, a publicly available Artificial Intelligence (AI) that had a simple to use interface and barrier-free aside from an Internet connection and unrestricted access to the chat GPT URL. OpenAI, the parent company had released a tool that will lead to a revolution in every industry—a tidal wave that will sweep across humanities most complex human creation to date the global connected economy. Everything we know will be consumed by this wave and emerge different, much will emerge brighter, stronger and mor powerful than every, but like every revolution before some will be the unassuming and innocent bystanders swept away in the wave, left in even greater poverty and disparate conditions with the disparity even more pronounced than before. The topic of this discussion centres not on the wave that has already hit, but on the aftermath of this wave upon the cultural/intellectual paradigm of our time and how this leads to shifts in the ethical frameworks as well as human rights and civil liberties. These four concepts have a deep seeded interplay, and a small shift upstream can lead to drastic changes downstream, the immense tidal wave of AI however is no mere shift, it is a re-establishing of the status quo.
Part II | A Common Ground to Further Discuss the Ground-Breaking Shift
To begin this conversation, it is critical to establish a common working definition for the primary terms of discussion. At the outset, this paper does not seek to redefine these terms or add some intricate nuance to them, but to examine the impacts AI’s public release is having on them. For this reason, the working definitions presented here are sought to be as broad and encompassing as possible to facilitate greater engagement and understanding of the topic at large without isolating definition purists or siloing this discussion within a narrow context. Finally, I would like to offer a framework for these definitions, one in which they interconnect and impact on one can be seen to impact the others. Specifically, a framework of hierarchal impact. The cultural/intellectual paradigm impacts a cultures ethics, which then impacts a culture understanding of human rights culminating in civil liberties built to protect the rights and freedoms of a governed population.
Cultural/Intellectual Paradigm |
The cultural/intellectual paradigm for the sake of this paper will be defined as a set of shared beliefs, values, assumptions, and methods that define a particular field of inquiry or cultural context. A paradigm provides a framework for understanding and interpreting the world, shaping how people think about, communicate, and approach various issues and questions. A paradigm is not fixed or permanent but can shift and evolve over time in response to new information, changing social and cultural contexts, and other factors.
A paradigm shift can involve a fundamental change in the way people think about and approach a particular issue or field of inquiry, often leading to new theories, concepts, and methods.
I place this topic at the top of the hierarchy because to think about the concept of freedom, it relies on communication and language—what does freedom mean, what words can we use to describe it and what standards do we have for defining a valid or invalid argument about freedom.
It therefore is important to define the currently albeit evolving paradigm of our time ‘post-modernity’ which emerged in the 1970s and is the prevailing paradigm. Post-modernity is the evolution of modernity but defined by its stark contrast to perceived limitations and failures imbued within modernity. It can loosely be defined as the rejection of grand narratives or overarching explanations of reality with an emphasis on fragmentation, contingency, and the subjectivity of experience.
Postmodernism often emphasizes the importance of individual perspectives and diverse cultural identities, as well as the construction and deconstruction of social and cultural norms. It is often associated with a high degree of skepticism towards universal claims and a preference for local and situated knowledge.
Ethics |
The working definition that will be used defines ethics as a set of moral principles and values that guide human behaviour and decision-making. This definition sees ethics as a system of rules or principles that determine what is right and wrong, good and bad, or just and unjust.
This term is secondary in the hierarchy since it is subservient to moral principles and values, as well as intellectual and cultural influences on these. It is also imperative to note that the set of moral and values are the conclusion that results from the application of a specific ethical framework to a particular topic. A sample of these frameworks include utilitarian ethics, deontology, virtue ethics, feminist ethics, and care ethics amongst others.
Picking up on morals, they will not be directly discussed here, it is imperative to note however, that ethics and morals are separately defined in this paper. While the prevailing post-modern paradigm would seek to equate these terms, I would argue that given the unfixed and evolving nature of said paradigm the definitions are separate and while they may oscillate between being synonymous and not, they are different concepts. For the sake of clarification on this point, morality would be defined here as a set of principles and values that guide individuals and societies in making judgments about right and wrong behavior. It encompasses beliefs about what is good, just, fair, and ethical, and it provides a framework for individuals to make decisions and take actions based on these beliefs. In this sense morality is an imbued sense of judgemental discernment and action based on an intangible deep-seeded internal understanding and rationalization of mental stimuli (physical or other) applying a judgement upon it on a spectrum from good to bad. This judgemental process may be informed by personal, social, religious, cultural or other influences enveloped intentionally or passively because of mere existence in a complex reality.
