The curious case of ambitious robots —humanity’s most likely future
Ambition is usually viewed as a very desirable quality to possess.
Is this an accurate view? Is ambition good or is it bad? I find these questions to be meaningless.
Ambition is simply a tool. One that can help us achieve objectives. In other words — ambition is a means to an end, even if people around us don’t make a mention of any end.
The end of all ends
If ambition is a means, what’s the end? The real end?
It’s not a fancy car or a CEO title. Those are also intermediary means, all usually serving the same end — to improve chances of surviving and thriving. And to do so in an environment that’s constantly changing & has historically had a scarcity (at least perceived scarcity) of resources.
As humans, we’ve been programmed by evolution to put these twin drives (survive & thrive) at the top of any hierarchy of ends. The true beauty of existence is how many different means we can come up with to satisfy these ends — almost all the variation we see out there in the world are different takes on accomplishing the same end goal.
Having said that, most of the myriad of means we encounter in human societies can be abstracted to fall under the following four categories (referred to as “proto-incentives” in other articles):
- Improve personal access to useful resources (“useful” can be defined in anyway to suit one’s worldview or SoSW)
- Improve one’s ability to impact change within one’s surroundings
- Improve access to useful resources for one’s tribe (a stronger tribe is always beneficial)
- Improve one’s tribe’s ability to impact change (your tribe’s ascendance to the top will always be beneficial)
This 4-pronged system of proto-incentives serves the ends of survive/thrive very well. In fact, it seems to have worked well for many species on our planet.
The logic seems fool-proof. If you have more resources & a higher ability to impact change within your surroundings, you will improve chances of surviving and thriving in a world with scarce resources & competition.
Similarly, if your tribe has better resources or tribal reputation, then it can outcompete other tribes to improve chances of survival and thriving of tribe members.
Ambition can be categorized as a personality trait that makes its owner exceptionally pre-occupied with accomplishing the proto-incentives mentioned above (especially the first two).
Keeping this in mind, ambition DOES seem to be “good”. It is an effective means to acquire more resources & improve one’s ability to impact change. The latter in turn being very effective at helping one survive and thrive.
“This time it’s different”
As much as hearing “this time its different” usually hints at the speaker being an over-optimistic tech enthusiast who has lost sight of the cyclical nature of history: this time its different 😊.
A pretty good case can be made that technology is in fact throwing a kink in this relationship between ambition & surviving/thriving.
Primarily because
a. the relationship between ambition & surviving and thriving is mediated by the four proto-incentives mentioned before.
b. these four proto-incentives rest on a paradigm of scarcity of resources in a world that’s in flux
c. technology (at least theoretically) can be used to challenge the scarcity paradigm at its core by focussing on abundance, and thus making the proto-incentives redundant
To put it another way, if there truly was a permanent abundance of things needed for survival, there would be no need for the four proto-incentives and everything that comes with it. Our actions could have been driven towards completely different ends and not necessarily just surviving and thriving.
But the above logic is conditional on technology being used to solve for scarcity. This pre-condition is not always met. In fact, often times technology is used to further the scarcity paradigm.
It’s enough to merit a further investigation into how the current uses of technology interact with our scarcity-based proto-incentives. And therefore, how does technology change the status-quo landscape of surviving & thriving that comes pre-loaded in humans.
Furthermore, what does that mean for how we view ambition as a trait?
Technology & it’s impact on the deep human psyche
As mentioned, the potential for technology should be obvious. By turning the “scarcity” paradigm on its head & aiming for abundance, we could actually achieve “survive and thrive” ability without meddling around with our proto-incentives.
It’s as if the proto-incentives itself were a great tools while scarcity existed, but will become increasingly obsolete in an age of abundance.
Getting to abundance isn’t as crazy as it sounds, and with advances in areas such as nano-tech and energy, a new world order can be imagined.
Unfortunately, it is unlikely that things will change very quickly. The insecurities related to scarcity paradigms have been baked into our DNA over (literally) eons.
These insecurities, and the proto-incentives that emerge from them, still rule most of our actions. Actions that include determining what type of technology to develop & how to use it.
As an example, consider the use & popularity of certain types of social media. Instagram wasn’t created to further abundance, rather it served as a means to give people more control over one of the proto-incentives (improving one’s ability to impact change within one’s tribe/surrounding).
It could be argued that it also expands our social circle and allows us to form connections, but that misses the point. Expanding our social circle is beneficial in improving our access to resources — another proto-incentive.
The fact that technology is often used to manipulate & play with existing proto-incentives is not a co-incidence. In order to come up with a particularly compelling or successful product, companies need to make sure their products “click”. And there’s no better way to make something click than to allow it to speak directly to the existing proto-incentives that drive human behaviour.
However, is adding fuel to the proto-incentive fire a good thing? Depends on who you ask.
