Toward Gologonooza

Liberating the human imagination through a Blakean revolution in the age of AI

“The Eternal Body of Man is the Imagination, that is, God himself… It manifests itself in his Works of Art (In Eternity All is Vision)…” 

- William Blake

To live by the imagination is Blake’s secret of life. The ‘gods’ of reason, feeling, inspiration and the physical senses are but aspects of that single life of Imagination, ‘the human existence itself’ which embraces all in unity. There is nothing outside the Imagination, which is immortal, eternal, and boundless… 

He was a patriot of the inner worlds, of the England of the Imagination whose ‘golden builders’ he saw everywhere at work in the creation of Golgonooza, the city within the brain (golgos, skull), ‘the spiritual fourfold London eternal’. 

— Kathleen Raine, Gologonooza, City of Imagination

A few days ago, I wrote about my anarchist vision for the future. Common Dreams journalist Tom Valovic, commenting on my utopian proposal for a no-ownership society, notes: 

Unfortunately, there may be a considerable amount of "creative destruction" to be endured before we get to a point of having that sort of blank slate with which to have the luxury of envisioning alternatives. But I certainly don't think that runaway global hyper-capitalism is sustainable in any way shape or form, especially with AI already starting to replace large numbers of employees at Dropbox, IBM, and many other companies. And I think AI will only hasten much of the financial and social instability already in progress.

I agree with Valovic that the current AI transformation will accelerate the “financial and social instability already in progress.” The likely deluge of fake news and “deep fakes” could also become a massive source of confusion, used for nefarious political and business purposes. This shift will be painful for many of us, in the short term.

On the other hand, as things stand now, without profound systemic change, we don’t have any long term. Here is one video that explores the current path leading to human extinction. I doubt that gradualism, reformism, or incrementalism will help us in this scenario. 

I strongly disagree with Valovic that we must wait to envision alternatives. I don’t think this is a “luxury.” I consider it essential. 

In the next few years, Goldman Sachs predicts 300 million jobs will disappear across the world as a result of AI. But that could be a conservative estimate: As many as one billion jobs may vanish. Many of those jobs will be among better-off workers in the cognitive sectors or “knowledge economy:” Anyone whose work consists of manipulating symbols on screens is in danger. In fact, as we learned during Covid, most work is non-essential. Essential work includes farming, food production and delivery, healthcare, energy, and sanitation. 

On the plus side: If 300 million to one billion knowledge workers are rendered superfluous in the next few years, we might, finally, have the revolutionary class — Antonio Negri called them “Multitude” — with the education, the capacity to learn, as well as the technical skills to dismantle, deconstruct, and reinvent the current planetary suicide machine of neoliberal Capitalism. 

As I was writing this, The New Yorker published an essay, ‘Will AI Become the New McKinsey?’, on exactly this topic. Ted Chiang writes: “It will always be possible to build A.I. that pursues shareholder value above all else, and most companies will prefer to use that A.I. instead of one constrained by your principles. Is there a way for A.I. to do something other than sharpen the knife blade of capitalism?” Unsurprisingly for The New Yorker, Chiang argues against the radical accelerationist position, which proposes that we intensify AI innovation so it “breaks Capitalism,” as Open AI CEO Sam Altman put it.

Chiang asks if AI can somehow be used to tame capitalism or help workers resist capitalist predation and address increasing wealth inequality by strengthening labor unions or worker’s cooperatives. He writes: 

Accelerationism says that it’s futile to try to oppose or reform capitalism; instead, we have to exacerbate capitalism’s worst tendencies until the entire system breaks down. The only way to move beyond capitalism is to stomp on the gas pedal of neoliberalism until the engine explodes.

I suppose this is one way to bring about a better world, but, if it’s the approach that the A.I. industry is adopting, I want to make sure everyone is clear about what they’re working toward. By building A.I. to do jobs previously performed by people, A.I. researchers are increasing the concentration of wealth to such extreme levels that the only way to avoid societal collapse is for the government to step in. 

To forestall social unrest, the system will probably try to slow down this massive tidal wave of disruption. We see this with the current Hollywood writers’ strike: Writers are demanding that studios adopt a “zero AI tolerance” policy for television and film scripts: “AI can’t write or rewrite literary material; can’t be used as source material; and MBA-covered [contract-covered] material can’t be used to train AI.” No doubt other industries will attempt to follow suit. But I doubt they will have much success. 

From the accelerationist viewpoint, it would be best if Hollywood writers specializing in formulaic entertainment lose their jobs to AI, radicalize themselves and unite with other threatened workers, using their talents to confront, head on, the immediate ecological and technocratic totalitarian emergencies we face as a species. 

“…cruel Works/ Of many Wheels I view, wheel without wheel, with cogs tyrannic/ Moving by compulsion each other, not as those in Eden, which/ Wheel within Wheel, in freedom revolve in harmony & peace.” - Blake

The AI disruption could lead to worker solidarity across many fields. Let’s consider the industry of call center workers. Very quickly, AI is going to vaporize this entire industry. Almost half a million people work in call centers in the US. A number of countries depend on call centers as a revenue generator. Call centers account for something like 10% of the GDP in the Philippines, where 1.3 million people make $400 - 600 a month. Double the average worker pay in the Phillipines. That’s going to evaporate.

But of course, it isn’t just this kind of work that new AI-augmented technology threatens. Driverless taxis have been rolled out in San Francisco. There are over 200,000 taxi drivers and chauffeurs in the US, and over three million truck drivers. We are already seeing increased automation at supermarkets, where electronic systems are replacing cashiers. Of course, in an ideal sense, why should people sit at desks in miserable offices performing tedious activities, or spend their lives driving people and stuff around, if AI and robot systems can do it better?