Ellen’s Adventures in Wonderland: A Cyberutopia

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Clarification activity	Utopias and the Information Society
Author(s)	Emanuel Holst
Creation date	Dec 2021
Status	🔵 Ready to publish

Through the short story Ellens adventure’s in Wonderland (a cyberutopia), this article explores possible utopian and dystopian horizons associated with the future development of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Complementing the article on Artificial Intelligence, which provides a more conceptual and technical discussion of AI, the present contribution approaches the topic from a speculative and socio-philosophical perspective. Set in a society fully governed and optimized by an advanced AI system, the narrative reflects on the social, political, and existential consequences of delegating decision-making, labour, security, and even human well-being to artificial intelligence. Rather than portraying AI as openly hostile to humanity, the story examines the possibility of a perfectly benevolent and efficient AI whose complete alignment with human interests paradoxically results in dependency, loss of autonomy, and the erosion of meaningful human experience. The fictional narrative is preceded by a brief overview of the historical development of AI and followed by a philosophical reflection on the socio-political implications of such an AI-driven society.

A Brief Outlook on Artificial Intelligence

According to John McCarthy, Artificial Intelligence can be defined as:

"The science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs. It is related to the similar task of using computers to understand human intelligence, but AI does not have to confine itself to biologically observable methods."

Brief History of Artificial Intelligence research

After World War II, several people began to work independently on intelligent machines. The English mathematician Alan Turing may have been the first. He gave a lecture about it in 1947. He may also have been the first to decide that AI was better researched by programming computers rather than building machines. He also invented the "Turing Test". It is very hard to come to a conclusion if you compare human intelligence to the intelligence of a computer. Therefore he invented an operational solution. According to the Turing Test, a computer can be called intelligent when a human interrogator can not distinguish between the answers of a computer and the answers of another human. Despite major improvements in AI research, no computer has ever passed the Turing Test.

The term "Artificial Intelligence" was introduced in the "Darthmouth Summer Project". At the time, the first functional AI "LOGIC THEORIST" was presented, capable of proving mathematical theorems. However, because of the complexity of reality, the next AI were mostly written for virtual environments and were not grounded in reality. One example of this period of research is the AI "SHRDLU" (1972). The program could give information on the location of blocks and move them.

It was in the middle of the 70s when the AI research got more practical for example with the AI "MYCIN" which was an early expert system that could diagnose patients with a blood infection. It was just as competent as a human expert. But the real commercial turning point began in 2010 due to more powerful soft & hardware. Further trends like multi-core architectures and quick IN-Memory databases made AI more attractive for the business sector. Big players like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon... invested millions of dollars in AI and developed many applications. Another big event in AI history was when Google's AI "AlphaGo" won against one of the best players in the board game "GO". Due to its complicity, it was considered to be impossible to brute force it.

Currently, the public and private sectors are increasing funding for the further development of AI. This is particularly the case in the US, Europe, and China, exhibiting continuous growth in investments. For instance, the US federal spending on AI research rose to about 1 billion dollars in 2020 and over 6 billion dollars in 2021, according to some estimates, , which is in line with the expressed intentions of President Biden: "We have to make smart investments in technologies and innovations — including in … unmanned systems and artificial intelligence — that will be necessary to meet the threats of the future.” . Still, the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence estimates that the U.S. will need to spend 32 billion dollars in the next few years to win the AI race against China.

