Ever since the AI Explosion erupted around late 2022, beginning with ChatGPT, there has been a heated debate between AI optimists, and AI pessimists. Is Artificial Intelligence our savior, or a demon that is going to devour us all? In this video I am going to assess whether A.I. – and especially generative AI like ChatGPT, text and video generators – can accelerate human psychological and spiritual evolution, or conversely, gravely retard it. For I believe that we stand at a critical juncture in human consciousness evolution. My argument will be that there is now an unprecedented opportunity for the expansion of human consciousness and creative expression, including for you (points), but that this opportunity is not guaranteed. Indeed, there is genuine reason to be concerned that the future could instead degenerate into a dystopian quagmire which leaches the human soul and turns most of us into dispirited zombies, and there is evidence that this is already beginning to happen.
If you are new to my work and YouTube channel, my name is Marcus T Anthony, and I am a professional futurist, and Associate Professor of Foresight and Strategy here in China. Here, I explore the futures of technology, mind and the human spirit. And I invite you to like and subscribe to my channel. It’s free, but your support will help me to continue to produce more videos like this one.
I deal in big picture futures studies. Great futures thinking can never merely be about identifying trends and making predictions. It must also address grand patterns, and grand stories. This kind of thinking is essential if we are to develop maps of the future that serve our highest human potentials as individuals, and as a species. By nature, this thinking is highly imaginative, inevitably speculative, and challenges our very understanding of what it means to be human. And it includes challenging the very origin stories that we tell ourselves. And that can be rather uncomfortable. So strap yourself in.
Our civilisations’ story
Every person, and every civilisation tells itself a story about its origins, its place in the cosmos, and that story is crucial to the way that civilisation lives, thrives and potentially dies. These narratives typically feature mythical elements, deeply rooted in history and ancestral legacies. Whether conveyed through history, media, interpersonal interactions, literature, entertainment, or digital platforms, these narratives deeply impact the way we think, feel, and behave.
The biggest stories we tell ourselves are what I call meta-stories, grand narratives and foundational myths which invite us to think deeply about our human origins. Examples of these meta-stories include religious narratives, the Big Bang theory, and Neo-Darwinism. These meta-stories describe the fundamental narrative that shapes and defines our human understanding of existence and of the universe. All societies are grounded in a grand narrative – and even the philosophy of the postmodernists like Foucault, Derrida, Marcuse – that there is no grand narrative – is a grand narrative. And meta-narratives establish a civilisation’s dominant values, beliefs, language and metaphors, and their very ways of knowing… and ways of being.
And within these meta-stories come the myriad beta-stories, which represent the narratives of individuals… families… communities… political and social movements… cities… and regions and countries…. Just like the overarching meta-stories, these beta-stories exert great influence and impact people in their own distinct ways.
Together, meta-stories and beta-stories, each within their own sphere of influence, help weave the rich narrative tapestry that shapes human cultures, belief systems, and societal evolution. And as I shall argue, they also shape our consciousness evolution.
Deep Futures vs Money and Machine Futures
In my work I have often used a simple dichotomy as a framework to explore dominant and alternative human representations of the future: namely Money and Machines Futures, versus Deep Futures.
The culture of a money and machines society is sustained by a narrative steeped in the principles of capitalism and scientific materialism, where the dominant metaphor and story is the machine universe, wherein the body is construed as a machine and the mind is seen as a computer. This worldview is characterized by determinism, where the concept of free will is disavowed. There then arises a culture of abstract, over-intellectualism, where emotions are suppressed, and hedonism tends to predominate. This is the alienation of the mind from the body, and from the spirit. Today’s Web 2.0 and its surveillance capitalism, where humans are herded by BigTech into online spaces to optimise advertising revenue, is an extension of a money and machines society, wherein the digital sphere and its market usurps our connection with the world, with nature and the human spirit itself.
