Enlightenment Now

Excerpt from Chapter Fourteen

Afew years ago I found myself in a low-key argument with the psychologist and author Steven Pinker. On the site then known as Twitter, he had accused me of being, in a sense, not rational enough. In a piece I wrote for Wired, I had accused him of being, in a sense, too much of a rationalist. Human psychology being what it is, we both felt we’d been treated unfairly by the other.

But then we talked things over—first by email and then on my podcast—and by the end of our dialogue we both felt . . . well, I think we both still felt we’d been treated unfairly by the other. But I also think we both felt less annoyed by the other—aggrieved, but less aggrieved.

The reason this episode is worth revisiting (aside from the sheer pleasure I get from grievance revisitation) is that the underlying issues—the issues raised by these accusations of hypo-rationalism and hyper-rationalism—bear directly on the prognosis for our species. I’m tempted to elaborate in this way: If we don’t get clear on these issues, we won’t be able to deploy vital spiritual resources on behalf of our salvation. But maybe I should be careful with that kind of talk; my use of religious-sounding language is what got me into trouble with Pinker in the first place.

So let me put it this way: There are practical benefits to be had by expanding the discussion of artificial intelligence to include important issues of science and philosophy that are sometimes labeled “spiritual” or “religious” but can be discussed without using those terms. And among those benefits is reducing the chances that the planet will dissolve into chaos and increasing the chances that our species will remain alive and free.

I want to emphasize my commitment to the principles of science and reason. Though I do think that Pinker sometimes exhibits a kind of hyper-rationalism—and that some of the selfstyled rationalists who have been prominent in AI discourse do as well—I don’t mean that they’re literally too rational. I mean that their devotion to rationalism takes a form that keeps them from fully appreciating the predicament our species is in and what we should do about it. The first of my two skirmishes with Pinker began with a piece I wrote for The New York Times in December of 2016. It ran on the Times home page under this headline: “Can Evolution Have a ‘Higher Purpose’?”

The point of the piece was one I’d made before: Discussing the possibility that evolution has a purpose—that it was in some sense set up to do something—shouldn’t be considered wacko or wooish. As I wrote: “You can entertain the possibility that evolution has a purpose, a kind of goal (a ‘telos,’ as philosophers say), without departing from a strictly Darwinian view of evolution—without abandoning belief in natural selection as evolution’s only engine, and without surrendering your credentials as a modern, scientifically minded kind of person.”

The piece got some favorable attention, and I was feeling pretty good about it, but then Pinker rained on my parade…

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Enlightenment Now