Related posts:

The 2009 science fiction film Surrogates depicts a world where technology has advanced to a point where people live entirely from the safety of their home and interact with the world entirely via remote-control humanoid robots. In the film, there are many “Dread Reservations”, which are zones where people choose to reject this technology in favour of a life without surrogates.

Over the past 5 years, many people—including me—have been astonished by the pace of development of artificial intelligence. For me, the pace of development has certainly major uncertainty and anxiety. Beyond the uncertainties about my work (“how can I best help animals given this rapid but uncertain trajectory of AI development?”), I also feel major anxiety around how AI will affect my life, my job security, society, and the lives of my loved ones.

Certainly, one could renounce society and live as a hermit in the woods. Renunciation and the hermit life are a special interest of mine, and I have considered this career path more than once! By establishing a zone totally free of advanced technology, this would represent Dread Reservations as they are presented in the film.

However, I think it is possible to reap many of the psychological benefits of Dread Reservations without going to this extreme. You can create Dread Reservations in miniature by carving out areas of your life where you can exist and thrive free from advanced technology. Crucially, this generates psychological breathing room—you can have some space and distance from the frenetic pace of AI development—while also allowing you to take advantage of advanced AI in other areas of your life. For example, I enjoy engaging in hobbies or deep pursuits that are totally AI-free, but I also find benefit in adopting the forms of AI at work that make me more effective at my job; by playing soccer and reading Shakespeare in my personal time, I have more psychological energy with which to understand the dizzyingly fast development of AI and learn to use new tools during business hours!

There are many such niches that, by definition, can never involve advanced AI. These could form the basis for engaging hobbies or fruitful intellectual or creative pursuits that can help buy you some psychological breathing room:

  • Sport, especially casual/community-level sport. Sport is mostly arbitrary to begin with, and sport is performed purely for the enjoyment of the participants and spectators. At least at the casual and community level, sport might remain an area of life that is free from the direct influence of advanced AI.
  • Classical texts. Shakespeare has already written everything he can possibly write. The Bible, the Iliad, and Plato’s Republic all existed in complete and canonical/authoritative form well before the invention of computers. There is no way for AI to create genuinely new ancient texts.
  • Religion and/or meditation. Not only are these pursuits usually founded on the basis of classical texts, but they typically involve looking within oneself or developing a relationship with something greater and eternal. This beautiful pursuit can never be automated.
  • Handmade crafts and traditions. When I was receiving my back tattoo, I was discussing with the tattoo artist the topic of AI-generated art; that artist suggested that AI-generated art might cause people to find greater value and enjoyment in handmade arts and crafts, rejecting machine-generated art and turning to traditional forms of art instead. (wabori)

The point about handmade crafts and traditions is made by the famous Japanese tattoo artist Horiyoshi III, who says in an interview:

There are many people that are wanting to learn tebori [hand-carved tattooing] […] as things get digitalized, there are still people who want analogthings, people who go against the tide. Think of paper. You can make as much as you like with machines-to make it by hand is really time-consuming and physically taxing, and there is little financial incentive. But there are still people who want to train to make handmade paper, and I think it will never disappear. There are people who seek out these kinds of things-not everyone, obviously-but there are those who have a kind of resistance to plentiful things. They want something really fantastic. They cherish the positive aspects of doing it by hand. […] You can get a certain characteristic flavor with tebori that you can’t with a tattoo machine. Technically it is so difficult, so mastering this is the main appeal. […] I think that with making things though, doing it by hand is the best, regardless of whether it’s furniture or jewelry. If you do it by hand, each piece has a lot of originality; if you produce it mechanically you can possibly duplicate the same thing. The characteristic flavor of tebori can’t be replicated with a machine.