Via Basel: A Cog in a Machine

Machine 5, Hedda Sterne, 1950

I am a cog in a machine within a system operated by a distant entity—a system with layers of hierarchy, both human and automated, whose motivations, values, and interests are largely at odds with my own.

This description may remind you of an early modern industrial assembly line worker performing a simple task continuously and repetitively for an entire shift—for example, on the Ford Model T assembly line in the early 1900s.

Yet, it adequately encapsulates how the majority of workers feel today across various sectors, from heavy manufacturing to healthcare, farming, and beyond. With AI applications extending into practically every facet of life—from communication and education to warfare and space exploration—it is very likely to encompass all but the select few who control and understand the system. Even then, there is a possibility that control could end up in the hands of highly intelligent yet non-sentient machines: robots that can outperform humans in every domain but lack essential human qualities such as compassion, kindness, and, most importantly, the capacity to experience pain and suffering. Ultimately, the programming and values instilled in these machines will determine outcomes that affect us all, yet there is currently no serious public discussion regarding these incentives.

In addition to the existing challenges of our time—injustice, inequality, epidemics, an aging population, species extinction, habitat destruction, and climate change that threatens human survival—we now face another existential threat: an AI doomsday.

We are only beginning to have a public dialogue about these issues, and currently, it remains largely focused on data centers. Leaders in the high-tech and AI industries are locked in a relentless race without rules of engagement, driven by visions vastly different from those of the general public. Unless this trajectory is corrected soon, we will reach a point of no return as a few isolated, power-hungry billionaires assume control over nearly all aspects of society—most critically, the mass communication systems essential for informing the public. In essence, there will be no self-correcting mechanism as the average person becomes merely a cog in a system that forces them into a Sisyphean existence.

If this does not alarm or concern you enough to pause, reflect, investigate, or take action, then I have failed.

But then, I would rather try, fail and learn than not to try at all.

Basel Al-Aswad, father of EIL founder Christopher Al-Aswad, is a yogi trapped in an Orthopedic Surgeon’s body. His loves in life include reading, writing, hiking, enjoying nature, meditation, and spending time with his large Iraqi family, and now, semi-retired, he is exploring new avenues in medicine, education, public speaking, teaching, and social engagement.