As boys, my brother Kirk and I figured out that we could talk to each other through the ductwork in our house. I could yell into the grill in the floor of my bedroom and a muffled, hollow version of my voice would reach Kirk in his room with a message about wiffleball or bicycle races or some equally urgent topic.
Obviously, the papal encyclical on being human in the age of AI brought this memory to mind. Ok, maybe not obviously, but there is a connection.
Those two little boys shouting into the ductwork remind us that there is something deeply human in the simple desire to communicate. We long to make contact with one another’s soul through language, through art, through song, through work, through religion. There may also be something valuable about the difficulty of making a meaningful connection with another person. Why else would my brother and I use our house HVAC system as the clunky conduit for our messages instead of walking down the hall and into the bedroom next door? The strange limitation we imposed on ourselves was not an obstacle. It was the point. Our point of contact even.
The Pope seems to think we were onto something. Something about the gift of limitations that we may be forgetting or denying.
Our relationship with life seems to be in crisis today. Everything that appears as a ‘limit’ — incapacity, illness, old age, suffering, vulnerability — tends to be seen primarily as a defect to be corrected, rather than as a reality through which our humanity matures and opens itself to relationship. And yet we must remember that humanity flourishes not despite limitations, but often through them … It is precisely within our limitations that the following find a place: compassion, as well as a sincere concern for the needs of others; a generosity that can emerge even in the midst of darkness and failure; spiritual experience and the worship of God.
This is not to valorize suffering or lack. It is to state something very basic about what it means to be human. We’re not meant to be limitless and self-sufficient. We need to need each other. “It is not good for the human one to be alone,” says God of us in the first moments of Genesis, and a community of two comes to be. The desire to communicate, to commune, to kneel down and shout into the ductwork with delight is to be alive in a world of blessed limitation. Our limits, the edges of our selves, are where we make contact with one another. To touch someone is to make our limits meet.
One thing I worry about is that, as our technologies get more and more adept at solving problems and delivering to each of us, not only more information, but a better and better facsimile of something human, we might be distracted from the fact that we were never meant to be free of need. We were created to need each other. We need to be needed. It is still not good for a human one to be entirely alone.
The 20th-century mystic and philosopher Simone Weil once imagined two prisoners in adjoining cells who, over many years, we assume, created a system of taps and scratches on the wall between them to communicate. The obstruction, this firm limit, was in fact the place of their connection. So it is with God and us, Weil said. But so it is with all of us, don’t you think? We’re here to make contact with each other by way of our limits, not in spite of them. And we need to know we’re worth the effort it takes to get a message through.
If and when AI can help us make the kinds of connection with others that we’re made for, this will be a gift to humanity, which we should applaud.* But if I were to learn that an AI is what’s been making the taps on the wall I thought had been coming from another human soul, I may be temporarily wowed by this clever new machine. But, in the end, what I think I’d feel most intensely is alone.
Kneeling on the floor of my room, the particular words echoing in the ductwork were not what excited me most. It was the knowledge that a brother was kneeling in his room down the hall, sending something of himself through the barrier between us, that kept us playing the game. It delighted me all the more that the crude, limited conduit for our conversation meant he’d have to invest even more of himself in the project of one human being trying to get through to another one. The question is whether this is a communication problem we need to have solved for us so we can get on with our lives, or an instance of the communion our lives were created for. The blessedly difficult communion we were created to create.
* This is not to deny a host of other serious ethical, societal, and environmental issues to be addressed with regard to AI. Which is why the pope wrote a 42,000-word encyclical, not a blog post.
Thank you for this. Maybe I’ll be able to accept the fact that AI isn’t going away..
Indeed. Thanks for reading, Nancy.
Have read your blog Scott a couple of times and it makes me think of a recent movie I saw “The Hail Mary Project”. The two main characters, one a human and the other an alien were limited by their inability to communicate. They solved that and were able to use their knowledge and expertise to solve a threat to their very existence. Truly their limits were their point of contact. Thank you Scott. Your words are very much appreciated by this senior!
I have not seen Hail Mary, but I’ll put it on the list! Thank you, Rick.
Human connection is essential to our mental, physical and emotional health. Very thoughtful … thanks Scott
It sure is. Thanks, Linda.
When I was a kid I had my own phone line. My friend would call me after bedtime and we would talk. To keep my folks from hearing the ringer, I took the phone apart and connected an LED in place of the ringer. Every once in a while he would call while I was doing this and I’d get a 52v shock. The desire for connection is real, and sometimes painful.
So many reasons to love this, Dave. So many. Thanks.
Amen, amen, amen. Thank you for this, Scott. The joy of language, of creation, of art is the joy of long-sought Love.
Thanks, Emily. There’s much more to say about art and language and so many other creative human endeavors in terms of one human launching something of themselves out into the world to meet another human life. I agree and I don’t think the deep human experiences of joy and love are what’s happening when I consume “content” in isolation.
You communicated in the ducts to see if you could. It was novelty that you knew would never replace the more direct communication you already possessed which made it benign. In the case of AI, the technology has moved beyond novelty to threat. It can replace direct human communication, and that’s precisely the goal of quite a few venture capitalists and executives.
As someone that’s spent 35 years in technology, I am vehemently opposed to AI, although I begrudgingly admit it can solve some problems. Gene sequencing is an example simply due to its speed. However, I don’t believe its benefits come anywhere close to outweighing its risks.
Some say we can control it, but the historical record, at least in my view, clearly shows we can’t control technology, especially when there are vast amounts of money to be made. Profit lust always trumps the environment and human health. The petrochemical industry and cellphones (devices which have turned us into zombies and addicts) are two examples.
And perhaps we’re already communicating mostly through ducts. There’s too much text messaging and abbreviation in speech. People just right “thx” instead of taking and extra seconds to say “thank you.” “TTYL” means “talk to you later.” It’s absurd. Hardly anyone writes letters anymore. Families sit in rooms together where everyone is on their phone.
Churches are one of the few places where humans can still find real community. Where we can gather without everyone playing on their phones. Even if I didn’t believe in God, I would view a church as a place of refuge.
Always love hearing your thoughts, Beau. I do think something a little more than novelty was at work in those kids. Poems and smoke signals and violins and paintings and tin cans with string are all communication technologies, as I see it. Creating ways to connect is deeply human. But, as you say, when our deep desire for connection is manipulated and when even our consciousness is being monetized we need to take a hard look at what the costs are. Thanks for your insights.
Well said Scott!