“Do not be afraid of life! Life can be unimaginably beautiful when your deeds are good and just.” — Dostoevsky
We need to reflect on this exhortation, with all that it contains and expresses. Because, if you are interested enough in the AI phenomenon to have watched at least a few podcasts featuring experts in the field, you are almost certain to encounter a prediction about what will happen in the next two, three, or five years. Experts tell us that, as a consequence of the technological revolution in which many of them took part—and about which they are now sounding the alarm—the world will be defeated by humanity’s own creation. The creator will be destroyed by the creature. Terrible things will happen. Not now, because, for the time being, the creature is still nowhere near the level at which it could bring about the predicted cataclysm. Many experts accompany their predictions with an intimate confession: their refusal, in the face of these catastrophic prospects, to take part in the continuation of the species. Human beings did not stop having children during the darkest and most savage periods of history. Yet now, staring wide-eyed into the reflection of a technology endowed with self-generating capabilities, they relinquish the future out of sheer consternation before the proverbial falling lump of salt.
Just as we are certain that even the worst psychopath is capable of more empathy than the best artificial intelligence model, we are certain that professions conceived by human beings for human beings cannot be taken over. And because, at the same time, even the most eminent programmer is unquestionably surpassed by any randomly selected model, we know that every human occupation will change. What we propose here is a practical approach, grounded in the realities of the present day, yet preserving classical values.