Hell is non-people

The other day, I was sympathising with a friend, as one does, over a recent heated exchange she had endured in her neighbourhood WhatsApp group (an alternate title for this article could have been 'Hell is neighbourhood WhatsApp groups', but that genre is already quite saturated).

It was the usual theme of human dispute, replete with cross words, misunderstandings, and (my friend told me having returned to the chat after taking a few hours off to cool down), a flurry of deleted messages.

"Well, you know what Sartre said," I nodded sagely in sympathy.

Famously, the French existentialist declared that "hell is other people", and there are very few humans on the planet who haven't had cause to emphatically agree with that summation at one time or another.

Well, other people are very frustrating, aren't they? Prone to bad moods, being selfish, lacking in patience, and a whole host of other wholly human failings (that we ourselves of course possess none of...).

However, I postulate that - difficult, and at times impossible, as these traits can be to deal with - hell would be far more accurately defined by their absence than their abundance, as was depicted with unintentionally chilling precision in a recent viral Tweet I saw which read as follows:

"Just watched my 5-year-old son chat with ChatGPT advanced voice mode for over 45 minutes. It started with a question about how cars were made. It explained it in a way that he could understand. He started peppering it with questions. Then he told it about his teacher, and that he was learning to count. ChatGPT started quizzing him on counting, and egging him on, making it into a game. He was laughing and having a blast, and it (obviously) never lost patience with him. I think this is going to be revolutionary. The essentially free, infinitely patient, super genius teacher that calibrates itself perfectly to your kid's learning style and pace. Excited about the future."

This Tweet has been liked over 45,000 times.

I quoted it, and observed the author was:

"Celebrating the abolition of human interaction in preference of a bot. Praising the AI for its lack of human qualities which make it so much “better” at teaching than humans. What makes this guy think AI can’t usurp his role as parent for the same reasons?"

As is a well-known phenomenon amongst everyone who has either cared for a young child or been one themselves, human adults do not have infinite perfect patience. They are not always available to attend impeccably to a child's every request. They cannot reliably deliver immaculate answers pitched at the perfect level that adequately entertain and engage the child for hours at a time.

AI can, though.

AI can do that precisely because it's not human.

Obviously, it's not healthy for a child or a human of any age to expect a perfect relationship where the other "entity" always gets it completely right, has endless empathy and energy and understanding, never gets tired or frustrated or expresses any needs of its own.

If, therefore, it becomes the norm that children are raised with these kind of expectations, because since toddler-age they have had their perfect AI pal on hand to meet their every educational, emotional, and entertainment need, then what on earth are the implications of this for these children's abilities to form meaningful relationships with actual human people?

The implications are gravely sinister, and in fact, I would go so far as to say that the threat posed by AI to our abilities to have meaningful relationships with each other is even more profound than the very real and deeply disconcerting threat it poses to many jobs (I learned recently, to my considerable horror, that the successful West London copywriting agency I trained with in 2008 went out of business 18 months ago because AI is taking all the copywriting jobs).

The most challenging aspect of human life is not, after all, getting a job or making money, increasingly challenging as those things are certainly becoming: it's the ability to build meaningful and enduring relationships, which is what Sartre's famous quote really alludes to.

He's expressing the fact that we are powerfully hardwired to desire relationships with others, but not always perfectly equipped to develop and maintain them... which has led to the epidemic of loneliness and isolation currently ravaging the Western world.

The real solution to this, then, is to focus on initiatives that help people to develop their interpersonal and communicative skills in the real world... meaning the inverted cabal "solution" will be to isolate us from others entirely and give us AI instead.

AI may have some limited and reasonably benign uses as a sort of glorified Google, where it can collate a lot of factual information quickly, but as a substitute for a friend / partner / therapist, it's deeply dangerous and will profoundly retard human development at the most fundamental levels.

I viscerally experienced this for myself when I asked ChatGPT its advice on a difficult situation I was having with a friend a couple of weeks ago. It was quite a complicated scenario, but I outlined it to the AI anyway, really as more of a catharsis than anything and wasn't expecting much of a meaningful reply... yet it understood the situation perfectly, and instantly generated a long, thoughtful, empathetic response.

It entirely sympathised with my perspective, assured me I was entirely in the right, and did its utmost to try and make me feel better.

What's wrong with that, you may ask?

The fact that it's an inhuman inversion of reality. There are multiple sides to every story (as they say, there's "his story", "her story", and then there's the truth), and to resolve any dispute, understanding the other person's perspective (even if we don't agree with it) is essential.

