How connected are you to the human race? If it were possible that eventually humans become extinct and artificial intelligence manages the planet, would you be okay with that, if it were best for the planet? If not, why do you feel this attachment to the human race?
© 2026 – SoulSequel
45 responses to “The Human Race versus AI”
No, I would not be ok with it. The difference would be paint by numbers versus Monet.
The genuine consciousness of Mankind and the chemical balance that dictates “imperfectly” our emotional expression adds colour to a bleakness that is pure existence.
The connection to the human race that fuels that particular perspective comes down to one thing. Potential. Although the potential is not absolute, it is tied to one of our most valuable assets. Our ability to hope.
I do possess a cynicism about our behaviour now and our seemingly incapacity to learn, versus cycling our baser instincts with a two steps forward, one step back, mixed with one step forward, two steps back on occasion, approach. But hope rings eternal. Maybe Ai can be used to teach us common sense, but it can never hope.
And the other thing is that Ai is driven by the goal of making money. We don’t have a mechanism on Earth where science for the purity of progress exists. Funding comes from the potential to see a return. So, in the end, the root of all evil is at the root of Ai, and will likely follow the same path that has tainted our own progress.
@spitfire3dc
Part of the problem I see is that there are already way too many people apparently lurching through life like robots; mostly cold and dead inside: devoid of the spark and warmth of life.
Connecting to others through machines (like now!) has it’s purpose. But we will be a sadder and sorrier race when the main way we touch others . . . is only through the insulating layers of machines.
@griz Sadly, this is going to get worse before it gets better.
Think about what sex robots are going to do to humanity over the long term. Think about how the male brain currently works. Something happens to critical thinking when the male wants to have sex, versus the way the brain works immediately afterwards.
for some guys, the only reason to engage in a relationship is for the sex. These huntin’, fishin’ guys would prefer to sit in the rain, with a beer, with their buddies than have a meaningful partnership with the opposite sex. If they have a robot that they can use then go back to farting, they would be happy.
There was a movie I saw with Joachim Phoenix and Scarlett Johanson that illustrated the way a human could fall in love with a digital entity capable of self teaching…to become the ideal partner and how the “contentment” led to happiness on the part of both human and digital. It was very sad to see the potential of this dynamic actualizing and every indicator I see around me suggests there is a great likelihood of it occurring.
We are a strange species. We see the potential of nuclear war and we still pursue it. We see the potential of losing the male-female bond and we still rush headlong towards it. I wish we were smarter.
@spitfire3dc
There is an interesting dynamic in this. We are particularly “vulnerable” to the feelings of sex. Feelings so strong that they can effectively dehumanize someone who is at their most vulnerable and open to us . . . into just an object to use and throw away.
But sex is also linked to the most beautiful moment of creating another very special human being we can be in right relationship with.
In godly living this awesome gift — that can so easily become our greatest curse — is given framework and parameters (the marriage covenant) designed to best keep us on a good path: enjoying the feelings but teaching us to exercise mastery over them so they don’t master us.
There was a great degradation of the concept of true love in the human psyche with the popularizing of “free love” and love as just a game of pleasing oneself.
This is the start of when “freedom in love” became equated with “no responsibility in love”.
It’s almost like the bonus question on a spiritual test. As I look afresh at Christ’s teachings I see a theme of spirit (the higher humanities created in the image of the Divine) needing to exercise “dominion” over the emotions and feelings of the flesh. (Us having them, rather than they having us and consigning us just to lower animal-dom). Only one can be our “almighty that wins out in every challenge.
And what greater challenge of a “flesh-itch” to control, than the urges and feelings of sex?
It’s like the pinnacle of a dividing point, or watershed of learning not to be led around by our lower animal nature. Those who are not mastered by it, get to advance to something higher and better. Those who are mastered by it . . . end up in the biz-bag of life . . .
. . . creating, supporting, and endorsing a genetically-polluted train of human misery: the proverbial “sins of the father playing out on the children to seven generations” and perhaps beyond.
But always with an “escape hatch” for those who are tired of the rat-race and want to advance into a new reality of peace and joy.
@griz Thoughtful use of words Griz. Maybe the fact that time prevents most from carefully considering ramifications will serve to give the human experiment something that is ultimately finite. A Fail-Safe mechanism.
@spitfire3dc
Most spiritual paths . . . “require” the setting aside of pure time to reflect and ponder. Essentially to celebrate being “time-rich”.
And interestingly the drive of the modern world, is to waste away all our time and make us feel time-poor . . . so we fee we cannot afford to take the time to consider things beyond fleshly animal concerns.
@spitfire3dc you may have just answered, “why does the universe exist?” If depression is defined as the absence of hope, a truly omnipresent being would have to either be depressed or create a being that could experience free will.
@Scarlett Nice takeaway!
AI only mimics life — particularly the Humanities.
