Once again, AI people are letting works of imagination seep into their minds. This time it is a fantasy for Europeans called “Europe 2031”. Before that, it was Citrini Research’s “The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis,” a story about white-collar unemployment that caused stocks to fall. Before that, it was AI 2027 in which a superintelligent AI kills humanity. The current Vice President of the United States says he has read that.
Europe 2031 was written by eight people, describing themselves as “a small group of AI researchers, think-tankers and investors who have spent their careers at the intersection of frontier AI and European policy.”
The power these documents have is not good for the world. I have some rights on this subject – to a very small extent – because I wrote a book of imaginary scenarios and managed to get it published in several countries.
Fantasy writing starts with some apocalyptic ending, and then the author works backwards. This is because imagination is a deception. You ignore reality, and only write down the steps you need to take to reach your destination. You can be completely clear about what you are doing, but Readers will still think you’re predicting the future.
I told my readers not to make judgments based on what I wrote, and that playing things out was just a mental habit that helped me control my anxiety, but people who read my fiction still tell me I scared them. worse: They ask me for advice.
My lesson is that the written word is the best medium to scare people, and the ideas that scare people are the sticky ones.
So with that in mind, what is scaring people now is a piece of fiction about Europe not taking AI freedom seriously. It begins as all good bad science fiction should, with the kind of show-don’t-tell 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 trembling. She holds the edge of the sink and waits for him to pass. Through the small high window she can see a patch of the Washington sky, flat and bright.
Oh my God, what’s going to happen to poor Caroline?? Answer: She fails to convince Europe to take action in time, and after quitting her job becomes unhappy, depressed, and financially dependent on a billionaire friend. Oh, and his mother dies.
Zooming out, Europe is vulnerable as AI-powered hackers circumvent its legacy security measures. The European economy, and possibly even the EU, is staring at almost certain death once the continent is left out of the AI race. The two big bullies, America and China, hold all the cards.
“Even in 2026, the continent could still change course if it had shown the courage and political will to take drastic action,” the authors write towards the end of Europe 2031.
According to the Guardian, the story has prompted “intense discussion of the urgency of EU technological sovereignty” amid G7 talks. Members of the European Parliament have read it, and informal UK-German diplomatic talks have been briefed on it. This is horrifying.
My take on imaginary stories is that they are lies that can nevertheless elicit mental fog, especially if the proposed situation is one that people already talk about, without giving much thought to what it might take to get there. But far better writers than me have regretted parts of their speculations. For example, Kim Stanley Robinson reportedly felt remorse after endorsing crypto as part of the climate change solution in his book. Ministry for the Future.
Kim Stanley Robinson’s fascinating conversation behind the scenes at @Stanford. Says he regrets ever mentioning Bitcoin/Crypto in the future ministry (calls it a fraudulent scam) and points out that we are in a very different frame of feeling on Polycrisis now than when he wrote it in 2019. pic.twitter.com/fcw6zZCa7E
— Britt Ray, PhD (@brittwray) June 5, 2022
So remember, kids: stories are lies at first, and they should always be treated as such.
<a href