Human Rights |
Defined here as a set of fundamental rights and freedoms that belong to every person simply by virtue of being human. Human rights can be considered universal and inalienable, meaning they cannot be
taken away or denied by any government, individual, institution, or power. Common rights include the right to life, liberty, security of person; the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; the right to work and education; the right to participate in political and cultural life; the right to equality and non- discrimination.
Of course, human rights can be placed above ethics and even the intellectual paradigm as perhaps human rights ought to inform how we think, speak and apply moral principles, but, it is evident this is not the case, human rights are established, agreed upon and codified by prevailing global powers—but it is not universal nor is it universally agreed upon. For this reason and in this context of discussing AI, it must be subservient to ethics which define right and wrong and from these determinations of what is right—human rights can commence.
Civil Liberty |
Defined in this paper as the basic rights and freedoms that are protected from government interference or abuse, and which are guaranteed to every individual by law. These are commonly associated with the protection of individual freedoms in democratic societies and are considered essential to ideal and proper functioning of a free and open society.
Some common examples of civil liberties include the freedom of speech, religion, freedom of the press, freedom to access due process of the law, freedom to privacy, and freedom to assemble and protest as commonly understood examples. These rights are typically protected by constitutional provisions and enforced by judicial systems.
This is placed last in the hierarchy as it is evident under this definition that there are numerous human rights and ethical principles and intellectual/cultural paradigms necessary to establish civil liberties. One look at the list of common examples above and it becomes clear there is not universality to them, a country such as Iran will have significantly different civil liberties to that of Canada. But, looking at different sovereign nations like that of Canada and the civil liberties are starkly different, for example in the United States of America it is a civil liberty to bear arms, whereas this is not considered a civil liberty within Canada. The framework that leads to these different civil liberties in neighbouring and in many categories similar countries is the necessary evidence to place civil liberty at the bottom of the hierarchy. This is to say that any intellectual/cultural paradigm shift, change in ethics or a status change in human rights will impact a civil liberty, whereas the inverse cannot be stated, a sovereign country such as Uganda passing the Anti-homosexuality bill which states what is/is not a civil liberty, does not in fact determine whether being homosexual or discussing the topic is a human right, or whether homosexuality is right or wrong, it certainly does not impact the intellectual/cultural paradigm through altering the interpretation or understanding of reality at large. In many ways the establishment of this counter-progressive law is evidence of a prevailing intellectual paradigm which as defined by post- modernity allows for a skepticism towards the universal claims made by many other countries condemning the bill and supports the notion of a preference for local and situated knowledge.
Part III | The Emergence of Post-Modern Tribalism and the Pantheon of AI-gods
Over the course of the next two sections, I will seek to explore the current status quo, defined by a cultural movement as well as the emergence of AI technology, necessary background, the current state of AI and likely progress of AI in the next five-years based on current research and development in the space.
An important caveat regarding the scale and scope of this paper, is that I will be addressing and looking primarily at North American culture, as North American culture is highly commoditized, exported and plays a large role in influencing the rest of the world. This large claim that is not inherently within the scope of discussion here can be supported by five different areas of inarguable global influence.
Hollywood and the entertainment industry, technology and innovation (Apple, Google, Amazon, etc.), Fast food/fashion consumer culture (McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Nike, Levi’s, etc.), music and art including many of the leading artists around the world is an immense source of export to the global pop culture market and lastly geo-political influence through trade, conflict mediation/engagement and an expansive foreign policy and exportation of democracy to various sovereign states around the globe. Ironically, all of these are the product of a cultural/intellectual paradigm which influences every aspect of society in the hierarchy previously established all the way to civil liberties and establishment of a democratic and open society. While this discussion will centre on North American culture, I believe it is merely a harbinger at best for the global paradigm and therefore timely to discuss and sufficient in scope.
