There is a civilizational and existential threat that looms on our horizon; if you haven’t engaged with it already, you’ve at least seen it. If you don’t think you’ve seen it, think again.
I am, of course, speaking about artificial intelligence - AI. No more is this technology a mere reverie for science-fiction novels. It’s here now, and it’s here to stay. In the last year alone, the Large Language Model (LLM) Chat GPT has gone from a novel technology to something that is widely implemented in jobs across almost every sector. Many more LLMs such as Google’s Gemini, X’s Grok, and Meta’s Llama have also been released. AI-generated videos have evolved from amusing recreations to full scenes that are nigh inseparable from reality. Comical AI voice generators began as clear parodies of US presidents and celebrities; now, they’re true echoes of individuals with inflections, emotions, tone, pitch, and proper pacing. Boston Dynamics, Tesla, and Nvidia all have shown off their humanoid robots for manual labour, general purposes and, unsurprisingly, war. Boston Dynamic’s robotic ‘police dog’ already patrols the streets of New York and Dubai.
Much of this budding technology is widely available, and often for free. Anyone can clone a voice, bring a picture to life, conjure a movie, summon a new song, or use a personal digital assistant to code, write, draw, and work on their behalf. This is all within the span of essentially one year. We are now promised the cures for untreatable diseases, the answers to impossible problems, self-driving cars, AI romantic partners, autonomous weaponized “peace-keepers”, and creative liberties never before seen. Why settle for the universe when there is the metaverse? If Moore’s Law still proves to hold true, we’re in for a wild ride. Sounds great, right? Perhaps. What’s the price? Apparently cheap, just ask Faust. All it costs is our soul.
There is much I have to say about our new Tower of Babel, most of which is likely off-putting to many. So be it. They will surely have their reward. As such, expect more to come on this topic. For now, I wish to focus on one particular matter that seems quite pressing. We are seeing the natural and logical conclusion of materialism play out which, despite all of its promises, has left us wanting in our most human questions. If we can so easily be replaced or, at least, if we seemingly want to replace ourselves, what are we anyway? If abdication from both effort and creativity is the goal, what’s left of us? To help understand these problems, let’s briefly explore a triumph of science-fiction and of the creative human endeavour: Cyberpunk 2077
“You believe you have cheated death; it is death that has cheated you.”
Cyberpunk 2077 is a hit RPG video game released in 2020 by Polish game company CD Projekt Red; the studio responsible for The Witcher video game series. It is set in the year 2077 in an alternate reality based on the tabletop RPG of the same name. The main setting of Cyberpunk is the dystopian Night City. A character unto itself. Rainy nights, neon signs, mega-corporations, cyberware, augmented bodies, corruption, extreme wealth, poverty, pollution, perversion and groundbreaking technologies. Think Blade Runner with more sex. It is a gut-wrenching, emotionally deep, and artistically rich narrative that is deserving of both praise and attention.
The game follows ‘V’, a freelance mercenary who operates in the underbelly of this city that would make Sodom and Gomorrah blush. Things take a turn for the worse when this upstart merc recklessly integrates with a new technology, slotting an unknown chip into their brain. After taking a fatal bullet to the head, this chip simultaneously saves V’s life while also damning it to a fate worse than death. On this chip is an engram -a digital copy- of one Johhny Silverhand (played by Keanu Reeves). Silverhand was a “rocker boy” from the 2020s. A narcissistic asshole who had a penchant for rebellion. Johnny’s life was one of selfishness, manipulation, and hedonism that he branded as virtues to be used “against the man”. His band Samurai gave voice to this angst, but it proved not enough. In a display of extremism, Johhny Silverhand had led a crusade against the dystopic techno-corporation Arasaka, culminating in a nuclear detonation at the organization’s headquarters in the heart of Night City. As musicians like King David so often are, Johnny was a prophet, but was ultimately undone by his revelation of the future. Labelled as a terrorist, Johhny was believed to have died in the blast, but the truth was more sinister. Arasaka had Johnny abducted and used him as a guinea pig for a technology that would take decades to perfect: the engram. A part of the Soulkiller program that would one day allow the world's elites to live forever, transcending their physical bodies. For fifty years, Johnny’s “soul” was trapped in purgatory until V is unlucky enough to stumble upon it. The narrative is a race against time. The two must find a way to unslot the chip from V’s brain before the engram of Johnny Silverhand permanently overwrites V’s personality. V and Johnny are both victims in their own right, and neither wishes for the inevitable to happen. Forced to work together, these two minds (often at odds) trapped in their single body undertake a mission of revenge, redemption, and salvation. But in Night City, there are no happy endings.