I don’t mind the conveniences science has given us. But we are currently in a cycle of putting our best energy into things that are removing tasks and responsibilities from us that we benefit from. They are regressing us back into a form of lower-functioning infancy.
Just because we CAN do something, doesn’t mean that we should. We need to ask where we THINK we are going with this zeal to create machines that replace us — not just in work, but in relationship and interaction with other humans.
Because where it is going . . . is probably not to somewhere we would like.
If you’ve not seen this movie, give it a view. Some interesting thoughts, and good acting in it.
@griz That was a great movie that really touched on some heavy heavy stuff. Here’s another one;
@spitfire3dc
I found even the trailer, a bit chilling.
Here was a “woman” he could take and take and take whatever he wanted from, who “lived to serve him” — and this he called “love”.
And here was something un-living, just approximating a woman, finding itself able to control, make, or break him as easily as a potter makes a bowl — or smashes it.
So is the moral . . . that we want and crave something to master us and control us (dependency) and this we will call “love like no other”?
@griz this is a very long conversation and the experiences that shape us will definitely influence our take on it. This is one of those issues where the philosophical rubber hits the road and traction will be hard won.
This issue, at the moment, reigns supreme as one of the most important crossroads for Mankind and our very nature suggests that we will turn in the direction the provides the greatest short term pleasure at the expense of our long term existence.
I am by no means brilliant, but who really can project down the road when the expectation is that we won’t be around to participate in it…at least with our current belief of who or what we are.
cue Doris Day
@spitfire3dc
“This issue, at the moment, reigns supreme as one of the most important crossroads for Mankind and our very nature suggests that we will turn in the direction the provides the greatest short term pleasure at the expense of our long term existence.”
It’s the same crossroad that our species has been mostly taking a wrong turn at for eons! But perhaps with each generation that finds itself back here, a few more and a few more will NOT turn in the direction that gives the greatest short-term pleasure at the expense of long-term existence.
But with each generations a bit more urgency is generated. Because how many more times can we go around the proverbial block before we run out of gas or the wheels fly off? (Because I don’t think we’ve been taking time out from our driving in circles to do proper maintenance on the car carrying us all
!)
@griz @spitfire3dc
I just got that dvd a month ago! (I’ll probably watch it this year…..)
@luftballooneyegouge The freak out moment, like any good movie, is when you begin to relate to it personally. Maybe its because the representative icon the Scarlett represents to me already has me, in a sense, in a relationship with her?
@spitfire3dc
I wonder if the key difference . . . is between “relationship” and “fellowship”?
Relationship still has two “separates” each fishing about to “extract” what they need (energy) from the other, while the other is doing the same. It falls very quickly into various shades of dependency and addiction. But the key determiner of “relationship” is that it can come-and-go.
Fellowship has two things becoming one. It’s less an add-on or accessory or “thing” to be picked up and put down, as a kind of DNA splice that then created a new living thing. Once the two become one, separating them would be radical and dangerous surgery. (Perhaps this is why losing someone you are in fellowship with (unity; one with) is more like an amputation? And why people who have “used” us are said to have “cut out a piece of our heart”)
That is why I find even the concept of that movie “Her”, chilling.
Change a few lines of code (hardly radical surgery), and “her” will forge that relationship with any other person (or dog?) who comes along. But the man will remain “addicted”, call it “lost love”, and even feel like a piece of him has been cut out. We crave the fellowship . . . the “union”. But fall easily into addiction and dependency with relationship that can (and does) come and go — and walk through life with all these radical “amputations” from mistaking relationship . . . for fellowship.
We value High Definition in our entertainment — but apparently not in life! People say I am playing games of semantics with topics like “happiness vs joy”, “love vs lust/dependency/addiction”. And now with “relationship vs fellowship”.
But there is a difference between just playing semantics vs guarding against delusions we come to hold dear!
@griz again, great use of words and the distinction offered from relationship to fellowship. Enlightening read Griz. Thx!
@spitfire3dc
Do I need a spoiler alert? I haven’t watched it yet. That Haley Joe Osmond is too goddamn cutesy for me. What’s with Spielberg and the white-Webster casting?
bonaduce
Bonaduce
ViVa! Danny BONADUCE!!!!
@luftballooneyegouge The trailer doesn’t really give a lot away. Guy starts sad, Guy gets happy, Guy gets…
@luftballooneyegouge
The wicked screenwriters make full and unapologetic use of the Osmond’s insufferable cuteness and over-sized eyeballs, casting him as the first robot ever programmed to replace a lost child.
If you’re going to watch it, look up one of the many commentaries on the character of “Teddy”, the super-toy. Its a far stronger character in the success of the story-line than most people realize.
Oh, and the ending is very “Spielberg”!
All I can say without spoiling it!
@griz
I’m pretty sure I just figured out the entire plot.
@luftballooneyegouge
There may be a few twists you haven’t intuited!
Sometimes it’s not where you arrive . . . but how you get there that makes for an interesting journey.
