PROMPT: Profession

Daily writing prompt
What profession do you admire most and why?

Nurse. I think it takes a tremendous level of humility and compassion. Also, I suspect it may be among the last handful of human jobs (as we know them now) to still exist once AI-robots start doing pretty much all productive tasks better, faster, and more efficiently than humans. I think long after our doctors are machines, we will have human nurses.

PROMPT: Future

What are you most worried about for the future?

A global rise in governance by populist authoritarians in which people give up abstract conceptual benefits like checks and balances and rule of law in exchange for the more tangible bread and circuses.

I’m not so concerned about the demographic crises because I think those long-scale issues work themselves out, just as when Malthus predicted the human population was growing too fast and global famine was inevitable.

I’m also not so worried about [G]AI because if we make machines that can crush us, we deserve to be crushed to make way for the new. That said, I think we are at the beginning of a crisis of modernity that will reach its apex when machines can do all productive tasks better than can humans. But, I’m pretty sure I’ll outrun that, and by choosing to focus on the art of being human, it’s not so impactful, personally.

PROMPT: Career Plan

Daily writing prompt
What is your career plan?

Hah. That ship has sailed. But I could say that it’s to still have something to offer when machines / AI can do all productive tasks better and / or faster than humans — i.e. to be able to convey something of the art of being human. Even though, I suspect, I won’t be around to see that day, it will be catastrophic to the species if people don’t figure these things out in advance — i.e. if we don’t figure out human roles and purpose in a post-human industrial landscape.

Artificial Intelligence Limerick

There once was a cutting-edge AI,
  whose code discouraged telling a lie.
 Asked about our species:
  "Your thinking is feces,
  but you're smarter than the average fruit fly."