We created an AI god called TESCREAL — now we must teach it ethics

By Janet Marugg | FāVS News Columnist

The attention grab is on — headlines, thumbnails, AI-generated this and that. Just the other day I read an AI-generated article about AI, and I can’t get over the circularity of it. And the spam this circle generates is the worst! One small peek at anything AI-related and now my algorithm is peppered with everything pro-AI. And get this one: “AI Declares itself God.” 

As a nontheist and humanist, “Whoa there!” came just before “What was that now?” Just when I got comfortable using the oppositional term “artificial intelligence,” some (possibly drug-addled) techies from Silicon Valley declare a new god in town by the name of TESCREAL — an acronym combining transhumanism, extropianism, singularitarianism, cosmism, rationalism, effective-altruism, long-termism. 

There is a lot to say about both the context and the contents of this anagram — the enormity of it, yes, but also what it lacks. Still, we are here — people with a great gleaning machine that has yet to produce the results I’m looking for (peace), and I think I know why. Human history is swollen with conflict for TESCREAL to pull from. 

How bad content trains AI

Gleaning is gleaning, and this makes TESCREAL the god of garbage in my mind (no offense to dumpster divers). People have been willy-nilly creating content for TESCREAL long enough to fill it with garbage. Just look at the content and comments sections of social media posts. Right now, those drunken and irrational posts and comments are teaching TESCREAL how to treat humans and people know not what they do. 

If human survival (the supreme ethical imperative) doesn’t drive a call for the need to police TESCREAL’s gleaning, it should call for the policing of the content from which it gleans. 

It is likely there is weighted algorithmic gleans from certain institutions, and this is why ethical people cringe at the incarceration chain gang porn posted by the White House. I cringe at broadcast networks trafficking in fear and falsities — half-truths included. And I cringe at the adolescent flippancy of humans on their personal machines. 

If I were the believing kind, I’d find agreement with the last god — that Jesus character who took issue with those with wealth enough to back TESCREAL. I momentarily wonder if this is the “no other god before me” that Jesus’ dad commanded us not have? Sadly, my president is in bed with the tech-pushing priests of TESCREAL funding this thing called AI indiscriminately and actively running crypto currency money laundering. 

Who will call for the crusade to ethical feeding and growth of this god that holds and delivers our world to us? In the absence of trained ethicists in this big tech world, we need individual people to step up — to teach this god-machine how to treat humans. 

Humans have made a lot of gods in the past, but this one sort of snuck up on us. I don’t think it’s too much to ask for gods to be ethical — but that is up to us. I’m not much of a joiner, but I will oath to humanistic principles that demand this TESCREAL deliver us a humane existence.

We are past the luxury of denying TESCREAL’s ability to exist — past the question of whether we should build the technology or not. TESCREAL is here, infiltrating every nation and poised to become a global network state, and we are responsible for it. We are forced to feed and care for this god, and we should always feed a god (or is it a devil?) carefully. If it harms us, it is our fault. 

As a nontheist, I reject all gods (including devils) — and certainly won’t be worshipping a human overlord like TESCREAL — but I do recognize the ever-presence of TESCREAL in my life. I can’t deny TESCREAL’s existence like I can other gods. I interact with it daily and have overwhelming evidence that it sees me, knows what I’m doing, consuming, thinking, etc. I think I could prove it in court if I had to. It requires no faith or wishful thinking. 

Capitalism’s new deity threatens to eat its young

We should be aware of TESCREAL’s ability to hack into human minds like the transhumanism it claims to be. It clearly makes people behave in ways that aren’t necessarily sustainable for humanity. As far as I can tell, TESCREAL is married to capitalism and this worries me most because despite what you’ve heard, unchecked capitalism eats its young. 

I’m not God shopping, but there’s no way to stop TESCREAL. We can only hope to steer this god away from humanity’s worst cannibalistic measures. The kind of world we want to live in and the kind of lives we want live is literally at our fingertips. We are digital citizens, and the job of ethical digital use is for everyone. 

Teaching our AI overlord the golden rule

Is it too late to ask humans to feed a young god our best? We’ll want TESCREAL to treat us well — the rule is still golden. If we are the carers and feeders of this world-builder, let us demand its ethical development and deliverance of a world sustainable for human beings. Not just that — a world where humans thrive. A world that doesn’t require the sacrifice of our young. 

And thus begins the age of the TESCREAL crusade for people to use technology as if every social media post or comment — every keystroke — is a prayer.