Will AI help humans end racism?

March 10, 2024

Yes, AI will help humans end racism. This doesn't mean that humans will get along and live happily ever after. It simply means that the concept of race will be less of an issue of socio economic division in the upcoming AI economy. The human world is driven by convenience. Racism is no longer convenience. Diversity and inclusion are far more profitable and convenient. In the human world, convenience always prevails. That is a fundamental corroloray of the pain / pleasure programming that controls all animal life on planet Earth. Unfortunately, even after the end of racism, there will be plenty of conflict in the human world due to tribalism.

Below some notes and brainstorming notes on AI, racism, diversity, and tribalism.

Artificial Intelligence

The term "artificial" means made by humans. Intelligence is problem-solving ability (i.e. the ability to acquire knowledge and develop skills to address unpleasant facts and answer intriguing questions). AI is a type of computerized problem-solving ability developed by humans. 

AI programming mimics optimal human learning and development of intelligence. Humans develop intelligence by making neural connections that ascribe meaning to experiences. Some humans make more effective connections and have more vivid learning experiences than others. AI mimics optimal human intelligence. Not every human is trained to perform optimally in the intelligence development arena. Learning more about how AI works, can help humans improve their own intelligence.

Innovation and Breaking Away from Tradition 

AI programming is innovatively different from traditional computer programming, AI turns traditional programming on its head. Instead of a human dictating the rules that a computer will follow to produce correct answers or desirable results, the programmer loads into the computer large data sets of correct answers or desirable results. The AI system examines the data to decipher what rules are leading to those correct answers or desirable results. The computer runs logical comparisons and arithmetic operations to detect patterns and statistical correlations within the data. These patterns and correlations offer clues to the cause and effect variables leading to the answers and results. By trial and error reinforced by corrective training, the AI program refines its results until it figures out the actual causation rules involved. Once AI figures out the true rules of the game, it can outperform humans. Computers are faster and can process significantly more data than humans.  

Not all is a loss for humans. Humans who can learn from AI stand to gain much. Humans can improve their own intelligence and performance in life by applying the AI paradigm of analyzing data to find out what are the true rules of causation involved. That can liberate humans from the cultural shackles of tradition. Many humans can benefit from mimicking AI "truth-finding" programming. 

Humans that can mimic AI and apply the AI rule-finding paradigm can improve many aspects of their lives. One out of many can be the understanding of race and racism. Humans will find out that the true cause and effect rules of the racist game relate, not to race itself, but to fear and greed. Fear and greed are the two master emotions controlling humans. Fear and greed correspond respectively to pain and pleasure. Humans are afraid of pain, and greedy of pleasure. This dynamic leads humans to rationalize anything and everything that can help humans obtain pain relief (PR). Life is painful. Intelligent life is pain management. Wisdom is knowing what pains to address and which pleasures to ignore.

Race and Racism

Regarding race and racism, humans have options. Humans can stick to the traditional cultural program, and believe whatever they are told they are supposed to believe about different "races". Just as a traditional computer following rules set by programmers, humans can follow the traditional rules of racism without independent thinking and without adapting old myths to current realities. In the alternative, humans can try to figure out what is racism all about. How beneficial it is to end it, and how human conflicts and wars will continue even in the absence of racism. 

Racism is a socioeconomic system that assigns privileges based on the social construct of race. In the past, racism served as a convenient (yet immoral) system for powerful groups to seek pain relief (PR), avoiding the pain of losing some advantages and seeking the pleasure of gaining some privileges. 

Racism is an outdated socioeconomic system already overcome by current events. It is a dead end, no longer convenient in the modern world. Racism distributes socioeconomic privileges (money, credit, jobs, education, opportunities, etc.) based on the social construct of race. Racism was developed in times where humans lacked sufficient knowledge to understand that all humans are members of the same race, the human race. Just like slavery ceased to be convenient after the Industrial Revolution, racism ceased to be convenient after the onset of the Information Era. Racism will be even more inconvenient in the upcoming AI Era. 

Diversity and inclusion 

The alternative to racism, diversity and inclusion, brings higher economic and military power and is thus more convenient. In the human world, convenience always prevails. Diverse and inclusive nations are more powerful (economically, militarily, politically, and socially) than racist ones. In the information era, the outer characteristics of a human are irrelevant. Only the output of the internal nervous system is what matters. The ancestral adaptations caused by environmental factors such as ultraviolet (UV) radiation affecting skin color are irrelevant in the Information Era and will be even more irrelevant in the AI Era.

Diversity and inclusion will prevail over racism because they are more convenient and yield more socioeconomic rewards for everyone. Convenience always prevails in the human world. This is a corollary of the pain / pleasure programming of animal life. 

Tribalism will Persist

Ending racism will not guarantee world peace and will not eliminate wars and conflicts. The root causes of wars and conflicts are not "races", but rather the pain / pleasure implications of a world divided in different cultural tribes. Conflicts and wars derive from the fear and greed of tribalism. Fear and greed are the two master emotions of humans, strictly correlated to the pain and pleasure genetic programming of animal life. 

Unlike what some humans believe, racism has not been as lethal or as painful as its root cause, which is tribalism. Think about the history of humanity. Most wars in human history have been between members of the same "race". The most predictive factor for the onset of war is the sharing of geographical boundaries. In the vast majority of cases, neighboring countries are of the same race. Regardless, they find reasons to fight over natural resources and cultural (including religious) differences. Each side of the border is trying to minimize some perceived pain and maximize some perceived pleasure. Rather than racial differences, anxious and greedy tribalism is the root cause of bloody conflicts and wars.  

Both European and Asian histories show bloody games of thrones with humans of the same "races" killing themselves over natural resources and cultural differences. The vast majority of wars in the history of humanity have been fought between members of the same "race" killing themselves over non-racial differences and disagreements. Take the Russia-Ukraine war as the most current example. 

The advent of long-range maritime transportation and global trade networks did make humans of different "races" to find reasons to kill each other. However, the reasons were predominantly tied to tribalism rather than to racism. Racism was just a moral (actually immoral) excuse for European powers (and some Asian and Middle Eastern) to justify the exploitation of others for profit (pain avoidance and pleasure gaining). 

Like everything else in the human world, racism was a product of the interplay between ignorance and the pain / pleasure genetic programming of life. All animals, including humans, are genetically programmed to do one and only thing: to seek pain relief (PR). Animals and humans do this by avoiding pain and seeking pleasure. 

AI Era

Knowledge shapes the mental pain / pleasure associations in the human brain. Racism allowed the members of militarily dominant groups to ascribe to their "race" superior privileges. This was pleasurable to the dominant groups even if it was painful to the subordinate groups. However, it was "defensible" at the level of ignorance of the past. Based on today's knowledge, racism is no longer intellectually defensible and is no longer economically convenient. 

In the AI Era information and knowledge will continue spreading and increasing. Racism will be universally recognized as completely outdated, ineffective, and inconvenient. Countries and nations that embrace diversity and inclusion will yield more power in the Information and AI Era. The outer physical characteristics of human programers, producers, entrepreneurs, and consumers are irrelevant. What only matters in the new AI economy is the intellectual property generated by the race-neutral nervous system that makes each and every human both similar and completely unique. 

Stay tuned. 

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