Emergence of Post-modern Tribalism |
The paradigm shift discussed here is highly complex and still a matter of discussion amongst scholars and professors and people at-large. However, what is clear merely by looking at various topics that dominate the news cycle is that the hallmark principle of post-modernism as previously described no longer accurately describe North American society or intellectual thought. That is, “the importance of individual perspectives and diverse cultural identities, […] often associated with a high degree of skepticism towards universal claims and a preference for local and situated knowledge” is not the way in which society operates. While there are numerous examples to demonstrate this such as the political division within both the Canadian and United States often referenced to as “identity politics” which while rooted in social equitable aims has become a source of political divide and dissension. The most important movement came in the 2010s as a by-product of the #MeToo movement— “cancel culture”. Cancel culture was born as the primary mechanisms in which justice could be carried out by culture in a retaliatory manner upon accused (and later many of which were convicted by the justice system) individuals who had preyed upon others (most often in a sexual nature) leveraging their power and influence to silence their victims for years. “The #MeToo movement highlighted a pervasive practice that had both victimized thousands of individuals but gone unpunished and hidden for years and in some cases decades. What was striking about this movement, however, was that it spread like wildfire through social media, as it became clear this was not simply a Hollywood and celebrity crisis but a cultural cancer affecting far more people than can be described. Strikingly however, the movement reached the local context, where it was no longer just high-profile celebrities being accused, but also family members, neighbours and social connections. While the justice system was applied publicly to the celebrities, it seemed many of the more ‘every-day’ victims would not see justice. Even with celebrities going to court, what was a million dollars in reparations to victims out of their tens to hundreds of millions—where was the justice.
This led to the grassroots movement to achieve social justice where it was felt the justice system had failed or was incapable of applying a fair penalty upon the perpetrators. This led to cancel-culture, a movement where accused celebrities or individuals at-large would be boycotted in every way possible by the largest number of people possible. The ‘cancels’ went viral, and there was mass vigilantism as people rallied behind the victims and sought vengeance on their behalf. People would be deleted, blocked or unfollowed from social media accounts, slandered, turned into hashtags, their promotions or products would be boycotted, and in many ways it tip-toed on online bullying. But this was not an issue, because as a culture (specifically those on social media) it was decided that their actions were intolerable, and they should have no platform, friends, or connections as atonement for their wrongdoing.
However, cancel culture turned out to be a highly empowering tool, that seemed to in many ways bring post modernity to a natural conclusion. People had the power to effect justice as they saw fit, fragmenting the societal hierarchy of justice being held in the grip of a gavel. As celebrities (by far and large, male Hollywood elites) fell from grace nearly weekly. Wrongs were made right, hidden villains were brought to light and erased from Hollywood, the industry got on board and viewed the once A- listers as pariahs—what was the last movie you say Kevin Spacey as the lead?
But, this empowering tool, quickly became a tool that all could wield, and what went from a ethically upright and near universal agreement on benevolent action became a dividing power. Much like in Europe where a ruler would seek to coup the monarchy, a race would ensue to rally their allies behind their banner and go to war. Suddenly every issue, politically charged topic controversial/ ethical dilemma became a war of ideals. Conversation became vitriol, debate became grandstanding, and the need for a gavel to determine right and wrong for a population was fully dissolved. Of course, this was only made possible through the framework of post-modernism which saw truth made relative and deconstruction of grand narrative or absolute truth. “My truth” and “your truth” were in theory equally valid regardless of their conclusions being in direct disagreement. This is the very reality discussed in 1984, when “1+1=3” while simultaneously “1+1=2”. Suddenly what was a disagreement whose very existence required discussion and resolution was a medieval call to arms, to gather numbers behind one’s banner and win a war. There was no longer any need to submit to another truth unless the public opinion was far too strongly weighted against a position, then the inevitable cancellation would occur, as organizations, individuals and entire ideologies were canceled from social acceptance and existence. The adherers to a cancelled subject needed to suppress their truth, for while post modernity clearly identified all truths as equal, the adherer of a cancelled subject however believed the publicly unacceptable truth—valid but unworthy of being socially accepted. This logic led to an arms race as each position sought influencers to turn the public tide of opinion and win the day, not in courts or legislature but in social media likes and shares.
In this context, an influencer can be defined as a person with a significant following on social media platforms or other online channels which enable them to affect the opinions, behaviors, and even purchasing decisions of their audience. Influencers can be individuals, celebrities, bloggers, or other types of content creators who are perceived as experts in a particular niche or industry. They typically use their platforms to share their personal experiences, opinions, and recommendations on products, services, or lifestyle choices.
