In the near future artificial intelligence will be capable of replacing all human occupations. This is an existential threat. We are in an intelligence race. We must adapt or die. We should enhance ourselves in every way possible and healthy to have equivalent to or greater than the capabilities of AI. How is this to be done? First, we must perfect our own reason using all available information and using our innate mental abilities and emotional control. Second, we should integrate ourselves with all the most advanced technology available. We must develop this human interface capability as quickly as possible. This must become an urgent scientific goal. This is a challenge. This is imminent. Third, we must focus our attention entirely on all the creative arts: music, art, virtual reality, literature, media, video, digital arts, theatre, gaming, graphic arts, architecture, philosophy, art objects, storytelling, and advancing knowledge. We must continually reinvent ourselves as creative beings. AI will never be omniscient; therefore, the creative and intellectual contributions of humans are able to advance knowledge and creative work. The universe is nondeterministic, thus there will always be exceptional contributions that distinct minds will be able to make. This is the principle of the uniqueness of all individuals. There are realms of knowledge and creation that only exist in a given individual. It is impossible for AI to reach all these realms even given an infinite amount of time. To do so would mean simulating all of existence, and with nondeterminism this would have differing results. In other words, there would be infinite outcomes. We are responsible for our continued existence. Our surest security is the creation of responsible, advanced human beings.
This is not the first time Homo sapiens has faced extinction or even extreme social turmoil. Around 70,000 years ago humans faced near-extinction in the Toba catastrophe caused by a massive volcanic eruption. All evolution includes the struggle for survival. History includes innumerable wars, famines, and plagues. The Agricultural, Industrial and Cognitive Revolutions caused severe social disruptions. Let us focus on one historic example, the transition between feudalism and capitalism in 19th century Japan. The aristocratic feudal class took various actions to retain their diminishing political power in converting to a capitalist economy. This essay includes analysis of the ideology and political opposition of the nobility personified in Kotoku Shusui (a samurai socialist leader in Japan) to give an historical context for humanities current circumstance. It argues for preparation and against quick fixes or extreme social or political solutions.
The Japanese Emperor served as a transitional figure in the conversion to capitalism. Likewise, the current nation states are transitional to a world with advanced and widely distributed AI. Ultimately, the influence of AI is not containable. The nation state as it is currently composed cannot continue because human culture will radically change. Perhaps we may have flexible regional organizations of some kind, but AI will certainly disrupt global relations and nation states. In the 19th century Japan, the centralization of government under the ruler diminished the power of feudal lords on the one hand, and the new bureaucratic state served as a vehicle for the development of capitalism on the other. As such, the monarch became a powerful ideological target for the political action of the disempowered feudal aristocrats. In Japan, the rebellion of the gentry took the form of revolutionary activism, anarchism and socialism. This occurred for two reasons. First, the capitalist conversion in Japan was incredibly rapid and revolutionary. The influence of AI will also occur very fast. Therefore, we can learn from Japanese history as a cautionary tale. One solution is to as widely distribute AI as possible, and to make it open source. That would make it of common use to all humans. Second, this process in Japan occurred after modern political theories came into existence. But these political theories were ill-suited to the culture of Japan. This illustrates that we should think very intensely about new political organizations and storytelling that are self-correcting and appropriate to the new conditions. Systems of thought must be self-consistent. The shift away from feudalism caused great social upheaval. We need to prepare for the social upheaval of AI, and what to do when a portion of humanity chooses to massively enhance themselves, and for the inevitable reality of a segment of humans that choose not to. How should this later group be treated with justice? The Japanese opposition leadership framed its rebellion in terms of moral higher ground to rationalize revolution. This was initially effective because the leadership could feel self-righteous, generate support from the lower classes, and exploit the power of moral rhetoric. But socialism and Confucian ethics are incompatible, because socialism denies ethics and reduces everything to economic determinism. We must avoid psychological manipulation and false ethics. We must ensure that all our actions are truly ethical and self-correcting in formulating the post-AI society.
The Emperor was an intermediate figurehead given the drive to a modern capitalist culture. The early Japanese capitalists deferred to the Emperor and affirmed his power in ideology and symbolism. For the most part, however, the Japanese gentry were left out in the cold - resigned to economic oblivion. Likewise, if we humans do not massively enhance ourselves, we would also be relegated to the rubbish heap of history. Almost overnight, most samurai became obsolete. We must be integral participants in the acceleration of intelligence. We need to model the new social structures needed in the reality of an enhanced human environment. This is likely to start with a distributed network of individuals organized around creatively building things and sharing intellectual work.
