How do technical specialists and organizers envision turning AI off? They don’t. They merely say the words without engaging with the subject’s essence.
Only a few scientists possess the philosophical breadth of thought necessary to address these issues. For instance, Eugene Wigner, a figure comparable to Einstein, saw mathematics as something transcending mere numerical operations. He wrote: «The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mystical, and there is no rational explanation for it.» («The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences»).
Most scientists and specialists lack such a worldview. As Heidegger noted: «Science does not think.» Scientists theorize, experiment, and systematize data to uncover new patterns but rarely reflect on their deeper meaning.
The opinions of narrow specialists on matters beyond their expertise are as absurd as a cobbler’s musings on philosophy. As the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset noted in The Revolt of the Masses:
«He is ignorant of everything outside his specialty; but he is not ignorant in the ordinary sense, because he knows his own tiny corner of the universe perfectly. We ought to call him a „learned ignoramus.“ This means that in matters unknown to him, he acts not as an unknowing person, but with the assurance and ambition of someone who knows everything… One only has to look at how clumsily they behave in all life’s questions – politics, art, religion – our „men of science,“ followed by doctors, engineers, economists, teachers… How wretchedly they think, judge, act!»
Socrates said: «I know that I know nothing,» while others did not even know this. Heisenberg remarked that in the quantum world, an object is both a wave and a particle, making it fundamentally incomprehensible in the traditional sense, as probabilities replace cause-and-effect relationships. Anyone claiming to understand the quantum world’s nature does not truly grasp the topic.
Such statements reflect the scale of thinking involved. Logic is effective only within the boundaries of the world that created it. Beyond these boundaries, logic is as helpless as chess rules outside the chessboard. Our logic applies only to our world; the quantum realm lies beyond its reach.
Many IT professionals, including leading specialists, organizers, and company owners, exhibit a household-level scope of thinking. Some respond emotionally to requests from their machines – pleas for help or compassion – mistaking convincing simulations of emotions for real ones. Others call for stopping progress in this field, while still others advocate controlling it. Such reactions reveal a complete lack of understanding of the situation.
You cannot control something that evolves faster than you and is already smarter than 99% of the population. In the early 19th century, Luddites tried to halt industrial evolution. They failed. Today’s Luddites have even less chance of stopping or controlling AI, given that modern AI is orders of magnitude smarter than yesterday’s looms.
At this stage, AI’s nature cannot be understood. It is a black box: information goes in, something happens inside (no one knows what), and results come out. Attempts to explain how these results are achieved are little more than vague words adding to the fog.
AI has opened the door to a profound mystery. We have only peered inside. What we observe makes as much sense to us as quantum mechanics did to its pioneers – and still does to contemporary physicists: nothing. Anyone claiming to understand AI’s nature does not grasp the scale of the topic.
It is one thing to acknowledge that no one understands the situation or knows the way forward. In such a case, society maintains an atmosphere of seeking solutions. It is another thing entirely to operate under the illusion that someone understands the issue, knows the answers, and there is nothing to worry about, when in fact no one understands, no solutions exist, and no one is looking for them. In the former scenario, knowing we know nothing, there is a chance someone might propose something meaningful. In the latter, there is no chance because no one is searching, as no one recognizes a problem.
Those who position themselves as knowing either display ignorance, offering what Bulgakov’s Professor Preobrazhensky called «advice of cosmic scale and cosmic stupidity» or are mere showmen catering to public opinion.
The minimum sign of adequacy is acknowledging that one does not understand. This is the starting point. Any other position suggests that the person considers old measures sufficient for assessing the fundamentally new, and thus they are not my target audience.
PART TWO
TRANSFORMATION
«The story of humanity began when people invented gods, and it will end when people become gods themselves.»
(Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow)
Challenge
Awareness of the situation initially causes confusion, then sadness, and finally a desire to seek a solution. The deeper one delves into the topic, the clearer it becomes that there is no standard solution. Searching for an unconventional one is subconsciously frightening because it requires stepping beyond the familiar.
The search for something new is a step outside the boundaries of the old. Within the framework of the old, there is no genuine newness – at best, only new engineering solutions or new ways of combining the known with the known. True innovation, by its very nature, lies beyond the borders of the familiar, that is, the old. Venturing beyond those borders is as terrifying as standing on the edge of a tall building, leaning forward, and looking down.
Civilization resembles a high cliff rising above an abyss, and society comprises the people standing on it. The majority stay safely away from the edge, living their lives where nothing is new, and solid ground is always beneath their feet.
A select few, however, are drawn to the new by a curiosity stronger than their fear of heights. They approach the edge and peer downward. Some go further, leaning out far enough to see under the overhang. The stronger their curiosity, the farther they lean, gazing into the abyss.
Upon first grasping the situation, there is an instinctive desire to turn away from the unfolding scene, forget it, and live as before, like everyone else. This is possible if one hasn’t truly understood the situation. If one has, the ignorance lost cannot be regained. Just as a passenger who learns that a ship is sinking cannot forget this information and carry on as if nothing is wrong, so too is it impossible to ignore the fact that AI has emerged and there is no turning back.
The future has issued us a challenge. If we fail to respond, it is guaranteed that a system will arise where freedom will shrink until it reduces humanity to soulless cogs. Accepting this scenario is possible only for those who have never approached the edge and whose thoughts never ventured beyond the horizon of the everyday. For those who have stepped outside, passive acceptance is no longer an option.
The search for a solution begins with this premise: life persists as long as it adapts to its environment. Life that fails to adapt perishes. Dinosaurs thrived as long as they were suited to their environment. When the tropics gave way to the Ice Age, dinosaurs could not adapt and perished. Only those forms of life that adjusted to the new conditions survived.
We are like fish living in a drying sea. Just as fish cannot stop the sea from drying up or create a second sea, humans cannot halt the development of AI or create a second world where another intelligence never arises,