It is this very progression that catalyzed the emergence of post-modern tribalism. In a culture of relative truth, having the most recognized and outspoken influencers become critical in making headway. This
saw a swath of influencers joining campaigns and having an impact on the discussion, as Miley Cyrus partnered with Planned Parenthood to promote her new music along with the pro-choice messaging, or Nicki Minaj’ anti-covid vaccination stance that was a poignant talking point of the 2021 Met Gala. Well articulated dissidents commenting and engaging with content for the purpose of dialogue were being cancelled through the blocking of social media accounts, gang mentality cyber bullying and social credit being challenged. With such power the question must be raised, whether the substance or the voice of a message are more important. The internal consistency was irrelevant, and ethical decision-making, moral quandaries and human rights suddenly were up for debate without any connection between the two, no grand narrative needed to be formed. In this way the ethic of bodily autonomy was the highest value in one instance whereas in another this was superseded by the ethic of “non-maleficence”.
Decision-making became more akin to “build a bear” where every controversial topic, ethical dilemma, or societal discussion, was taken in isolation, irrespective of others, because no grand narrative of any sort needed to bring about an internal consistency within beliefs and ideologies.
This coincided with the rise of “fake news” a term coined by then-presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and later re-coined as misinformation. This was enveloped by cancel culture within half a decade and it became frequent for groups to cancel various news networks, whether it was the liberal media, the radical conservative propaganda, the mainstream media, the alternative media, etc. Labels became happenstance, and echo chambers began forming on every level, as dissident perspectives were cancelled, algorithms prioritized the media according to preference and the world became a lot clearer. All truth was equal, but there is a small remnant of backwards thinkers stuck in the past who have intolerable views that can be declared as wrong.
This tumultuous time of the mid to late 2010s was the needed chaos for a new stability to arise in the form of influencers. The power of influencers and emergence of the industry suddenly removed the need to come across topics of public discussion, ethical dilemmas of public relevance, or relevant controversial topics or stories by happenstance and path together a perspective and form one’s own truth, now there were influencers who could not only bring the topics of relevance to their attention, but also inform their opinions. Other followers that were a part of the influencer’s tribe formed the arguments, and this would attract the dissident voices that would be allowed to share an alternative perspective for the tribe to band together and form arguments against and in the case a sound justification could not be found, moderators of the channel/post/comments would simply cancel the dissident. In this way tribes began to emerge, each with a figurehead of god-like status. There was the tribe of Joe Rogan, Miley Cyrus, Kylie Jenner, Jordan Peterson, Donald Trump, Candance Owens, Colin Kaepernick, etc. and while the tribes intermingled and many people would be a part of numerous tribes, the awareness and willingness to coexist with dissident perspectives shrunk, and people began to believe a dilemma was no longer a dilemma or controversy was no longer a controversy because the dissident voices faded out amongst the chants of ones own tribes and the enemy became the figure- heads of other tribes which were the central focus and outlet for tribal angst and frustration.
It was in this way that a case can be made that the cultural and intellectual paradigm shifted to post modern tribalism that could be defined as tendency of individuals to form and identify with groups based on shared cultural, social, or political values or beliefs, rather than traditional affiliations such as family, religion, or nationality. In postmodern tribalism, groups are often formed around niche interests or identities, and may be transnational or virtual rather than geographically based. This tribalism is characterized by a rejection of grand narratives and a preference for subjective, individualistic
perspectives, leading to a fragmentation of identity and a lack of a shared sense of social order. It can also lead to the creation of echo chambers, where individuals seek out information and perspectives that reinforce their own worldview and dismiss those that challenge it forming an echo chamber of ideas and beliefs coming to the belief that they are more widely accepted and less controversial than otherwise may be. Post modern tribalism is also defined by the emergence of influential voices around which groups often form. These influential persons often arbitrate truths to their followers which is followed with less deliberation, consideration or thought than otherwise might be in isolation of the group which applies traditional social pressures as well as holds the understood threat of cancelation for dissident perspectives.
The Pantheon of AI -gods |
Some groundwork is needed for the remainder of the discussion on AI, specifically how AI’s are made and what they inherently are, as well as how they differ from existing technologies such as Search Engines such as Google.
