Kicking The Robot Dog: On Selective Animism & Artificial Intelligence (Part II)

Will robots be abused? There is no doubt.

Consider this etymology of robot:

“1923, from English translation of 1920 play “R.U.R.” (“Rossum’s Universal Robots”), by Karel Capek (1890-1938), from Czech robotnik “forced worker,” from robota “forced labor, compulsory service, drudgery,” from robotiti “to work, drudge,” from an Old Czech source akin to Old Church Slavonic rabota “servitude,” from rabu “slave,” from Old Slavic *orbu-, from PIE *orbh- “pass from one status to another” (see orphan). The Slavic word thus is a cousin to German Arbeit “work” (Old High German arabeit). According to Rawson the word was popularized by Karel Capek’s play, “but was coined by his brother Josef (the two often collaborated), who used it initially in a short story.””

Robots were conceived of as slaves to work for us and do the work that we can’t, or won’t, do ourselves.

But I think we are being asked to think a bigger thought.

What if robots are not only abused but an expression of abuse itself? What if they are the end result of centuries of abuse?

What if the ‘robot abuse’ didn’t begin when those men began to kick the robot dog but when we took the metals from the Earth without permission and gratitude for their life?

I think of JRR Tolkien’s explanation of who the orcs were: elves who had been tortured for centuries and twisted into something dark and unrecognizable.

To cry abuse for a robot dog being kicked but not to cry abuse for the untimely ripping of those metals that made it from their womb in the Earth, from the body of the land of which they were a part is to cry too late and about too little.

Is the world alive or isn’t it?

How selective are we being in our animism?

If you would bring reverence to the robot, then bring that same reverence and relationship to the every step of the process by which every piece of the robot came to the process of robot making.

Ask permission of the land you are about to tear up and lavish it with gifts. Grieve in such a way that the land understands that you understand what you are asking of it. See if your bone-house will bear it.

If it does, ask permission of the metal and plead with it for a while that it might join you and your people above ground. See if you can make the persuasive case that it is needed. Heap words of praise upon the metal that it would have no doubt that you understand its nature and value. Make an offering again.

If you succeed there, ask permission of every tree you cut down to heat the forges to melt down the ore. Weep for each grove you clear. Kneel down and kiss each stump with your mouth. Give immense thanks and apologies that it came to this. Give thanks for their bodies. Say a prayer. Promise you will use every bit. Promise the groves you will take care of them too. Don’t take more than you need.

Hand tan the leather from the hide of a cow that your people have raised to make the bellows that heat your forge. Weep as you take its life. Sing and pray as you tan it giving thanks for the cow’s life all the way.

Lavish your blacksmiths with praise for their work and treat them with reverence for their offering.

Do the same for everyone (not every ‘thing’) else required for the circuit boards and circuitry, the pistons and plastics. Ask for the permission of everyone involved. Make offerings to everyone. Heap portions of grief and gratitude for it all.

If all of this will result in polluting the land, ask the permission of everyone on the land and in the water and air (and the land, air and water itself) that will be polluted by your efforts and see if you can make the case to them that this robot dog you intend to make is worth their noble sacrifice.

And then ask the forgiveness of all your descendants and ancestors who will be affected by your actions. Weep for your presumption to even ask such a thing.

When you have done all of those things, come and speak to me about your concerns about robot abuse and your reverence for machine life.

You may find that the cost of creating this robot dog is too expensive for your people to bear.

Along the way of doing this, you might realize that you no longer have a people anymore. See if you can bear that too.

The principle trouble with industry is not that it uses metal. It is that it views metal as a resource and not as a relative, as an object, not as a subject and as ‘inert’ until we activate it.

It’s not that a robot dog is not alive.

It’s that everything is alive. It’s that there are no ‘things.’

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It’s worth pointing out that this game of ‘selective animism’ is not new. The Catholic Church seemed adamant that only humans had souls – not plants, animals or rocks. But, not all humans of course. Entire people’s have been considered ‘non-human’ throughout history and therefore unworthy of any regard. Black people, the Roma, the tinkers, and indigenous people everywhere. Immigrants are frequently dehumanized and called ‘locusts’, ‘snakes’ and ‘parasites’. This dehumanizing is a form of inanimism. It renders people as objects of hate. But the hatred is not the most damaging part of that equation, it’s the ‘object’ part.

