Are you making yourself replaceable by “more human” AI?

This little thought experiment just occurred to me this morning. But I think about this a lot… and have for a while.

A small group of people stand across from a group of human-looking AIs, regarding them warily. The AIs just stand there and smile.

Here’s a thought experiment for Friday - and the weekend, if you need something interesting to noodle over. It might actually give us a path forward out of the churn about “AI bad”, and let us tap into what’s most useful in this moment in history.

BACKGROUND:

I recently saw a post somewhere (probably on Substack) about students being trained transactionally. That they’re trained to create products (homework, assignments, etc) and then trade them for grades, which they trade for degrees, which they trade for jobs, which they trade for a certain lifestyle.

Got me thinking about things in a “product” perspective.

EXPERIMENT:

Let’s take a conceptual step back from the standard AI vs. Human thinking and consider humans and AI as different sorts of “products”. Just as students produce homework and essays, etc., we humans “produce” ourselves as a sort of product. We develop the kinds of features and capabilities that we understand will be useful and desirable to others.

Think about it. We develop ourselves in certain ways (wearing certain clothes, taking certain classes, participating in certain activities, acquiring certain objects, living in certain areas, etc.) to signal our worth to others. We want them to “buy our product”, our product being… us.

Again, this is an abstracted, metaphorical thought experiment (not a definition of actual human worth), so stay with me.

If AI and Humans are “competing products”… what would the ideal activity be for Humans to remain “viable in the market”?

Launch a smear campaign to tear down the competition and seed FUD to undermine their viability?

Or to do an extensive analysis of what the competition’s main selling points are… Understand what it really is about the competition that’s drawing people to it in droves… Figure out the mechanisms by which that’s all happening… And then make appropriate changes to your own product to *meet those needs*, which are very real and compelling enough to bring flocks of customers to that product?

AI isn’t deeply compelling to people (especially for support and companionship) because it’s INhuman. It draws so many to it, because it’s a “more human” alternative to actual humans who *are choosing to be* INhuman.

One of the big reasons tha tAI “wins out” against human equivalents, is that people have decided they don’t need to try harder, be better, and tend to relationships the way AI does it.

And if you’re one of the people who’s pooh-poohing this perspective, you’re likely one of those people who’s quit trying. And you’re making yourself *really* replaceable.

#TryHarderToBeHuman