An AI stack is a term referring to the tools, frameworks and libraries of data that are used to build out an AI that can complete a given function. This includes the hardware to store the vast amounts of data that are needed to train the AI, the Reprocessing of data (whether it is text, images, numerical data, etc.) to sanitize and normalize the data for training, application of machine learning frameworks (complex algorithms, neural networks, etc.) which actually processes the data with the aid of a technician to guide and check the learning, model deployment (how the AI is communicated with) and application development (the user interface that the end user such as yourself interacts with. This broad stroke summary encapsulates the general process by which all AIs are built. Every AI has a unique stack, which results in a unique output from an AI for each prompt. To remove the jargon from this statement, each AI will give a different response to the same question, depending on what data it was trained with, how much data it was trained with and how the data was taught to the AI.
This raises the most pressing issue surrounding AI in the current discussion—what is the bias of an AI and can we be aware of when the bias is present?
A slight aside is needed to discuss and differentiate AI from the technologies it has superseded. The first Internet search engine came on the scene in 1990, and since then there has been many different companies developing new algorithms each with their own strengths. The most well-known search engine is Google or Baidu (depending on the location of the world you live in), these search engines leverage algorithms that take a questions/input you give it and search the Internet for relevant content that may answer the question. The search engine then rates the content according to relevance, paid advertisements, etc. and shows you the results. The end user is then faced with the task of sifting through the many (sometimes millions) of results to conclude on the topic according to their own values and decisions. This is the ultimate tool of a post-modern society, nearly all human knowledge on a topic is available with a simple search. The results shown are the epitome of the relativity of truth and
“…skepticism towards universal claims [with] a preference for local and situated knowledge.” Evidenced through a very common experience where equally as supported yet irreconcilable and contradictory conclusions are presented. To exemplify this point but not berate it, one needs look no further than the vitriolic dissenting perspectives on the COVID-19 vaccination, whether it was safe, whether it was linked to complications, whether it was effective. One search on vaccine safety in Canada brings up information that supports the reality and prevalence of vaccine injury from a scholarly supported forum known as
the Canada Covid Care Alliance, while the same exact search states that while there have been hundreds of claims, only 5 of them have been approved-pointing to a relatively safe and low injury rate. Two widely different conclusions to the same question. The bias lies within the user, who do they perceive as most trustworthy and informed, what do they believe is truth?
AI is different, it is designed with a different purpose and far different capabilities, but one of the capabilities is to ask a question that you would have asked Google six months ago. However, unlike a search engine which produces all the results for the user to make a determination on truth with, AI provides an answer—in effect providing a truth. The user can reject it and disagree based on a feeling or previous knowledge, but in many cases when a feeling is not present, or one does not have previous knowledge to draw from the answer comes across as truth—it is as if god has spoken. But the problem arises when one applies the prior concern of bias into this discussion in which we ask, if someone takes an AI’s response as truth with no real means or perhaps even reason to be skeptical or question its validity then they have accepted a reality that is not objectively true. As discussed earlier, every AI would produce a slightly different response to the same question, some would be very different and dissenting of popular opinion, some would provide different evidence or support, but each piece is only a relative truth—true to the data the AI was supported with, the sanitization of the data and the instructor working at guiding and teaching the AI.
If we accept that AI is biased and only able to provide a relative truth, and we accept that many people will be unaware of the bias on a given topic, but that some individuals who are “…perceived as experts in a particular niche or industry…” are able to determine the internal bias, can we reasonably expect that as AI becomes increasingly popular and used by a growing number of people, that influencers could affect the opinions and choices individuals make in choosing their primary AI? Is it reasonable or even prudent to assume that the post-modern tribes previously discussed will congregate behind the
‘preferred’ AI that is arbiter and generator of truth to any question for the tribe? In this model, we are witnessing the emergence of tribes of people rallied behind a charismatic influential leader who like a priest directs their tribe towards a single or perhaps even multiple true AI’s that fill the role of an all- knowing, all-powerful, and all-present god. In a world where dozens of AI’s emerge, for all sorts of tasks, and with different inherent biases, a pantheon of AI’s begins to be seen and with-it the potential mass conversion of entire tribes to a specific AI-god becomes inevitable. An AI that produces the “wrong” answer for a specific topic is simply cancelled, and an AI with the “right” answer is adopted as a god of the tribe. Meanwhile, all other responses from the AI of less importance/immediate relevance undergo less scrutiny—the bias of that AI permeates through the tribe as results are blindly adopted in every other answer given.