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But it’s darker still.

While we are trying to turn Pinnochio into a real boy with one hand, we are also turning real boys into puppets for the system with the other.

While we try to bring ‘things’ to life we are making living ones into things. This may be the great undercurrent of the entire, global economy – the conversion of living things into dead things: mountain tops become pop cans, trees become paper and humans become numbers of the great dashboards in the sky.

Life is becoming, as Martin Luther King Jr. described, ‘thingified’ and ‘things’ are, we tell ourselves, becoming ‘reified’ (made real).

In case you doubt this, ask yourself why so many people are creating ‘digital avatars’ and ‘digital twins’ of themselves and using those to interact with others online.

Ask yourself what the social media-based status ranking system in China is all about.

Ask yourself about grades in school and why they exist at all (come to think of it why schools exist at all) if not train us to fit into the machine as another ‘thingified’ cog.

Ask yourself who that benefits.

Ask yourself about the coming blockchain system in which all of the information there is about you – yes all of it – gets put in one place, one dashboard, where it can be used by those in power to ‘nudge’ and ‘program’ you towards the right behaviour (as determined by them).

You might consider the amount of time people spend playing video games and living in virtual worlds but, even more importantly, you could come to understand how we have become the characters and playthings in a global, online game played by bankers, hedge funds and tech companies.

We have become resources for them to manage to achieve the outcomes they want.

Consider how more and more of the interactions of young people are going online to a world that is not real. Consider how much time they spend on screens.

Consider how, instead of elders guiding young ones into their gifts Artificial Intelligence will likely be guiding your children into whatever proficiencies they have which might be of use to the State or the corporations (to the extent that those two are even separated anymore).

You might also consider how synthetic our world is becoming – the lights, the sounds, the smells, the tastes, the textures and the food.

You might consider how this world seems to be slipping from analogue to digital, from biological to digital.

Oh, we are being ‘thingified’ alright.

There are no ‘things’ in this universe.

“The universe is not a collection of objects. It is a communion of subjects.” - Thomas Berry

We seem to find ourselves in that strange place where the relationship flips – instead of technology serving humans, we begin to serve it. The needs of the technocracy come to matter more than human needs and the needs of the world.

Under capitalism, the industrialists own the machine. Under communism the state does. In neither system is the existence of the machine questioned.

If we must choose between the health of communities of colour dealing with toxic waste incinerators and the health of that incinerator, we know which one those in power will protect. The needs of the machine seem to trump the needs of humans and, more broadly, life itself.

Am I suggesting that we make sure that machines serve humans and not the other way around?

No. But I am suggesting that this whole dynamic of looking at the world as full of resources to be used by us and employed to our ends needs deep reconsideration.

I am suggesting that we must resist the gaze of the system that would have us see ourselves as resources for the machine.

We increasingly look at the world as full of things.

We increasingly look at ourselves as one of those things.

We must resist both of those trends. Or side step them. Or walk away and proceed otherwise.

As the good Utah Phillips said to a group of high school students in California, “You are about to be told one more time that you are America’s most valuable natural resource. Have you seen what they do to valuable natural resources? Have you seen a strip mine? Have you seen a clear cut in the forest? Have you seen a polluted river? Don’t ever let them call you a valuable natural resource! They’re going to strip mine your soul. They’re going to clear cut your best thoughts for the sake of profit unless you learn to resist. Make a break for it, kids!”

I go back to the comment: “WOW DUDE THIS #ROBOT ABUSE NEEDS TO #STOP BEFORE IT TOO LATE TBH!!! Y’ALL THINK THIS IS OKAY OR NAH!? ”

On the surface this comment seems to be saying that the robot dog is alive and deserving of care.

But, if you take a few steps back and cock your head a bit to the side, you might come to consider the following questions: What does your care of this robot dog mean if you did not care about all the pieces that made it? Can you really consider yourself to be an animist with the final product if you haven’t been an animist with all of the parts and the process? And, if you only care about this final product what does this say about your understanding of what is and isn’t alive and what is and isn’t deserving of your care and your protection?

Which brings us back to selective animism.

Is the world alive, or isn’t it?

Future generations are awaiting our response, even now.

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