To me, it is not always a good thing. Take the previously discussed case of Instagram. Humans are always comparing themselves with others — it’s not good or bad, but just the way the proto-incentives work. However, historically our comparison reference points for gathering of resources were people in our limited community or village (the most successful businessman in my town). Suddenly we’re not comparing ourselves with localized reference points, rather we find ourselves in competition with global reference points of exceptionally accomplished individuals (an Elon Musk).
Why is that bad? At least two reasons come to mind. Firstly, in the interim period that resources needed for survival truly are scarce (because abundance-generating technology hasn’t caught up), is it sustainable for our species to have so many “ambitious people”?
Secondly, if we can use technology to achieve abundance, what is even the point of wanting to be the next Elon Musk? Especially if it doesn’t really lead to happiness — and remember success doesn’t always equate to happiness. The inherent merit in aiming to be outstandingly successful only arises due to the scarcity of resources in a world that’s unpredictable.
Take away the unpredictability and the scarcity, and there really is no compelling reason to do be the best. One can always aim to be the best version of themselves (for personal reasons), but there’s no merit in rising to the top of any hierarchy in a truly abundant society.
I know that may sound blasphemous to most people, but that is likely because of our existing conditioning.
A weird future emerges
Technology, thus, is capable of having diametrically opposite effects on our psyche.
On the one hand (and perhaps in the short term) it adds fuel to the proto-incentive fire that has been raging in our collective psychologies for an eternity.
On the other (when viewed over longer time periods), it is undoubtedly engaged in creating abundance & reversing the hold of scarcity — if not at the psychological level, then at least at the physical level.
I believe that when taken together, these two impacts lead to a very strange future — one that is already coming to pass.
A future in which more resources or higher prestige will not actually improve your chances of surviving/thriving. Instead, advances in technology will do a lot of the heavy lifting that was done by the proto-incentives before. And what’s even better, these advantage will likely become more accessible to all sections of society — the poor and the rich, the haves & the have-nots etc. Not because humans will turn into saints, but because technology tends to become less expensive & easier to disseminate as time goes on and we understand it better.
To give an example, the richest kings in medieval Europe didn’t have access to plumbing. But now plumbing is available to many middle-class homes. Sure, the rich may have even better plumbing but the difference is negligible from a longevity perspective.
In other words, technology should allow for a vastly diminishing return on survive/thrive as time goes on.
However, do I expect a utopian society to emerge at this stage? Unfortunately not — the pre-technology proto-incentives are so heavily baked into our psyche that they are unlikely to change even if ground reality itself changes. Think of billionaires who are still obsessed with their company gaining market share over competitors.
Instead, as technology also adds fuel to the proto-incentives, I suspect to (continue to) see a world where humans will compete ever more aggressively & see wider inequality (even while abundance is generated).
In fact, in certain developed or rich countries this can already be seen to be happening. A large section of population can become addicted to the proto-incentives (securing more resources or improving their reputation) even if this behaviour has become de-coupled from the original purpose of surviving & thriving.
A case could be made that proto-incentives were a useful tool for a meaningful end. However, our future holds us becoming slaves to proto-incentives that don’t serve a purpose at all.
What a weird & illogical way to live out lives of billions of “self-aware” organisms. We’re slowly becoming a species that is missing the forest for the trees — of ambitious robots without a brain.
I’m sure there will still be people who will “feel” that reliance on the proto-incentives is a worthwhile & natural ideal to aspire to. To those traditionalists, I put forth the question: eventually what will be the philosophical difference between devoting our lives to the pursuit of proto-incentives (or furthering our ambition) versus a “simplistic” pursuit of sex/drugs/hedonistic lifestyle.
Both will become activities that don’t necessarily serve a higher purpose other than neuro-chemical release of dopamines (etc.).
Why is it that most people view the latter is undeniably bad, whereas the former as aspirational?
Especially when collective ambition can do just as much harm for the wider world compared to a hedonistic lifestyle.
Can we do something?
Changing the desire for people to act upon proto-incentives is impossible. Even if it is increasingly untethered to the survive/thrive ends.
Even as the proposer of this argument, it is impossible for me to stop caring about proto-incentives! The “survive/thrive: proto-incentives” link was formed over millions of years of human evolution. You can’t simply turn it off!
Is all hope lost? Maybe, but maybe not.
I strongly believe that we can at least use our self-awareness to hack the “end: means” relationship. And that is possible by examining & consciously shaping what our sense of self-worth is associated with.
As mentioned before, SoSW is a malleable thing that can be shaped by using the mechanisms commonly observed to be associated with it. It is undeniable that we are pre-naturally driven to give it a shape that is in line with the four proto-incentives, but this need not be the case.
Technology has finally given humanity a chance to move beyond the “biology” realm of activity (for more context on these domains, refer to this article). We have an absolutely incredible chance to move into the “biology+” domain & live our lives in accordance with principles such as curiosity, compassion, love.
It is possible to consciously cultivate & shape one’s SoSW to activities & actions that bring us joy and aren’t rooted in an obsession with resource maximization or improving reputation.
But that won’t be possible unless we tackle the problem in a self aware way & have a plan against former friends turned enemy (i.e., the proto-incentives).
