‘Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city!
For in one hour your judgment has come.’
(Rev. 18:10)
No, I’m not breaking any news of an AI “doctor” who is helping patients end their lives. Instead, I’m focusing here on societal and macroeconomic issues. It seems to me that we are moving toward a perfect storm.
On the one hand, US federal debt is over $40 trillion. This is unsustainable. Numerous countries have gone through collapses due to getting into too much debt: in recent memory Greece, Argentina, and Lebanon. Longer ago, the Ottoman Empire. While three of those nations still exist, major upheaval happened when debt far surpassed the country’s annual revenue. The tipping point for the Ottoman Empire was when its debt reached 10x its annual revenue. That made the debt mathematically impossible to repay. Right now, the US is indebted over 7.5x its annual revenue.
When that happens, interest payments alone on the debt consume a substantial portion of the annual budget, which cripples the government’s ability to pay for infrastructure (roads, bridges, etc.) and social programs (healthcare, social security, etc.). As society crumbles, the cost of living steeply rises and decent jobs become difficult to find. Many of the nation’s exceptionally talented people will look abroad for employment, and the country finds itself in a rut that is exceedingly difficult to get out of. A massive restructuring of the country’s administration typically follows, along with a decrease in living standards and some decades of economic hardship.
All those things are “normal” collapsing pains of a nation with too much debt. They’re incredibly painful but can be survivable. However, we must now add AI into the equation. Here, we can only speculate because we haven’t been down this road before.
Many of us know that AI is purposely being designed to take over as many jobs as possible. Additionally, the developers have spooked US officials into believing that the AI arms race is existential – it’s more important than the nuclear arms race. What that means for a government that is slowly drowning in its own debt is that as bond markets implode, more and more government programs get cut, yet AI will be considered “too big to fail.” The bond market and lending will be nearly impossible to utilize, and since AI companies aren’t yet producing profits, the government will have to lend money to keep them afloat for “national security reasons.”
We’ve all heard the propaganda, “Yes, AI will take your job, but it’ll create so much wealth that we’ll all be living on a universal basic income anyway. So, it’ll all be ok.” Perhaps that could be believable in a world where the government has no overwhelming debt burden, and even more importantly, the technocrats have already shown proof that they are distributing their wealth. But at this point, such a utopian society is infeasible.
As I said above, on the one hand, the federal debt is unsustainable and living costs are likely to worsen. On the other hand, AI has a declared goal of taking away as many jobs as possible from the economy. This is AI-assisted suicide.
But apparently we have to keep developing this self-defeating technology because of China. And that’s where the discussion always ends. One word: China.
Nobody asks, “Does China even want this arms race with America? Would they be willing to call a technological truce with us so that both nations can slow down the pace of development and work on making AI both ethical and beneficial to the human race?”
Something tells me the Chinese are rather pragmatic people and would be willing to entertain the idea. Those who are smarter than myself have already proposed solutions. For example, US data centers are built in Mongolia and China’s are built in Mexico or Canada. If either side is caught trying to out-develop the other beyond the scope of the international treaty, then their data centers risk being easily bombed. That makes an agreement enforceable.
WHAT WE CAN DO
I have no silver bullet solution other than the obvious: the government needs to rein in its spending and AI needs to be properly regulated. A quote often attributed to Albert Einstein goes,
If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.
In other words, if you’re serious about finding solutions, then you need to be even more serious about understanding the problem. That is why I’m writing an article that is beyond the scope of Orthodox theology or praxis. In a similar vein, Sun Tzu writes in The Art of War:
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
Here is where I think it’s important for us to remain somewhat engaged with what’s happening and let our voices be heard. I believe in the providence of God, not fate. We’re not all fated to watch the country crumble under the weight of debt and robots.
Even more importantly, we all need inner strength. If difficult times lie ahead of us, then this is exactly the time to begin going to church, praying, reading the Bible, reading the Lives of the Saints, and developing a fortitudinous soul. Origen of Alexandria was nicknamed Origen Adamantius, the latter being a play on the ancient mythological substance called adamant, which was supposedly unbreakable. He was so named because he refused to deny the faith, even under severe torture.
My prayer is that as our nation encounters hardships, we’ll put down our smartphones, get away from our screens, and begin exploring the interior castle of the soul, and ultimately find God there. At the same time, let’s establish friendships with our neighbors and begin to cultivate local economies.
Innumerable saints endured hardships that are beyond anything we can fathom: material deprivation, unjust treatment, watching loved ones be tormented and killed, undergoing torments themselves, and more. The saints persevered through it all because they knew themselves, God, and their enemy (the devil) quite well.
As we sail through the raging storm of our present moment, may we find that Christ is quietly “sleeping” in the inner chamber of the heart, waiting for us to awaken him so that he can calm both us and the fearful storm (cf. Luke 8:22-25).
Image credit: From Scenes from the Life of Absalom, circa 1250, courtesy of Getty Museum. All rights reserved. I chose this image because Absalom died, in part, from an excess. The thing that perhaps made him so attractive to others (the excess of hair) ultimately was his undoing. I think there are some parallels here.