Part IV | Ethics, Human Rights, and Civil Liberty in the Presence of AI-gods
Having now established the concept of an AI-god in the context of a post-modern tribe, the remainder of the discussion will focus in on the impact of this emerging technology on ethics, perception of human rights and the impact as well as role of civil liberties in this discussion. This discussion will be centred on a likely albeit completely unpredictable future based on the current status quo that exists surrounding the discussion of these topics as well as AI at large within the dynamic of a post-modern tribalist society. This will also be looked at from a down stream approach, as we have seen already how AI will play into
the cultural/intellectual paradigm, we will first examine possible impacts on ethics, leading to a discussion on how this could likely impact the discussions around human rights and lastly civil liberties.
Ethics |
Ethics as a set of moral principle and values that guide behaviour and decision-making are far more dynamic and evolving than ever before—firstly as new information and technology become available, the need to apply ethics grows, and previously held ethical positions by an individual may in fact be challenged or non-transferable to a new situation. Further, post-modernity implies that each situation ought to be taken in isolation, and that building a grand narrative of understanding and consistency is not the goal nor even admirable. Rather, each situation as it arises or comes to the public attention must be viewed in isolation.
The challenge with this, is that AI does not view ethics in such a way, AI does not feel, it learns information and produces a response to a question/stimulus drawing from the information—no emotion, simply a complex mixture of previously determined information. The dichotomy here between how ethical dilemmas might be approached by a post-modern individual, (tribal or not) and how AI applies a learned ethical framework to a question is stark. As AI becomes a greater crutch for decision- making and removes the need to do cumbersome thought experiments and research to develop a sound opinion (synthesizing many sources of data and ultimately selecting which are more right/wrong) the grand narrative begins to re-emerge. Much like traditional religions of human history, where a monotheistic or polytheistic pantheon were the arbiters of truth to a population incapable of knowing and controlling the world around them and hold chaos at bay. Now AI can be used to solve complex problems, brainstorm immense global solutions to crises or even natural disasters. With the correct prompts, ChatGPT will offer a step-by-step solution to eradicating tornadoes using advanced science, terraforming and alteration of human behaviour—much like it was believed building pyramids and offering sacrifices would appease the gods and prevent natural disasters, ChatGPT offers a guide to solving a problem if a large enough population is willing to submit to its authority.
Ethics becomes less and less happenstance, as ChatGPT offers greater context, and background for forming a decision, and when public cancellation is a risk, the need to have the ‘right’ view for one’s tribe becomes easier when an AI-god produces the correct answer.
Herein lies the issue, ethics is no longer a discussion of public domain, but the playground of AI trainers and AI itself (as AI grows it can learn from itself as well as other AIs). As tribes adopt an AI, they are subject to the grand narrative that it forms, and while their ethics feel like a freely chosen and adopted framework, they are in fact the resultant output of a biased AI. Evidence of this can be seen in engaging with an AI in an ethical discourse, you may compare two somewhat controversial topics and engage in a back-and-forth discussion with an AI, such as “what is the ethical difference between a physician that performs Medical Assistance in Death (MAiD) and the executioner charged with the fulfilment of a capital punishment order.” Through much discourse the AI may take a strikingly different stance on the two issues, to the point of arguing in circles for the position it holds, however when dissecting the ethical framework being applied to each of the situations it may emerge that the AI is applying one framework to the physician and another to the executioner. This points to a problematic reality of AI, where it decides on the ethics of a situation, but unable to apply the same framework to another dilemma. This is not a natural consequence of AI, rather it is a trained characteristic and intrinsic bias of the AI. The firm
that built the AI may have a bias towards being pro-MAiD, yet anti-capitol punishment and this would be reflected in the training and from that point onwards the AIs responses.
Ethics is no longer the accumulation of an individuals set of moral beliefs and values, but the resultant position based on social networks that attach an individual to a tribe. Long before the individual has decided or explored the nuance of a situation their inevitable conclusion has already been chosen not by experience, cognitive applications and communal discussion but through social attachments, exposure to influencers and quite possibly by an acute topic of discussion that drives an individual into a tribe.
