Still, AI humans let the artwork seep into their brains. This time it’s a piece of speculative fiction for Europeans.Europe 2031.” Before that, it was Citrini Research “2028 Global Intelligence Crisis” That’s a story about white-collar unemployment caused stocks to fall. It was like that before that AI 2027 super intelligent artificial intelligence is killing humanity. The current vice president of the United States he says he read it.
Written by Europe 2031 eight people describe themselves as “a small group of AI researchers, brain researchers and investors who have spent their careers at the intersection of frontier AI and European politics.”
The power of these documents is not good for the world. I have some authority on this subject – a very small amount – because I wrote it a book of hypothetical scenarios and managed to be published in several countries.
Speculative writing starts with some apocalyptic ending, and then the writer works backwards. This is because fiction is a fraud. You throw out reality and only write down the steps to take to reach your goal. You can fully disclose what you are doing, but readers will still think you’re predicting the future.
I’ve told my readers not to make decisions based on what I write, and that gaming is a mental habit that helps me manage my own anxiety, but people who read my hypotheticals still say I’m scared of them. Worse: they ask me for advice.
My lesson is that the written word is the best tool to scare people, and ideas that scare people are sticky.
With that in mind, what’s scaring people now is the speculative fiction that Europe doesn’t take its AI independence seriously enough. It begins as all good fantasy should, with the show-dont-de-nit introduction they teach you in college writing seminars:
Caroline splashes cold water on her face and looks at herself in the bathroom mirror. His hands are shaking. He grabs the edge of the sink and waits for her to pass. Through the small high window, he can see a piece of the flat and bright Washington sky.
Oh God, what’s going to happen to poor Caroline? Answer: He fails to convince Europe to act in time, and after quitting his job, he is left bitter, disillusioned, and financially dependent on his billionaire friend. Oh, and his mother dies.
A drifting Europe is vulnerable as AI-powered hackers make mincemeat of antiquated safeguards. The European economy, and probably the EU itself, is staring at almost certain death after the continent is left out of the AI race. The the two big bullies, the US and China, hold all the cards.
“Even in 2026, the continent could still change course if it had the courage and political will to take drastic action,” the authors write towards the end of Europe 2031.
According to the Guardianthe story fueled a “heated debate on the relevance of EU technological sovereignty” during the G7 talks. Members of the European Parliament read it and informal UK-German diplomatic talks were informed by it. This is scary.
My take on speculative stories is that they are still lies that can clear up mental fog, especially when the proposed situation is one that people talk about without much thought about what it might take to get there. But better writers than I have regretted parts of their assumptions. For example, Kim Stanley Robinson reportedly felt remorse after endorsing cryptocurrency as part of a climate change solution in his book. The Ministry of the Future.
This riveting back talk by Kim Stanley Robinson @Stanford. In his Ministry of the Future, he says he regrets mentioning bitcoin/crypto (calling it a fraudulent scam) and that we are in a different frame of mind than he wrote in 2019. pic.twitter.com/fcw6zZCa7E
— Britt Wray, PhD (@brittwray) June 5, 2022
So guys, remember: stories are primarily lies and should always be treated as such.
