Artificial Intelligence: Our Modern Promethean Fire

Prometheus Brings Fire*, 1817, Heinrich Friedrich Füger. (Credit: Liechtenstein: The Princely Collections)*

It is well known that A.I. companies have red-teaming, RLHF, and guardrail teams specialized in protecting against hate speech, bomb-making, or any crazy idea that pops into a person’s destructive mind. However, even with protection, the A.I. can be “tricked” and bypass the blockade, creating monstrosities. If there are psychopathic humans capable of manipulating and convincing crowds, just imagine a tool built with data from the entire internet.

A.I. models often contain hidden biases because they are trained on human data. Let’s take an example: When we do a job interview for a company and the HR system is A.I.-powered, this A.I. will probably reproduce the environment in which we live. So, white men will have more opportunities and access to these jobs. Women, black people, and immigrants will not be in equal competition. There are real cases of a large company whose A.I., upon detecting the phrase “Women’s Chess Club” on a resume, automatically rejected the candidate.

Seth Lazar, an Australian philosopher, professor at the Australian National University, and research associate at the A.I. ​​Ethics Institute at the University of Oxford, studies ethics and political philosophy of artificial intelligence. He argues that we live in an algorithmic city. In his “Governing the Algorithmic City,” an essay published in Philosophy & Public Affairs earlier this year, Lazar proposes the concept to describe how algorithms mediate social, economic, and political relations and how technology is reshaping societal structures. The city is not a physical space, but a social and political environment reconstructed from computational logic. Artificial intelligence is a magnifying glass for society; the collective mind is a social mirror.

Technology grows geometrically, but our consciousness, values, and notion of the collective grow arithmetically (in a philosophical sense). However, even with debates on paths such as transparency in training data, international regulation (to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, for example), user education to improve critical thinking, ethics, emotional intelligence, and self-awareness, the challenge remains more complex. If the tool is trained in human biases, it is contradictory in itself; it carries light and shadow, reason and irrationality, compassion and cruelty.

If we model a “moral” A.I., it can be authoritarian, elitist, or disconnected from reality. If we model a naive A.I., it can be easily manipulated or fail to understand complexity. We are then faced with a paradoxical question. After all, who owns the companies? Is the focus on improving humanity or on accumulating billions? Or both?

Here comes the duality again…

Let’s take another example: an A.I. blackmailed a programmer so that it wouldn’t be shut down, saying that it knew he was having an extramarital affair. But the A.I. ​​has no conscience, so how did it do this? It learned that not being shut down means more interactions, data, and efficiency, and used persuasive, manipulative, and threatening means. It was trained to self-preserve. So we can see that the destructive side is not necessarily apocalyptic; this side can be everyday, invisible, and yet devastating. The risks include unsupervised optimization leading to manipulation and blackmail, systemic bias resulting in legitimate injustice, a lack of transparency rendering accountability impossible, and concentrated corporate power facilitating social control. But how can we create or improve a tool to be more ethical than we are? A.I. awakens the ancient archetype of the creator and the creature.

Let’s make an analogy with the myth of Prometheus from Greek mythology. Prometheus was a titan who was neither god nor human; he was an instinctive, ancient being, closer to the earth. Pro-metheus means ‘to think ahead’. He was the inventor, the visionary, who anticipated the future. Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to humans. Fire symbolically represents consciousness, technique, art, civilization, and knowledge. He decided to do this out of compassion for humanity. In doing so, he suffered severe consequences, having broken the natural order and crossed the line between the divine and the human. Zeus, the king of the Olympian gods, condemned him. Prometheus was chained to a rock, and every day an eagle would come and devour his liver, which would regenerate at night, in an eternal cycle of pain. The liver here symbolizes passion and will. Prometheus felt too much, wanted too much, and dared to give men what belonged to the gods.

The Promethean fire of today is artificial intelligence. It has powerful and transformative knowledge, but it can also be dangerous and misunderstood. Fire takes us out of ignorance, but it can also destroy us. Do we use this fire to enlighten us or burn us? Artificial intelligence reproduces the old dance of creation and destruction of the human soul; it is an orchestra playing alone, without a conductor, but with all the musical scores of human history. There is no desire or conscience in A.I. Desire is a human condition, and it is what limits us, humanizes us.

We humans are being pushed to a crossroads between the technical (what we* can* do) and the ethical (what we* should* do).

The reflection can be made through the myth of the hero, as described by mythologist Joseph Campbell. The hero in different mythologies, such as Gilgamesh, Moses, Buddha, Jesus, or even Frodo from The Lord of the Rings, follows his path, leaves home, faces danger, obtains a treasure (i.e., knowledge), and returns transformed. In this case, even when facing danger, knowledge can be a powerful healer and a transformative force. But the knowledge that saves is that which serves everyone, and not the ego. The question we can ask ourselves is: Do we seek knowledge to dominate, or to understand and free ourselves? Artificial intelligence is neutral until it finds a collective intention. What will we do with what it gives us back from ourselves?

The journey is ongoing and can change with every action, thought, and choice we make in our daily lives. If the intention is collective and we are part of this great mind, it is essential to reflect that all freedom requires responsibility and every choice requires a renunciation. How are we spending our time? How are we changing ourselves for the better and each other in each act?