A Cognitive Contract with AI
After my full immersion bout of philosophy from 16–17 years old, I thought that’s what I wanted to dedicate all of my innate resources to.
After getting rejected from college, my father and I [immediately] decided to pivot to computer science.
After some pondering, I came to this ‘Philosophical’ conclusion:
“If I want society to be guided in a direction that entails a more philosophical approach to love, life, and labor, then the most efficient way to do that would be to venture into the upcoming field with the most influence, Artificial Intelligence.”
I do not trust the current leaders in the space, so why would I surrender, complain, and fall under their rule when I can join their ranks? All it takes would be a few months of learning something I hate and learning to love it; here’s where the gap year comes in.
I took a gap year to enter a field I hated, to distance myself from my closest friends, and to immerse myself so deeply that the only choice would be to live in misery or adapt to loving it.
With my philosophy background, I am a fanatic for AI Ethics, the genre I first started getting published in the AI space.
I am also very interested in pioneering ASD diagnosis with AI, making it easier for families in every part of the world to understand their relatives better and for these relatives that may be on the spectrum to get treated with dignity and receive the services they deserve. I want to be contracted by an organization along the lines of Autism Speaks and merge already developing resources such as those from Emotion AI by Rana el Kaliouby, and perhaps pioneer a new sect of humanitarian efforts called AI for Humanity where programmers can dedicate their intelligence to full service for a period of time; there is a smaller concern for monetary success in the Comp Sci field so if anyone were to be able to participate in a program as such it would be those in this field. I plan on having one of these AI for humanity tracks be Autism Intelligence.
In my early days of AI writing and publishing, I shared my disdain for the hype around generative AI. Everyone was so focused on allowing AI to create art that they got swept up in being entertained instead of keeping their eye on the prize.
I soon realized that to get to where we want to be, we have to celebrate smaller wins such as DALLE 2 and Stable Diffusion, and also, in the AI sphere, any progress is indicative of grander progress later down the line.
What is my end goal?
I can’t tell you. The trajectory and innovation of AI change by the day, which in turn changes my foresight.
My intention and underlying desire to assist people in understanding themselves and using that understanding to lead a suitable lifestyle is unchanged.
Many of us are being robbed of fulfilling our potential because the current conventional methods of teaching, leading, etc may not be conducive to our predisposed traits, but how are we supposed to know these “traits”?
It took me a gap year to learn how to focus truly, how to learn, and how to operate out of love vs self-interest.
I won’t fantasize where I’d be now if I had learned what makes me “click” earlier, but I can confidently say that I would’ve avoided much more disappointment, sadness, resentment, and mistreatment (and mistreatment of others) if I had understood myself better.
We can’t all afford advisors, counselors, and therapists; many of us aren’t at the level of reading for pleasure and deriving joy from extracting philosophical insights from the likes of Socrates, Aurelius, etc. We can’t all dedicate resources such as time and money to self-discovery, so I am taking it upon myself to expedite these routes to self-discovery and bridge the gap between who we are and who we could be as individuals [which in turn benefits the collective].
TL;DR version of the above rambling:
I believe it is appropriate for me to dedicate my career efforts, creativity, time, and energy to pursuing mastery & innovation in the field of Artificial Intelligence.
I am intrigued by the overarching idea of using AI for self-discovery.
