Author Carissa Véliz speaks to Claire on her new book ‘Prophecy’
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance. We're constantly being told that AI is going to change the way we live, the way we work, the way we play. We're also told that we all need to adapt to AI and use it or we will miss the boat. But my next guest says that before we buy into any predictions, we need to stop and ask, who's telling us this and what are they selling? Let's find out more from philosopher, author and Oxford professor Carissa Veilies, who has recently published her new book, Prophecy. Carissa, you're so welcome to the programme. Thank you so much for having me. So if we're told that something like AI is going to define us and change us and become intrinsic to all of our lives, you argue that that in itself becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
How is AI predicted to change our lives?
Yes, predictions about the social world act like magnets. They tend to bend reality towards themselves. And so the first thing to note is that no prediction is ever a fact. It can be at best an educated guess, but more often than not, it's a power play in disguise. And instead of just accepting it as a fact and obeying and making the prediction become a self-fulfilling prophecy, maybe we should stop for a second. And if we don't like the prediction that we're listening to, we should defy it.
So in particular, do you say that that's happening with AI?
Yes, it's a fundamental tool of Silicon Valley that they sell us a vision of the future. And they sell it not as a hypothesis or a possibility, but that is inevitable. They tell us that that is progress and that's what it looks like and there's nothing to do about it. And that's a very authoritarian tactic.
What questions should we ask about predictions?
We've seen it before in authoritarian regimes, but that it's being used by companies is no different, particularly companies that are so powerful. And part of the duty of citizens in a democracy is to question that and to say, well, is that the future that we want? And if not, what are we going to do to build the future that we want to live in?
Well, tell us a little bit about the lessons that we have learned from history, because I suspect that you believe that predictions have always been a bit of a con man's charter.
Yes, and it's fascinating that even though there are thousands of books and even academic journals on prediction, there wasn't even one book on the ethics of prediction, on what kinds of predictions maybe we shouldn't do. And one of the lessons is that next to leaders, you always find a profit. And even though the technology of AI is very different from, say, astrology or the Oracle of Delphi, the political role that they play is actually quite similar. And if you would have interviewed a medieval European and asked them about astrology, they would have said something like, well, it's a very technical discipline. It's very hard to understand. It's very opaque. And it's a cutting edge decision making method.
That's exactly what we say about AI today.
But what does it say about us as human beings that we so desperately want and have always desperately wanted to know what's going to happen into the future?
Well, it's nerve wracking to be a human being. We're in a way too smart because we know of everything that can go wrong and we want to avoid bad things from happening. And we get the illusion that if we can see around the corner, that will make us safer and that it will give us a competitive advantage. The trap is that that assumes that there's a script to be discovered, but the future is unwritten. And in fact, it's unpredictable. And not to be aware of that perversely makes us more unsafe.
How do predictions act as self-fulfilling prophecies?
But I mean, going back again to the self-fulfilling prophecy, if a fortune teller tells you that you're going to have a happy marriage to a fair haired man, there's a risk that you're going to turn down the perfectly suitable dark haired man.
Exactly. Predictions change our expectations about the world if we believe them. But we have the power to question them. So if Oedipus had laughed off the prediction that he would marry his mother and murder his father instead of getting scared and trying to run away from it, he wouldn't have made the prediction come true.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:01–0:50
2
How is AI predicted to change our lives?
0:50–1:40
3
What questions should we ask about predictions?
1:40–3:29
4
How do predictions act as self-fulfilling prophecies?
3:29–10:48
5
What historical lessons can we learn about predictions?
10:48–11:17