AI Must Serve Human Flourishing

Originally published by Washington Examiner.

As artificial intelligence accelerates into every corner of our economy and daily lives, too often, lawmakers and developers’ focus are on efficiency, speed, and scale. But there is a more foundational question: What do we want from AI?

According to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, our corporeal self is a vestigial organ that AI will let us abandon as we upload our consciousness to machines. Google cofounder Larry Page is content with AI completely replacing the human race, and calls people that disagree with him “speciesist” for their bias in favor of humankind. When asked whether the human race should survive, Peter Thiel took an eerie pause before uttering a reluctant “yes, but...” Thiel went on to tell an audience that any regulation of the technology would expedite the coming of the antichrist. For the transhumanists currently dominating the AI industry, the point of the technology is to make mankind obsolete.

For the rest of us, the answer should be clear. AI exists to promote human flourishing.

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