Meaning v. Comfort

And I don't think on why I'm here or where it hurts

I'm just lucky to have the work

Sunday morning, I'm too tired to go to church

But I thank God for the work

When I get my reward, my work will all be done

And I will sit back in my chair beside the father and the son

No more holes to fill, and no more rocks to break

And no more loading boxes on the trucks for someone else's sake

-Jason Isbell, Something More Than Free

Another missed day on this blog, after I spent all morning yesterday zipping from meeting to meeting until the end of the lunch hour, then buttoning up the condo ahead of the hurricane and driving east to Wyldswood. Gloomy and breezy out there this morning, but without much rain so far. The radar suggests it's going to be hellzapoppin in an hour or two, however.

A really interesting exchange on the Daily Show with John Stewart this week. He devoted the entire episode to AI, its dangers, and how society is about to be radically reshaped in ways we're told are inevitable. The show called all that into question, lining up each excuse for letting the tech bros run rampant ("but what about China?") and dismantling the logic behind it.

The exchange that called me up short came late in the program, between Stewart and his guest, a young man named Jacob Coxon who, at 28, has worked both at OpenAI and Anthropic, and had a lot to impart about that world and the people who inhabit it. He's been characterized as sort of a renegade and whistleblower for dragging those things out into the light, but he comes across as a nerdy, well-spoken young man who's incredibly bright and somewhere on the spectrum.

Coxon spoke to the utopian vision of AI, and the premise that it would create universal prosperity and leisure at a level never seen in human history. Stewart asked the obvious question about how that plays out in the present tense--if the goal is universal basic income, universal health care, decent housing, and decent and abundant food for all, why not just do it now with the trillions the tech industry has amassed? If not now, how much confidence does one have that they'll keep that promise in the future?

Then the topic turned to work, and more importantly what meaning much of the human race would derive in a world where there is none. Here, Coxon made the remarkable and insightful statement that his fellow tech workers saw this a simply a continuation of a process that's gone on for two centuries or more, sacrificing meaning in life for quality of life. More and better stuff on the buffet, but work as a token of one's identity and part of a community, work as a foundation for self-respect and self-worth, effacing by the day. Peg and I may find meaning in our professions, despite all the frustrations. The checker at Wal-Mart and the wage slaving working in an Amazon warehouse, not so much.

But people inherently need something external in our search for meaning; well, most of us anyway. That once was church, family, the local Kiwanis Club, the satisfaction of creating a life through hard work and persistence. Where will one find meaning if earth turns into a massive cruise ship with a 24 hour buffet and endless big screen sporting events?

This doesn't sound like a gameplan for human thriving to me, but rather a siren call to convince the Hollow Men trudging through a life lived on the economic edge to stand aside and welcome the data centers and the 24 hour monitoring of our every movement and thought, to let the masters of tech find meaning in their own lives by building a utopia or dystopia for yours.

As for me, I'll just go back to pushing this rock uphill, and trying to smile at whatever meaning I derive from the exercise.