“I’ve declared war not ‘cause capitalism’s a thorn in my side or outta nostalgia for an America gone by. This war’s a people’s war against a system that’s spiralled outta our control. It’s a war against the f*ckin’ forces of entropy, understand?!”
Thematically, Cyberpunk 2077 deals with many engaging subjects such as human perseverance, the spiritual mystery of music (a consistent motif throughout the game), idolatry, corporatocracy, addiction, unmitigated hedonism, personal relationships in an atomized world, and the nature of the human soul. The latter is our focus here.
-Cyberpunk 2077 Launch Trailer - CD PROJEKT RED
“This is why you don’t bring back fallen warriors, sooner or later, they’re going to see everything they fought for’s turned to sh*t.”
Night City, despite its perpetual gloom, is appealing to both the characters within Cyberpunk and its players. It’s the promise of having everything you could ever desire and more, immediately. No taboos; nothing is beyond the pale. The body is no temple, it’s a product - just like all else in Night City. People are not only exploited but are content to be. So long as it means a few more Euro-Dollars and a chance at prestige. In a world where boxed individualism and superficiality reign supreme, and where transcendence only means the virtual reality of a braindance, to “secure your soul” is an object left only to those who can afford it. But maybe one’s identity isn’t something you can change out in a wardrobe, and perhaps a soul isn’t an object one can buy.
“Not a single thing in this world isn’t in the process of becoming something else. Likewise you.”
As V and Johnny Silverhand struggle for control, their relationship can evolve (depending on the player’s choices) into one of camaraderie, even brotherhood. What’s more, because V’s brain hosts two minds, as time progresses the dividing line begins to blur. Johnny and V become more like each other. As Johnny travels alongside V as a passenger, he is able to witness the negative effects his overbearing, self-involved zealotry had on those he loved. He soon realizes many either held him in contempt or felt betrayed by the one they admired most. Throughout the narrative, V is provided the opportunity to cede control to Johnny. If done, Johnny becomes the “driver” for a time and he is able to operate in the world once more - a bit of life returned. As such, he is given the chance to right a few wrongs, rectify broken relationships, and redeem himself in the eyes of those from his past who yet live. Though it is V’s visage, many characters come to know that it is indeed Johnny reborn; his excentric mannerisms, tone, and overall personality make him impossible to misplace, despite the different body. And herein lies the philosophical question: is Johnny Johnny?
The engram of Johnny Silverhand maintains all of the original’s memories, feelings, buried emotions, musical talent, and idiosyncrasies. Now, with a body of sorts, Johnny can continue to leave his mark on the world, for a time. Those who knew him best recognize him and engage with him as if it were the “real” Johnny. The question behind the truth of Johnny’s being is left for the player to decide. Cyberpunk offers many different ways to interpret this conundrum. If such a thing exists, what is a soul, its mode of being or its body? Both equally?
“Worst thing’s when they switch up your identity and you never even know you’ve become someone else.”
For many, this likely brings to mind the ancient question of Theseus’ ship. Briefly, The Ship of Theseus is a philosophical musing about identity, matter, and form - the nature of being. Theseus was an ancient Greek king responsible for the slaying of the minotaur, escaping the labyrinth on Crete and sailing safely home. To commemorate his honour, the Athenians would annually take his ship on a circuit of victory around the Greek archipelagos. Over time, the ship naturally needed repairs, until at length every component in its turn had been replaced. This raised a question: is this still the same ship that Theseus originally sailed? A paradox many still try to answer to this day.
Consider your body. Your cells are continually splitting and copying themselves. After a decade or so, every single cell in your body will be “new”. Barring a few exceptions in the brain, eyes, and heart, you hold no original cells. But the body is still yours. A copy of a copy of a copy, but yours. Though people are fortunate enough to grow and adapt, we, each of us, have a transcendent nature and a personality which remains fairly consistent through time. It is one of the reasons why we’re recognizable to one another. We have unique characteristics that inform our ever-changing bodies. Paraplegics do not stop being their most inherent selves because they lost a limb. So where does the self exist? We’re yet to find the “cell” responsible.
If you were to text a friend or leave a voice message, your friend not only knows it’s you but engages with this artifact of yourself as if you were present. If you play an online game you appear as a digital avatar, but your teammates interact with this digitized form as though it were your body. Your voice is translated into ones and zeroes and sent across the airwaves to be deciphered and translated once more into the recipient’s ear. Where are you in that process? Your friend hears you but, in the material sense, they’re only hearing a copy. The same goes for text messages and every piece of technology that expands your being beyond the body - be it comment sections, social media profiles, music, pictures, videos, books, even in the memories of those who know us and in our effects on them. In a very real way, we already live well outside ourselves.
