The Problem of AI and Churchill’s Scientific Optimism

In our time, people react to questions of the nature of consciousness and the factor of Artificial Intelligence in the same way that previous generations reacted to questions of the nature of the origin of life on Earth and life beyond Earth at the beginning of the 20th century. Such a thought is prompted by Winston Churchill’s essay “Are There Men on the Moon?”, where the author, reflecting on the question of extraterrestrial life, is forced to look at the problem through the prism of his era, in which the attitude toward exoplanets and astrobiology was philosophical rather than engineering, as it is now.

The uniqueness of Churchill’s work lies in the fact that he writes not so much about science in order to interest amateur astronomers, but for the general public, proposing to extend the method of scientific optimism to a personal attitude toward the question of extraterrestrial life. This makes his work deeply humanistic and even philosophical. Winston’s narrative language is analytical, which contrasted with his other works about painting and early life. And although his style emphasized scientific seriousness, behind it nevertheless lay a fateful view of the question.

Our task in the 21st century is the creation of a method also based on scientific optimism, but at the same time sensitive to the real risks that are hidden behind the brilliant technology of AI. A true writer, as the semiotician Yu. Lotman once said, “resembles an instrument measuring the tremors of the earth.” And methodicalness is often defined as a way of thinking of a cultured person. Winston Churchill, of course, was undoubtedly a person with a cultured and even artistic way of thinking. This is explained by the versatility of his personality. After all, a person who does not possess such thinking is unlikely to be able to combine painting, writing, and public activity, bringing them into a single image and way of life.

In Churchill’s life, as an aristocrat, the philosophy of rest and self-preservation had great importance. It seems that this was not just a part of life, but a condition for it. In our time, we largely lack precisely the philosophy of rest. A person in leisure may read, draw, but he does this in isolation from the principle of preservation. This directly affects the individuality of his personality, determining in what state a person sees and solves problems today.

The public of the 21st century is concerned with the question of a change in the model of life for a person. Discussions arise around whether human life can be considered complete if the writing of any texts, from apology notes to responses to emotional moments in correspondence, is given to an artificial chat for generation. Opponents emphasize the ability to create text in different styles as the main indicator of a person’s civilization. After all, the degree of ability to master styles and nuances of writing can often speak of origin, traditions of language, and much more. AI destroys this at once. When a person entrusts it with writing, even a small postcard, later this develops into the enslavement of the ordinary person by laziness and dependence on AI.

In the past, apology notes and emotional personal letters helped to work out social scenarios in writing: how to apologize, how to explain a conflict, how to express gratitude. But it is far from new that the younger generation today feels increased social anxiety and frequent self-isolation, which develops into a lack of passion for communication. At the generational level, this strengthens the gap in social traditions and raises, under such harsh conditions, the question of the uniqueness of human personality. And when AI simplifies and erases styles of communication formed within traditions, culture loses its uniqueness, giving way to standardization.

Now it is time to consider the era in which Churchill lived. The era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This was a time when a generation raised in the sensuous world of religion and Victorian morality became acquainted with the worldview of their children and grandchildren. Their world already revolved around ideas of the early space age, moving from the framework of science and universities into pop culture. On the level of generational anthropology, this again left the existential question of uniqueness. Only in the case of the 20th century, this was a rupture in the capacity for imagination. The former religious order began to conflict with pop culture at the level of generational imagination. Space ceased to be a system and became infinity, almost like God.

Churchill writes about the assumption of life inside, beyond clouds of gas, on Venus. Such a theory was indeed widespread in the 20th century; it is enough to recall the popular Soviet fairy tale “Dunno on the Moon,” where the main character travels inside the Moon, where a whole world of intelligent beings is revealed to him. The image of a hidden world is an attempt by a person from the strong Christian culture of the 19th century to look at the scientific world of the 20th century. A Christian accepts the theory of a hidden world beyond clouds of gas in order, on the one hand, not to lag behind the new worldview, and on the other, to have a reason to refuse to accept the infinity of the Universe. A person, as it were, accepts the new worldview without delving deeply into it, thereby preserving their integrity.

But the depth of personality did not disappear; it moved into other registers. Just as the development of cosmology moved from a philosophical topic into engineering. But a person of Victorian morality of the 19th century, within the framework of their active life, may not live to see this transition. The main humanistic message of Winston Churchill’s essay about space is the recognition of human limitation. The fragment where Churchill reflects on the prospects of interplanetary travel, on the journey to which people will spend dozens of years of their lives, leads to the following thoughts: a person should not break themselves by orthodoxly rejecting progress or by completely dissolving in it. A person should smoothly extend the integral thread of history to future generations.

In the case of AI, the main fear is not that a person will lose the traditions that make their communication unique, but that they will break down in the attempt to preserve them. And will no longer be able to pass on to future generations the evolutionary principle of adaptation. This will detach a person from nature, and then no traditions will save them.

“If we are sufficiently self-centred and choose to deny that any of these support life, no one can prove we are wrong. But I, for one, am not so immensely impressed by the success we are making of our civilization here that I am prepared to think we are the only spot in this immense Universe…”

However, let us also consider the real, justified dangers. Opponents of AI declare the threat that the standardization of text impoverishes the external manifestations of identity. The problem lies in the disappearance of local writing traditions due to AI standardization. Reflecting on this problem, it is appropriate to recall that when Churchill, in his reflections, doubted the uniqueness of reason as a phenomenon, he did not for a moment doubt the uniqueness of human reason in comparison with hypothetical intelligent beings in the Universe. After all, diversity in many ways strengthens the condition for uniqueness, rather than diminishing it. Such a point of view supports the argument for diversity of forms.

Even today, many fear that the discovery of the spread of reason in the Universe will disrupt our understanding of ourselves. But Churchill’s example shows the opposite: humanity can become part of a larger picture of the world, thanks to a paradox— the more others exist, the more you will differ, but also, the more you will be similar.

In essence, the paradox presents us with an important humanistic truth: uniqueness is not reduced only to a diversity of forms. Different cultures over thousands of years have formed values that help traditions survive even under the conditions of AI standardization. For example, they encourage a preference for live communication over correspondence. Just as in the time of the emergence of mass media people united into large subcultures, so too, under AI, humanity may come to more local, isolationist societies. In a historical perspective, this will form new forms of interaction and emotional resilience in the face of AI.

The mechanism looks like this: local communities, against the background of the problem of AI, strengthen personal responsibility. This leads to the strengthening of the institution of reputation, partially solving the problem described by Alasdair MacIntyre. Strengthening the role of personal responsibility for one’s word, thereby reducing the influence of emotivism and manipulative communication. As a result, leaving the human word unique and influential, even against the background of AI. And the argument that this may lead not to the revival of universal virtues, but to new closed worlds with their own truth, only further affirms uniqueness under conditions of diversity.

In general, it is unjustified to put a cross on the complex history of human civilization. For as long as we bear responsibility for our words, we remain subjects of history. Winston Churchill, as a writer, demonstrates a way of thinking: to respect, but not to fixate on form, and above all to preserve the essence. It is amusing to recall the legend that Winston once climbed a stepladder in his friend’s house to redraw a mouse in a painting, a copy of Rubens. And of course, in his own home, he would never have allowed a frame made of unsuitable material to spoil the new essence of the painting, which he, a month after painting, wanted to adjust. For as a leader of the conservatives, he understood that when the essence is simplified, traditions disappear. When the form is simplified, this is a sign of adaptation to new challenges.

Print