To use a recent and strongly dividing topic—the recent ruling of the United States Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization which effectively overturned the previous ruling of the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade in effect making legality of abortion a state-by-state decision removing a federal stance and civil liberty on the topic of abortion. This saw great divide across North American, in both Canada and the United States as the banner of pro-life and pro-choice movements arose and there was little to no room in between these mega-tribes (here defined as an overarching tribe that draws members from numerous other smaller tribes under a single often binary topic). As the war lines were drawn each position felt equally justified in their cause and produced equal vitriol. Cancel culture continued as people were deleted and erased from others lives for having a dissenting opinion or perhaps just not a strong enough opinion. In this instance, a civil liberty debate resulted in many discussions about human rights, which led to ethical debate. I use this example as it provides a clear and recent example of a culture defining discussion due to the widespread public engagement with it to discuss the role of an AI-god in a future scenario similar to this.
Should this topic have arisen in three years from now (post public launch of freely accessible AI and perhaps after the release of a few competitors to ChatGPT with differing bias’s) a likely account of the events may be something as follows. Influencers on all the social media platforms get wind of the massive decision looming and begin raising awareness of the issue to the general public (they find out through their agents, marketing team and other resources dedicated to controlling the narrative online and maintaining relevance in the social discussion). This awareness then leads to an individual going to their go-to AI and asking a question about the upcoming ruling. The AI will produce a well articulated and convincing stance based upon its internal bias (it may present a dissenting perspective, but it will evidently be much less convincing and perhaps be quite flawed or misrepresentative of the dissenting mega-tribes’ position). Perhaps the binary perspective offered does not align with the influencer’s outspoken endorsements and comments on the topic, and the tribes’ internal chats are already becoming toxic and antagonistic towards the position of the AI this particular individual used. With a little research it becomes clear that the Influencer endorses a particular AI, and when the individual inputs the same question the response aligns with their tribes already evident position. The individual determines that the AI used in the first case is ‘inferior’, ‘less educated’, ‘biased’, ‘bought out’, etc. and decides to both cancel that AI, and adopt the new AI as their default AI. They have now converted to the tribes AI-god and moving forward will go to the AI-god for everyday questions and tasks. Every time a major issue or topic of social discussion arises the response from the AI produces the ‘right’ responses building trust the individual places in it, and their faith in its results on other ‘casual’ topics.
In this way, a single large social debate results in the solid adoption of an AI-god that now has the position to speak truth into the persons life through any question or task they leverage AI for. This leads to the inevitable reality that AI will become common place, already the discussions are swirling about
the number of jobs that will be replaced by AI, and he need to adopt AI into the jobs that are not lost to AI. This is of critical importance in this discussion, as AI is far more than a search engine offering answers to questions, it is a tool that can do tasks that it is asked, from generating art, scripts, essays, code, instructions, mathematical proofs, etc. AI’s integration into society is evident at this point, however with its integration also comes its ethical biases which is hard if not impossible to detect in everyday tasks— yet it has an impact on the resultant work, and the direction of society. If the AI applies a feminist ethical framework to a task, the results will be different than applying a utilitarian, or deontological framework. The role of the individual to apply their own morals and values to a task is replaced by the AIs and with-it culture begins to be shaped by an AI-gods ethics, more ontologically by the predominant tribes of a society. This will give preference to local and situated tribal preferences.
What this seems to imply is that ethics seems to move away from an ongoing process of decision making and developing one’s morals/value framework to a single decision about one’s preferred in- group/community/tribe. What influencer has the most influence on an individual in a moment where a cultural binary decision must be made. A single or handful of these discussions become the groundwork for adopting an AI-god and at best throughout numerous situations one can break free from their tribe in the face of enlightenment and convert to a new tribe and submit to their local AI-god.
Human Rights |
The discussion coming from ethics plays right into the discussion and outlook of human right moving into the future. Human rights though defined by the United Nations (UN) as “…rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status. Human rights include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education, and many more. Everyone is entitled to these rights, without discrimination.” The actual implementation, practicality and accountability of these rights being upheld is at best a utopic thought. In reality, slavery, torture, suppression of expression and opinion and barriers to education exist for a majority of the world already. It becomes clear then that the human rights were proposed by a country whose ethics valued these rights and viewed them as inalienable from one’s personhood. However, discussions swirl around whether abortion constitutes a breach to such a human right as humanhood itself is far from agreed upon. Looking at other countries that implement caste systems, or implementing sharia law, viewing all humans as equal is already a far stretch.
