In 1944, Jean-Paul Sartre acidly penned the line “Hell is other people” without the benefit of ever having visited a water park.
Nonetheless, “other people” are taking a beating these days.
In an interview with the New York Times’ Ross Douthat last week, billionaire techno-futurist Peter Thiel struggled to answer whether he thinks humanity should continue to exist, as artificial intelligence continues to gobble up more of our brain activity.
“You would prefer the human race to endure, right?” Douthat asked.
Thiel stared ahead blankly and began stammering, as if his brain were buffering.
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“This is a long hesitation,” Douthat noted. “Should the human race survive?”
“Yes,” Thiel answered, perhaps remembering he is a member of the human race and that he should be in favor of Peter Thiel’s surviving.
The other members of humanity? Meh.
In fact, most of AI’s appeal is that it