What if we asked ChatGPT to save us?

I have not been writing for ages. It’s probably due to not having a lot of brain power to read anything other than crime novels let alone think about what I read. However, now I found some thoughts floating in my head, not really attaching to anything or each other, but floating anyways. So I will try this exercise of what ifs to see if I can come to a conclusion that is not entirely in the realm of my cognition.

Questions

I listened to Amia Srinivasan’s book The Right to Sex (Finnish translation). The thing that stuck in my mind the most was her reminder that earlier radical feminists explored models outside capitalism while the later feminism builds their cases within capitalism, presumably because anything outside capitalism (transparent, natural state of affairs) is impossible to get through.

• What if we actually did more of that and explored solutions outside capitalism?

One thing that has been a struggle within capitalism is its dependence on growth. So much of what we talk about is geared towards growth (real or imagined). We talk about economic growth but even our person needs to grow, and also mostly from the viewpoint of capitalism as the self-optimisation project to become a more efficient member of the workforce (see earlier rant here, go to section on Psychopolitics).

• What if we dismissed the narrative of growth?
• Would that rid us of unequal distribution of wealth?

As a result of dismissing growth, work as we know it becomes somewhat questionable. Why should we work so much? Although younger (privileged) generations have adopted the narrative of working for self-actualisation and spending on experiences and cultural capital, the mainstream narrative of consumption is still predominantly material, which is not sustainable.

• What if we went hunter-gatherer and only worked as much as needed to survive today? *
• Would we fall into apathy because there is no neighbour to compete against?

Answers (and reflection)

ChatGPT, the saviour of the idea of disruptive tech or the latest fad depending on the perspective, is going to provide us with answers. I asked ChatGPT the above questions in this order (I asked a bit more which might have impacted the results). Here we go, with my reflections in-between:

This is the first question. As ChatGPT learns from the chat, this question sets the stage. The system identifies this to be about sustainability, which is the correct interpretation in my case. Here the answer is clearly within capitalism with with renewable energies and sustainable consumption / production, so not radical at all.

This is an interesting answer, especially if you think about it from the perspective of what ChatGPT associates with capitalism: inequality, environmental degradation and so forth. I also love how the instructions are worded: implement alternative economic systems, just go and do it already!

ChatGPT mentions degrowth but cannot let go of the idea of measures of progress. Maybe progress is not exactly the same as growth but tomatoes potatoes.

Proposal 6 is spot on. We are partly acknowledging finiteness, meaning we drive our growth at the expense of others’, like ChatGPT and their Kenyan workers.

This is pretty much a description of a social welfare state (like the Finland of our nostalgia), except for the racism and sexism. Suggestions are not bad, but ChatGPT forgot what “that” refers to.

I love this answer in all of its unfounded optimism. It seems like ChatGPT is humanlike in its inability to do systems thinking but maybe this is still worth trying. Imagine if we dismissed the narrative of growth but maybe keep personal growth so that we can make our leisure time feel more like work. We would then only need to figure out what fulfills our needs and values, in addition to spending time with our loved ones (standard answer to what you do with all the free time that tech gives you). That might mean that we are working on the project of self, but at least we would not be working on it for The Man but as our own “free spirit”.

Also, ChatGPT, maybe if we are in it for degrowth and more equality, we might not need the same amount of food waste as currently.

I feel like the people who are interested in maximising profits are anyhow not interested in contributing to society, except as a market for their profit-gathering. As an answer, this is the first one that is addressing the topic from a couple of different perspectives and acknowledging complexity, which I applaud.

After all this conversation, ChatGPT answered this question almost the same way as in the beginning. There are a couple more ideas of how to save the world but the ideas are so lame: electric vehicles and voting?

Finally

It is clear that large language models are aggregations of the data they ingest and as such, offer somewhat middle-of-the-road perspectives, and thus cannot be asked to answer complex questions in a way that makes you really think like reading Srinivasan’s book for example.

It is a very effective tool though and if you know what to ask, it can give you information to process into opinions. But how to save the world? I think ChatGPT is right, we have to degrow and find new meanings. Maybe we just have to find them ourselves and teach the bot. I hope we are able to do that.

At the end of my experiment, I could not resist but do like everyone else: tease the bot.

*Rutger Bregman, like Yuval Noel Harari, attributes a lot of our crap to moving from hunter-gatherer to agriculture. Apparently we did not always have to work so hard and work was not a central part of our existence.