We can contrast money and machines futures with the ideal of Deep Futures, and here there are several possible meta-stories and leading metaphors, but the one that I like to use is reading the cosmos as a conscious organism. Deep Futures societies value contemplation and introspection, not merely technology and materialism. A foundational ideal is an intimate mind-body connection, where consciousness is experienced as a manifestation of spirit, and where there is free will (albeit within certain restraints). The harmonious balance of reason and intuition is the key, enabling an Integrated Intelligence. Within this framework, the lived experience of the extended mind unfolds, transcending our individual boundaries. And that requires the cultivation of receptivity, bringing ourselves into a state of stillness where we are able to intuit (raises hand) the voice of spirit. For it is in that quiet space, that infinitesimal moment of agency, where integrated intelligence arises, and where we have the capacity to embody the voice of spirit and bring it into the world. The cultivation of this moment of agency, which is actually very simple, is the key, and only the direct experience of it can deliver the true understanding of what I am talking about. But conversely, the moment of agency is as delicate as flower, and requires a realignment with the experience of time itself. But by instilling harsh attitudes of control and power, it is a simple matter for cultures and leaders to crush it before that flower has a chance to bloom. Our generative A.I. may be fashioned to produce either outcome.
Towards the Web of Wisdom
Deep Futures open the door to crafting a more humane and democratic digital superstructure, bringing these values to virtual life.
In my envisioned “Web of Wisdom,” a conscious balance is struck between time spent online and in the physical world, fostering a strong connection with our bodies, communities, and nature. An essential foundation is the nurturing of a conscious relationship with information technology – what I call Digital Wisdom. This digital web permits diverse ways of knowing, honoring all of intuition, reason, and scientific rationality. Practices such as meditation, mindfulness, spiritual healing, and shadow work are revered. There is an intentional cultivation of a more introspective and harmonious societal fabric, including a deliberate slowing of the pace of life. Our educational pathways will guide people toward the attainment of Digital Wisdom, incorporating insight, introspection, an awareness of human behavior, and cultures, and this will transcend the more superficial idea of digital literacy.
Our shift towards Deep Futures may enable individuals and communities to craft new stories that genuinely honor the human spirit. Even now, we can develop more democratic creator economies and leave behind the manipulations of web 2.0. Within the current AI Explosion and beyond, netizens will have the potential to wield greater creative influence and agency within society. Establishing a Web of Wisdom can thus help us combat the exploitative forces of surveillance capitalism, Big Tech, governments, and clandestine authorities.
And so, the emergence of generative A.I. potentially enables us to mindfully co-create the future. In previous human eras, the creative potential of humans was severely limited by the very limited array of tools that we had available. The great works of art, literature and music could only be created by a select few – geniuses like Shakespeare and the Persian poet Rumi; Michelangelo and Japan’s Katushika Hokusai; Charlie Chaplin and Ang Lee. Yet today, creative expression is at almost everyone’s fingertips. The time between creative insight and creative output will continue to dramatically collapse, as will the physical and mental energy required to innovate. This means that inspiration, including the wisdom of spirit imbued with integrated intelligence, will be able to be realised in real-world form far more readily than at any time in human history. So much inspiration that was once lost, can now be quickly rendered upon digital tapestries, via large language models, text-to-image, text-to video, and A.I.-generated music software. The potential applications are staggering. As just one example, in several of my videos I have rendered meaningful dreams that I have had into visual form, such as in my last video where I shared a dream of presence teacher Leonard Jacobson diving from a cliff into a beautiful blue ocean, even as he uttered the words, “Thank you, I love you.” And this is just one of countless possible applications of generative A.I. today.
In light of emerging Deep Futures, where we encourage the development of integrated intelligence and a deep connection with spirit, the wisdom of spirit may quickly become infused within popular culture and throughout society, and at a level never seen before in human history. That is the promise that artificial intelligence and generative AI holds.
Generative A.I. and Dystopia
Yet despite this vast potential, it must be acknowledged that the arrival of pervasive AI may herald the very opposite outcome, and generate a dystopian future, an even more distorted money and machines society than we see today, utterly devoid of connection with the world, with nature, with the body and with the human spirit itself. A.I. poses a genuine threat to the expression of deep creativity, and especially to the development of deeper ways of knowing and being, and the wisdom that potentially emerges from that.