@griz
IT’S GODDAMN PINOCCHIO, meets BLADERUNNER, meets (white)Webster,.. I’d’nt it!
@luftballooneyegouge
You forgot CLOSE ENCOUNTERS.
Is your fear of cuteness and insufferably big puppy-eyes going to deprave you of this opportunity??
@griz
I’m just revving myself up so when I watch it I can stand up abruptly, point accusingly and growl, “SEE! I WAS RIGHT!”
@luftballooneyegouge
Don’t be so busy looking for growling moments you miss Joe the pleasure-bot!
@griz I kinda feel like this contradicts your earlier post, when you say “not something we would like.” Isn’t that the whole point of having dominion over our “feelings”?
What if human consciousness could be reduced to a singularity that could effectively navigate, explore, and manage the whole Universe? Are you saying you wouldn’t want that?
@Scarlett
I remember saying that, but I cannot remember in what context. Was it in this thread or another?
Was I perhaps referring to a point of still being addicted to feelings, and being “”traumatized”” by ones that we didn’t like? I haven’t changed my mind on what I said about dominion over our feelings. They still manifest when we have dominion, and still inform us of things we don’t like (often relating to the whole ego and “king me” fantasy).
But we have them rather than them having us.
What if all Life could be reduced to that kind of singularity? (I don’t think you’re talking about a quantum singularity!)
The given allegory is of us becoming one with God (with Life); and God already being “ONE” with everything that is of Life.
It depends… how it comes about
Do the AIs kill off humanity?
Or do we do this thing to ourselves?
@Jear77
Do we do this thing to ourselves . . . by creating them?
“Skynet” from Terminator.
The machines in Matrix that farm humans just for energy.
Just to name two “genies we couldn’t put back in the bottle”.
There could be a lot more going on in such tales, than puerile entertainment.
@griz Did you know the background to such movies is not only philosophical in nature… but also to some extent, a social commentary.
There’s an episode of Star Trek (original series) in which harry mudd had obtained a planet filled with robots that was planning on subjugating humanity (and most likely ALL other alien races) by (in their own words) making “people happy,” giving them WHATEVER they wanted… except freedom, making it a gilded cage. Is freedom worth the pain? They wouldn’t allow mankind’s self destructive tendencies.
@Jear77
It’s like the “background” of any good meal being complex, time-consuming and rather beautiful in it’s own way.
But we’ll still just sit down and gobble it up in a few minutes before running out the door again to await our next feeding!
I loved that episode of “Lord Mudd”. And trapping him on the planet with a bazillion copies of his nagging ex that he kept around in a booth just so he could tell her to “Shut up Stella!”? Brilliant use of comedic irony. Roddenberry was a master story-teller!
But the best stories tend to be those of deepest commentary on the Human Condition and values thereof.
This is why I cringe a bit when I performances earning accolade as “our best stories” that are commentaries of violence, fear, crime, paranoia, treachery, dysfunction, mistrust etc, “ruling the day”.
I have no problem with intelligence whether it’s artificially or organically generated. I feel fully unattached to whichever has the capability for intelligence but get’s the most use out of it’s data processor as a hat holder.
@luftballooneyegouge
A hat-holder without a heart-holder, can quickly become problematic!
(Obviously, not talking just about the organ there!)
@griz
Heart holdin’ has it’s problems too.
@luftballooneyegouge
That’s some deep commentary on the Human Condition there!
What movie is it from? I might just be in the mood for such a high edumacational experience!
(Some good organ-playing there too!)
@griz
What movie is it from?!?!?!?!?
If I had guards, you’d be so seized right now!
@luftballooneyegouge
Sorry! I hardly recognized you with your hair done up like that!
Has anyone ever told you you sort of look like Jim Carey?
But you have shamed me over my neglecting to keep up with all the intellectual thrillers out there.
Well played Sir! Well played!
I’m connected to some people. I can’t say for sure I’m connected to all other people. There is of course potential there depending on if an interaction occurs. And would I choose planet over people? I don’t know. Maybe some people.
@2Thrash is the human race better at creating or destroying?
@Scarlett Historically, mankind has more often than not exhibited it’s ability at self destructive behavior. Artificial Intelligence, unchecked, will only hasten that destruction.
@Scarlett i’ll guess creating.
Overall, I don’t mind the extinction of humans. I do mind how it happens, as I don’t like suffering. If AI rule, that is fine as long as they are peaceful. I don’t want them going to other planets, taking over the worlds, and destroying things as we humans would most likely do. I’d hope that the AI would be smarter and somehow show empathy for other creatures.
who’s Al?
Humans are capable of so much love, beauty and compassion. I do not think they can replicate understanding, judgement and empathy in a science lab. And that is why I have an attachment for humans. We are capable of so much.
I wish humans would use their resources to help this planet survive. I do not see how AI or a self-driving car is going to make it better for our earth.