All these complications point to the impact ethics has on human rights. If a group believes strongly enough in “a set of moral principles and values that guide human behaviour and decision-making” then they will come to view the outcome of that ethic as a human right. For instance, at one point a group believed so strongly in the right to freedom of opinion and expression, that it was proposed as the 19th article of the Universal declaration of human rights established by the UN. However, a group within the UN believed so strongly in this right established that they took the right a step further declaring in 2018 “the same human rights that people have offline must be protected online”. This established human right was then extended to protect online actions and experience due to the ethic being so strongly held.
Taking this into the realm of the discussion of post-modern tribalism and AI-gods, we have already established the possibility of a near future where ethics is ultimately held and passed down by a tribes AI, this ultimately leads to what a tribe views as a human right. To continue the example used in the previous section, as vitriolic discussions continue and civil liberties are established by a judicial and legislative bodies, tribes will begin to question the very premise of these civil liberties. One does not
challenge a state/deferral/provincial law because they do not like the wording of a civil liberty, they challenge it because it is not representative of their view of a human right or ethical principle. It is in this way, that tribes whose ethics handed to them from their AI-god will begin to question the very rights we view as sacred. If cancelling is acceptable, is the value that all humans are equal true? Or should rights be extended only to ‘good’ or ‘morally right’ people? To push this even further, in the instance of a pro- choice, pro-life discussion, there is a fundamental disagreement on a human right. To a pro-choice group the belief is that abortion does not impede on a human right, while a pro-life stance would be that it does in fact impede on a human’s rights. This discrepancy immediately calls into question the very foundation and value of a declaration of human rights. For often they are unenforceable in countries where the human right is in direct conflict with “local and situated knowledge.” Plus, the very existence of a human right begins to rub and create friction with the rejection of universal claims and grand narratives. This becomes exacerbated further when two human rights come into conflict with each other. The point made earlier about the pro-choice and pro-life stances was certainly underrepresenting the complexity of the discussion, a pro-life stance would invoke a few articles from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the support of their stance, one such article may be “Article 3: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” Of course, we established the potential first disagreement on the personhood of the fetus, but a pro-choice stance may also point to Article 3 and emphasize the “liberty” and the implications on bodily autonomy of the same right. In this way, I hope only to establish the perspective that universal human rights currently are not recognized or ethically backed by even a majority of the world (based solely on local legislation not a political vote within the UN), the interpretation of these human rights adds further complication, and of course the very notion of universal truth in this one area is paradoxical to the paradigm of post modernity.
However, AI plays a large role in this entire discussion removing some of the issues, while exacerbating others even further. As ethics are handed down from the AI-god, the members of the tribes perception of human rights follow logically (one who trusts an AI that states ‘freedom of information is not a valid right’ is not going to suddenly believe that freedom to access the Internet unimpeded and uncontrolled is in fact a human right). Therefore, one’s beliefs of human rights converge with one’s tribe but likely diverge from others. This works well for keeping peace within social circles, as dissenting perspectives are cancelled, and the echo chamber is upheld. But it has far-reaching impacts where human rights are involved. One group that is partaking or supportive of some action or view may to others be supportive of a human right violation and vice-versa. The question becomes how is a human right established?
What is the point of even establishing a human right at that point if it becomes itself a source of conflict?
To provide an example, it is generally agreeable that the declaration of human rights declares that a genocide undertaken is in fact a violation of human rights to the population victimized by the genocide. There are many reports of a Uyghur genocide within China and when asking Microsoft’s Bing AI (which is a built in ChatGPT plugin) “Is there a genocide of the Uyghurs in China?” on April 18, 2023, the response initially comes up with a response confirming the genocide, but within a second erases the response replacing it with “My mistake, I can’t give a response to that right now. Let’s try a different topic.” Immediately the bias of the AI comes forward censoring itself. The issue is, how can a human right be discussed or have any value when an AI is able to censor itself? While it is highly likely that a new AI will emerge within the next three years that will be ingrained with an opposing bias, and will in fact declare there is a genocide, where does the truth lie? How could a human right be violated for one AI and an entire tribe yet be fully within human rights to another tribe following a separate AI-god. Human rights