The great jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes is credited with expressing the sentiment that ‘you have no right to yell fire in a crowded theater.’ That is, there are inherent limits to free speech. But his observation did not emerge entirely from his own fertile mind. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were several well publicized incidents where malevolent individuals did just that. Someone would yell ‘fire’ in a crowded venue when none existed. Lives occasionally were lost, or injuries ensued, in the subsequent panic and stampede to safety.

The ‘fire in the theater’ metaphor might be considered a false positive error. One raises an alarm when no danger exists. I suspect there are false negative errors out there as well where real warnings that are merited are not raised, are drowned out by other noise, or are ignored by most. In effect, this second type of error may well be far more serious.

In prior posts, I focused on a crisis brought on by one dominant feature  of our digital age … social media and its societal consequences. Clearly, the incentives and algorithms embedded in our contemporary communication modalities have led to a form of hyper-tribalzation which may well obviate the positive aspects of American democracy. The upcoming 2024 Presidential election may confirm the worst fears of a pessimist like me 😨. I hope that, on November 6, I am not lamenting the fact that our experiment in self governance had a good run (but is over) and that I’m now forced to seek asylum in another country. I’m too old for that shit.

To be fair, a number of observers again are shouting fire 🔥, but to surprisingly little effect. They are pointing to digital based capabilities that have already matched the limits of human cognition and which exceed what our best minds can do in many areas. The future of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) can not yet be fully imagined. However, it promises to be the most explosive and consequential transformative moment in the evolution of our species. To some, it might well mark the end of our species. Yet, most of our public discussion focuses on the NFL draft and which teams fared comparatively well in what is at best a meaningless game.

Really! Here we are, looking at one of those seminal moments in time when everything might fundamentally change. And yet, except among a few eggheads and authors, no one seems to be paying attention. Certainly not enough attention.

For arguments sake, let us say that life has been around in this planet for some 3 billion years while recognizable humans (or proto-humans) have been around for at least 200,000 years. We have seen a number of fundamental transition points as life forms increased in diversity and complexity. Our more or less human ancestors experienced and survived several salient transformations. One might cite tool making, the mastering of fire, the emergence of agriculture and the domestication of (some) animals, and the development of urban centers as earlier moments on the path to the world as we now understand it.

More recently (and over a period of time that represents little more than a nano-second in history), we have seen several major evolutionary moments. Small tribes evolved into larger forms (with increasingly differentiated social roles) and eventually into empires. These transitioned into better organized nation states and cultures where trade and the spread of goods and ideas became common. Slowly, knowledge was preserved and consciously communicated across generations. It was recorded in written form, with Gutenburg’s printing innovation (around 1440 CE) being cited as the most important leap forward in the last 1000 years. This was followed up by the introduction of science and inductive reasoning (first in the Islamic Golden Age and then by Francis Bacon in Europe). Then, we really took off with one transition after another… the industrial revolution, the transportation revolution, the communication revolution, the digital revolution, and so much more.

Until the end of the 18th century, learned men (and women) looked back in time for inspiration. They focused on ancient golden ages for truth. Suddenly, the shift was to the future and what we might create with our own energy, effort, and inspiration. Somewhere in the middle of the 19th century, the head of the U.S. Patent Office proffered a belief that the utility of this service might be coming to an end. He thought that most things of use to society had already been invented 🤣. Not quite!

Rather, the pace of change has increased exponentially. Our awareness of the world about us also expands at a breathtaking speed. As has often been said in recent years, there are more scientists working today around the globe than have lived and worked throughout our entire history as self-conscious and thinking beings.

Simply consider our universe. A mere century ago, our best minds, using our most advanced technologies, envisioned that our own Milky Way constituted the expanse of the cosmos (or at least all that we could measure). Today, we know that there are at least 2 trillion galaxies out there stretching 93 million light years across. But wait! We now speculate that the universe is 250 times as big as that … something unimaginable to us and which dwarfs our puny human concerns.

In my head, I keep returning to one more immediate conundrum … why do so many Americans adore a man who has shown absolutely no concern for them or their issues, who demonstrates zero ability to lead either in the private or public sectors, and who evidences serious forms of mental instability 🥺. And these are Trump’s strong points.

There are many possible responses to this puzzle of course. But one possibility is that the pace of change has overwhelmed many. We are inundated by input 24/7 through our phones and other devices. Our senses are overwhelmed. Unless you are wired correctly, and have been trained to filter and organize this ongoing stream of new and often conflicting information, you will be buried in cognitive confusion and emotional angst. What is the average person to do? Most are tempted to create a safe bubble and screen out things that disturb their established priors.

The MAGA crowd, and similar tribes in other countries, cannot deal with the ambiguities and disruptions embedded in a continuously changing world. They seek stability and the known. They can no longer make sense of a society where the old rules no longer suffice, where change in omnipresent, and where continuous adaptation is an essential life skill. And so, they look to and for what they consider a strongman like Donald Trump for comfort … someone who, in reality, is as weak and powerless as the proverbial wizard in the Land of Oz. They look to a con man and snake oil salesman.

And so, I think this is a good time to yell fire! The prospect of AGI will disrupt everything we know about life, our social order, and our place in human evolution is all too real. There is a decent probability that homo-sapiens will stand aside (more likely be pushed aside) to be replaced by entities far better (cognitively) than we. Already, at the very beginning of the AGI era, these machines outdo the best humans at complex games such as chess and the infinitely more complex Chinese game of Go. They can simulate virtually all advanced human abilities, and at a demonstrably higher level.

What will they do as they access the entirety of human knowledge? What will happen when they acieve self consciousness and awareness? Who can, or should, control our very own creation? These are the questions that should be at the center of today’s societal dialogue. But it is not.