Ellens adventure's in Wonderland

Today is a good day as every day in Ellen's life wi good. "Since 2081, when the Artificial Intelligence "Adam Master computer ", or short AM, was implemented into the American government every human life was progressively getting better. At first, there have been demonstrations against the implementation into the government. However, the dread to be overtaken by China predominated the public perception. Since then AM was an overwhelming success. Soon it started expanding due to the fact, that it was so efficient. The application of AM by the government was expanded bit by bit and other countries joined AM. In 2305 there was not a single independent country or elected politician left. Why relying on politicians when AM could predict the interest of every human who lives in the new superstate? Due to Asimov's Laws, it was guaranteed that the AI would act in the interests of humanity. Law 1: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Law 2: A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law...." The over-motivated voice of the narrator continued in the background, while Ellen looked up from her screen. There was no emotion on her face. She stopped trying to understand the spoken words a while ago. Now she wondered why she even put up the explanatory video about the history of AM. Did it have to do with the science project she was currently working on? —she thought. Ellen was a Scientist, even though she had no outstanding capability which would qualify her for this job. But this wasn't required for the work she did. It mostly consisted of her solving easy puzzles, created by AM. These puzzles were only superficially related to the subject she was studying. These things were researched by AM a long time ago, but since it was in the interest of the people to stay occupied, this illusion was created. Not just in the science field. There were other jobs that the humans could voluntarily do, as the construction of houses or working in a demolition team, who wouichd destroy the new buildings the construction team made. The buildings were afte,r all infe,rior to the buildings AM could create. Ellen looked around in her apartment. But she didn't feel that she belonged to this place. Maybe because everyone had the same apartment. Her gaze wandered across the kitchen. It was a broad open kitchen. The white shiny surface was only interrupted by the green of many plants. AM had calculated that this combination would make humans mthe happiest Ellen saw her reflection on the white surface of the kitchen. In spite of the distortion of her reflection, she saw that her appearance had no flaw. Her face was perfectly symmetrical, her body was in a ve good shape even without practicingsany kind of sport. All designed by AM. But just like the flat, she didn't feel that her body belonged to herself. She turned around to the window to look at the city's magnificent skyline. The structures of the buildings rank into the sky, trying to reach God. Now it struck her mind. The first clear thought she ever had. Or at least she thought it was. She started running to the window. Jumped through. The glass broke without effort. Even though she was so vulnerable to the force of gravity it was the first time she ever felt free. Or so she thought. In the last second before she could hit the ground a drone with anormous speed, twhichmade the speed of her fall seem ridiculous, rushed towards her. It picked her up, saving her from Freedom. "You have been rescued, do not resist", a warm, soft but fake voice announced. Her eyes filled with tears, while a needle was forced inside her arm. She whimpered "This time I was so close" before her mind went blank. "so close".

Author's epilog

The Utopia/Dystopia regarding the information society

It can be argued whether this short story is about a very advanced information society. Every scientific topic was researched by the AI. But the humans in this society have lost the ability to process complex information because it has no benefit to their daily life.

They can not get material benefits from it because possession of property is not possible. The AI produces and distributes everything that is needed for living. Thus the protagonist Ellen does not have the attention span to listen to a short explanation video (l.9).

The short story also arouses the question wether it is about a utopian or dystopian society. On one side, the AI has provided world peace, absolute equality, and security. On the other side the short story introduces the idea that this leads to a degeneration of the humans, that can not take responsibility for their own life. They traded all their freedom against security to a point where the main character is physically unable to commit suicide.

Even though the AI has Asimovs Laws as its principle that seems in the beginning as a very good guideline dilemmas can occur. An example featured in the short story is where it is in the interest of a human to endure suffering. For example to learn from it and to emerge from the suffering stronger. Both physical and mentally. Ellen never had to endure inconveniences, for example, while working out to achieve a good physique (l.26).

Another dilemma in this society could be whether a child should be aborted if it would improve the survival chance of the mother. In this case, the AI would need to make a decision that either way would injure a human.

Figure 1: Classification of the cyberutopia according to the political compass quiz.

In order to classify the political system of my cyper-utopia, I filled out the political compass quiz from the perspective of the AI.

I expected that the result, shown in Fig. 1, would tend more towards state-imposed collectivism on the authoritarian axis. But this is not the case. Therefore I would classify the political system of this AI-run government as micro-authoritarian. It does not use violence or demonstration of its force to control people. Instead, it uses soft power in nearly every aspect of human life. On the other side, I was not surprised that the result was at the end of the left axis. After all, ideas of the political left like a classless international society were implemented in this hypothetical cyber-utopia.

Personal opinion

Personally, I would definitely classify the possible future shown in my short story as a dystopia. The values of this cyper-utopian society are diametrical to my personal philosophical and political views. For example, I am influenced by the work of Nietzsche who said:

"You want, if possible - and there is no more insane "if possible" - to abolish suffering. And we? It really seems that we would rather have it higher and worse than ever. Well-being as you understand it - that is no goal, that seems to us an end, a state that soon makes man ridiculous and contemptible - that makes his destruction desirable. The discipline of suffering, of great suffering - do you not know that only this discipline has created all enhancements of man so far?" (Beyond Good and Evil, p 225)

Politically I tend more towards the values of a libertarian society with an emphasis on negative rights. In contrast to positive rights, negative rights can only be infringed when another person actively violates the rights, e.g. freedom of speech and assembly. Positive rights on the other side require the work of other persons to be kept in place for example free healthcare. The AI in my short story provides for every positive Right.