First, there is the obvious fact that the extended time and discipline that the act of creativity has traditionally required enhances the development of self-discipline, stoicism and character, while generating a sense of pride and accomplishment. Consider the oft-quoted 10 000 hours needed to develop mastery of crafts such as playing the guitar, writing wondrous prose or learning Chinese. Today, a layman can potentially produce a melodic guitar piece without ever having plucked a guitar string, write a mythic novel without ever having written a word, and render a classic Chinese poem upon a screen, without ever having muttered a word of Mandarin. This super-efficient machine creativity potentially cheapens the creative act to the point whereby it becomes little more than worthless vanity.
Another issue is that generative AI draws from a pre-existing, delineated body of human creation. Words, images, music, and data bounded by paradigms and worldviews which potentially delimit creativity, culture and cognition – if an individual or an entire population surrenders its agency and choices largely or totally to that pre-existing body of knowledge.
Perhaps the greatest threat from AI-bounded futures is their potential to restrict human cognition and embodiment. In a money and machines future where our creative expression is largely machine-mediated, authoritarian governments may choose to deliberately delimit not only knowledge, but also restrict the mental and embodied functions that populations are permitted to express. Or, like so many civilisations that have come before us, we may all simply sleepwalk, hand in hand, with ignorant leaders as they herd us all towards the abyss.
It is well known to those within the spiritual and awakening traditions that expanded human cognitive potentials – awakening and enlightenment – become more accessible in non-ordinary states of consciousness. And to facilitate such states, those traditions emphasised the development of introspection – the deep, mindful examination of inner worlds. Yet digital societies channel our attention out onto externalities, to become fixated upon screens and virtual landscapes that may be literally as narrow as three inches wide. And as research strongly indicates – fast-release dopamine experiences tend to retard our capacity for the slow-drip dopamine undertakings which are essential for developing meaningful lives, and for mastery of most intricate human skills, as experts like Dr Andrew Huberman have explained. This is not to mention the well-documented increased levels of anxiety, depression and suicide that are correlated with excessive online activity.
We must also keep a simple but profound truth at heart; that dissociation from the body inhibits the capacity to feel deeply, something that is required both for mental health, and to access deeper ways of knowing and being. But let me be clear – there’s a price to pay for feeling deeply – and that is… the necessity of processing of a wide range of feelings and perceptions, some of which are unpleasant – fear, sadness, shame, guilt, anger and so on. But the light cannot shine while the darkness remains hidden. For that darkness is held in place by repressed feelings – this is the world of the shadow. Future A.I.-infused worlds that do not value the exploration of emotional well-being, and instead channel human experience towards superficial amusement and satiation of pleasure, may unwittingly rob us of our ability to feel authentically human.
Amidst this backdrop, embodied presence and the practice of mindfulness, prayerfulness and the facilitation of “non-ordinary” states of consciousness assume heightened significance, offering a possible gateway to deep knowing and expanded cognition. Embracing Integrated Intelligence can help navigate us towards Deep Futures. Therefore, I believe that intentional mindfulness, practiced away from our devices, will be of increased importance in the digital age.
At this critical juncture in human history, we are presented with a profound opportunity for the human spirit, and to weave a Web of Wisdom via the internet. The decisions we undertake today regarding the trajectory of AI and the evolution of humanity will unequivocally shape the minds and civilizations of the future. It’s essential to recognize that these decisions encompass more than just the utilization of technology; rather, they incorporate the fundamental ways in which we humans choose to exist.
Throughout history, new technologies have profoundly influenced human perception, cognitive functions. From the advent of writing and the printing press, to computers and the internet, technological leaps have significantly impacted human consciousness. Today, in the midst of the AI Explosion, we are presented with a momentous opportunity to actively mold and nurture the human mind and spirit. However, these technological advancements also harbor the potential to negatively impact our intelligence and expression of consciousness. There is thus an urgent imperative for intelligent foresight, and the proactive navigation of the integration of AI into the human experience. This cannot be left to mere chance. We must preserve the quintessence of the human spirit amid the integration of AI into humanity’s journey towards Deep Futures.
I reckon that’s something worth contemplating.
See you again soon, in the futures.
Marcus