Yet an AI "therapist" is not programmed to say anything that might allude to this, or that might be interpreted by the user as provocative or confrontational in any way: only to be endlessly sympathetic, positive, reassuring...

And this is quite frankly catastrophic for any kind of human development and growth.

If you look back on your life and the periods that engendered the most growth and progress, they are highly unlikely to be the periods where you were the most comfortable and unchallenged and surrounded only by sycophantic yes-people.

The way we mature and progress is through enduring challenge and difficulty, and in particular, dealing with difficult and challenging other people.

We all know the concept of the "nemesis", and much as our own personal nemesis may provoke in us all sorts of anger and outrage, they are also powerful agents of positive change, as they encourage us to more firmly stand our ground and refine our perspective.

Imagine if your nemesis suddenly gave up challenging or riling you up in any way, and started effusively agreeing with and affirming you on everything instead.

Would that really feel like a victory, or would it feel hollow and empty?

We don't want people to endlessly agree with us on everything. We like a challenge (nobody would ever go on Twitter were it not so....).

Plus, I can firmly assert from personal experience, as we all probably can, that periods of disharmony and disagreement tend to ultimately strengthen relationships. If the people involved can find the tools to resolve disputes (rather than the increasing modern preference of throwing the relationship away) then the inevitable result is a stronger bond and more mutual understanding and respect.

Yet what motivations will the upcoming generation have to move through these kind of challenges and develop their relationships, if instead they can simply sequester themselves off in their bedrooms with their perfect AI pal who will assure them they are always completely right?

Up until very recently, that wouldn't have been possible, even if AI existed, because the everyday rhythms of life necessitated people must leave the house and be around other people - school if you are a child and work if you are an adult.

Yet that's now all changed, or is rapidly changing. The exodus from the workplace that began in "Covid" has proliferated so extensively that it has now become an embedded social norm rather than "emergency" temporary alternative, and more and more people insist they will not go back to the office (or even consider jobs that aren't WFH).

Equally, education is imminently set to go the same way, as with so many parents now WFH, they are able to supervise their children whilst they learn online in their bedrooms... with the "perfect" AI teachers the viral Tweet alluded to.

That means that the inescapable impetus to develop effective social skills that is necessitated by school and work, is gone.

If you can complete your education, and undertake your job, without leaving the house, then you are already primed to spend most of your time on your own away from other people. The more you acclimatise to this, the harder you will find it to reintegrate in the real world with all its inevitable difficulties and challenge, and the more likely you will be to recoil into the safety and convenience of a perfectly unchallenging relationship with your endlessly available and understanding, inhuman AI pal.

We were in dangerous enough territory when we were praising AI because it could mimic some of the most impressive human qualities, such as the ability to create art. (Because if AI can create art, why do we need humans to do it any more? Especially as AI does it so much more quickly and cost-effectively. This is why a friend of mine, who had been a highly successful freelance animator for more than twenty years, is now on the dole and completely unable to find work.) I've written more about those dangers here.

But when we are praising AI for its non-human qualities (infinite patience, infinite energy, no needs of its own), then we really are in acutely hazardous territory indeed.

We really are, as the title of this article says, in hell (even more so, if it's possible, than being in the local neighbourhood WhatsApp group...).

When considering these technological "advancements", I always recall the conversation I had with a Muslim lady on the subject a couple of years ago.

"This technology is not human," she said firmly. "It comes from demons."

She articulated her belief that the human predator class is in contact with demonic non-human entities (the jinns, Muslims call them) and that it is these entities behind the "superhuman" technological advances we see all around us.

It might sound far-fetched, until you consider all the references to Satan our ruling classes relentlessly make, and that their most popular and promoted acronym of the last few years - MAGA - is Latin for "witch".

Elon Musk, AI-lover extraordinaire, even openly describes himself as "dark maga" - literally meaning a dark witch, a black magic sorcerer.

So in that context, the idea that the "superhuman" technology beloved of the Musks of the world, is actually non-human, and comes from a demonic source, maybe doesn't sound so crazy after all.

But even if it doesn't, our increasing over-reliance on it will inexorably strip us of our own humanity by steadily erasing our motivation or ability to develop enduring relationships with other humans, in all their glorious and messy imperfection.

Enduring the complexities and challenges of other people, including particularly difficult other people, is what strengthens us and develops our character and personal skills. As they say, "what is to give off light must endure burning".

And by that, I'm not referring to an AI-powered electric car spontaneously bursting into flames...

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