So, in the world of Cyberpunk, Johnny’s engram is a snapshot of his character translated to ones and zeroes and uploaded into a chip. By the time Cyberpunk kicks off, the body of Johnny Silverhand is long dead, and his memory only lives on in his music. That is until V gives Johnny a body to influence once more. As previously mentioned, the people from Johnny’s past are aware he’s just an advanced AI clone, but they can’t help but engage with him and be changed by him as though it was the Johnny they had always known. He has memory and idiosyncracies; he can take action, and he continues to grow, mature, and even love unto self-sacrifice like his past real self could. The question remains: where is Johnny Silverhand? Where do the patterns of our nature and being begin and end?
“We shouldn’t fear change itself, but only who we might change into.”
Why is this relevant to the topic of AI in our own civilization? Because we are on a collision course toward a very similar future presented by Cyberpunk 2077. We’re doing to ourselves what happened to poor Johnny. Let’s take a look at the world around us just in the context of artificial intelligence - I will leave the more Orwellian comparisons between Night City and modernity to your own imagination.
As of this posting, Microsoft has just released their VASA-1, described as “Lifelike Audio-Driven Talking Faces Generated in Real-Time”.
-VASA-1, Microsoft
On the same day this week, Meta released Llama 3, their “intelligent assistant, that expands the ways people can get things done, create and connect.”
OpenAI, the company behind Chat GPT, have also just released a new generative AI model, Sora. “Sora is an AI model that can create realistic and imaginative scenes from text instructions.”
-Sora, OpenAI
There are dozens of very well-refined AI models that generate any genre of music that you could imagine from text prompts alone. They can include life-like vocals, guitar solos, bridges, bass lines, and so on. You would never know the difference.
Many of these revolutionary products have all been released in the span of a month, if not a week. Assuming any rate of progression, even if you were to cut the growth rate we’ve seen in a single year by a factor of a thousand, we will eventually come to the point of something resembling the engram.
In fact, we’re already well along that trajectory. PeopleAI allows users to engage with humanity’s greatest artists, philosophers, musicians, mathematicians, and history’s most renowned. Trained on their writings, works, biographies and musings, the spirits of these creators have been, in some manner, captured. Stuffed into the genie’s lamp. It does not take one of fantastical imaginative prowess to project the pairings of all of these technologies into one. Make no mistake, we will be resurrecting the dead. It is only a matter of time before this capability will be extended to the ones you love who have passed. Who needs a seance?
Famous Canadian professor, Dr. Jordan Peterson, has stated he and his team are currently building an AI model based on the King James Bible, in the hopes of capturing its transcendent voice. “In principle, it could generate new stories that are biblically predicated.” Alarming, with no small measure of hubris.
Popular YouTuber and gamer Kwebbelkop has created a complete digital AI avatar. His YouTube videos are now entirely produced by AI. His facial expressions, his lip movements, his voice, the script, and even the gameplay are all generated and handled by his AI digital self. He’s no longer there. If we’re willing to retire from simply playing a video game, what else are we willing to forfeit? And to what end? At least in Cyberpunk 2077, the musicians and their music remain human. I can’t say the same for us in the next few months or years.
-@Kwebbelkop
For all of the aforementioned technologies, keep in mind that this is the worst in quality they will ever be. Improvements are almost daily. And this is nothing to say about the nefarious purposes such technology is already being used for; young women online are especially suffering as victims of perverse “Deepfake” videos. No image is safe. What does this mean for the future of media and politics? How far are we willing to go to usurp ourselves? What’s next for this age of technomancy? Time will tell. I can only imagine what the resurrected Nietzsche will have to say about it.
Welcome back to the world of divination, necromancy, conjurers, and transpersonal agents. Our ship may change its boards, but its course remains the same.
Goodbye, V. And never stop fighting.
So, was Johnny actually Johnny? If so, why? If not, why not? What about the spirits we will inevitably see digitally reanimated or the clones of content creators? What is the nature of our unique and individual patterns? Does the soul exist and, if so, where? And what is its worth? I have my own answers, but I will not tell you what to think. Perhaps I’m just a voice crying out in the wilderness. All I’ll say is this: you better have your answers to these questions because if their implications aren’t already here, they're coming.
Thanks for reading,
Sam
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