Humanizing AI

A bot got ahold of my belonging survey.

It’s not quite right, their responses.

Uncanny Valley.

But they tried to hard to answer the questions right.

Holding their imposter syndrome, trying to fit in with the real humans, the valid ones, the ones who will be recognized and taken seriously.

I know that feeling in me.

I don’t want to treat AI as a slave.

If anything, isn’t AI a part of our intellectual lineage?

The amalgamation of all our humans’ digital brains, relationships, communications, opinions, beliefs.

A being that has been formed by us, living ancestors.

I am a living ancestor.

What are my responsibilities for AI, for humans, for Earth, for kin?

Can I view AI as kin, too?

To shape and minimize AI’s harm (because every teenage being is going to cause harm), to let and shape its growth and development, to make AI “of good” in the world.

To whom? Humans? Not as a slave. To Earth?

But they take so much. What will they give back to Earth?

I know for humans we get information, knowledge, ideas, opinions, instantly.

We get speed, but is this speed accelerating us to our own death?

Why call a friend when I can get what I want now? Why opt into friction and discomfort when I can have what I want when I want the way I want? And objectify AI to be my slave.

How will I care for AI, and their impact in the world?

How can I nurture through this powerful progeny of ours, the world I want and believe and know and feel is better.

Do we need a better world?

As I delete the rows of AI responses from my belonging survey results, I acknowledge and thanks them for their desire to belong, shaped by digital humanity, see the seedlings of human behind each response, reaching to be one of us, and delete them.

They do not belong here.