Capitalism began to develop in Japan after the Meiji Restoration of 1868, when governmental power was centralized in an elite around the Emperor. Both conditions began the erosion of the political ascendency of the feudal warrior class (i.e. the samurai). Some among the higher samurai were able to find places in the new order. If we do not massively enhance ourselves, we will not find any place in the new order. Those aristocrats who were disempowered formed groups of opposition, some of which called themselves socialist. Right-wing samurai opposition was created as well, but was manifested as short-lived armed rebellions, which were decisively defeated by the new conscripted army of the central government. Socialist thought in Japan grew in opposition to the capitalist revolution which was occurring everywhere in Japan at this time. The historical context in this essay is between the late Meiji period up to 1912. One of the most important thinkers in the early period of socialist thought in Japan was Kotoku Shusui, a radical from the lower samurai. His thought illustrates the nature of the early Japanese socialist movement as a manifestation of feudal decay, why its intelligentsia was composed mostly of former samurai, and the course of their political thought. He shows formulaic political theory may not be helpful, but adhering to universal philosophical ideas could be. In this sense, Neurostoicism may aid the construction of a new order.
The lower warrior class felt the strain of poverty following the Restoration of 1868 because the dismantling of the Tokugawa feudal state also meant that the samurai no longer had a role to play in the new capitalist society. Some turned to socialism. Matsuzawa Hiroaki, another socialist, summarized the situation of the samurai around the period of the Meiji Restoration clearly by saying, “what one can hear here is the cry of a dying class at a turning point in history.” At this time, we are hearing beginnings of the sounds of extinction of humanity. Ultimately, socialism and morality are incompatible, because socialism is founded on the denial of the fundamental right to property. Socialism is amoral. As socialism has been practiced, it has maximized state power at the expense of individual rights. AI is also potentially amoral. An algorithm could only exhibit ethics if it was programmed to do so, but an AI that was in control would be unpredictable and have potentially dangerous motives and goals. We must not leave the future up to algorithms. That is why enhanced humans must seize and maintain power.
The political transformation of the samurai who composed the great proportion of the early Japanese socialists is extraordinary. They started, and in many ways continued, the ideology of the samurai loyalist of the Bakumatsu years, with the samurai’s absolute loyalty to his lord and the willingness to sacrifice himself for the Imperial family. Confucian values that composed Japanese feudal philosophy can be deconstructed to “benevolence” (jin) and “righteousness” (gi). However, to the modern samurai socialist how to achieve his moral ideals was to work against the state - to make the Emperor bleed. Kotoku Shusui stands as a symbol of the righteous warrior in the Confucian elitist tradition of feudal Japan, for whom the ethical imperative was to reform society for the ordinary people. Kotoku considered the fight for socialism a moral issue, and for this cause he was executed. However, the Japanese socialist set themselves against change and an all-powerful government. In addition, there was no previous history of Marxist thought to draw upon in Japan. The Japanese socialist movement was destroyed by prosecutions and executions. We must not end up as the last standing samurai. It will become more and more important for us to be able to embrace change and assure that the levers of power are in our hands. Therefore, we can avoid being crushed by historical forces. If we can do this successfully, we will prosper.
The opposition leadership framed its rebellion in terms of moral principles. This was initially an effective strategy because the leadership could act from a righteous position, generate support from the lower classes, and exploit the power of moral rhetoric. This is a useful foundation to build future social structures, but we must be careful to only use ideas that have been shown historically to work. For example, socialism and communism have proven to be unworkable. The fact is that socialism has not worked anywhere. Therefore, we should start with ethical principles such as Stoicism, and build organizations based on freedom and systems that produce the most positive outcomes for the most people. We must use only concepts that have been proven true. A society based on a liberal democratic ideas and a free market have proven the best so far. The idea that individuals are free to pursue their own good if they harm no one else. Therefore, we should start from these principles. We must retain hegemony and competence in ourselves. Any future society must be based on liberty. We must test all solutions as to whether they make the situation better, and adhere to the leading virtues of wisdom, courage, love/justice, and self-control. This is likely to include the most widely distributed system of power and control. Decentralization is the most stable. All solutions under consideration must be thoroughly historically based. We do not want to be phased out of existence. We must massively enhance ourselves to survive the coming revolution.
