Expanding ourselves and our relationship with technology
Photo by ThisisEngineering RAEng on Unsplash
Everyone’s talking about AI recently (I’m hopping on the bandwagon). Many of us are asking how AI will change the world, for better or worse. I will admit that I've always been suspicious of new technology. But I'm also a curious person, so I decided to test out Chat GPT-4. It turns out I was delighted by how useful it has been so far, lol.
What is technology? What is humanity's relationship with it? For a period, we treated it like our servant. Now, it seems that we are increasingly treating it like the parent we always wanted that will take care of us, or even a god. I decided to ask Chat GPT about the origin of the word "technology". Here's what it gave me:
The word "technology" comes from the Greek words "techne" meaning "art, skill, or craft" and "logia" meaning "study of" or "knowledge of." Therefore, technology originally referred to the study or knowledge of arts, crafts, and skills. Over time, it came to refer to the practical application of knowledge in various fields, such as engineering, computer science, and medicine, among others. Today, technology refers to the tools, techniques, and processes used to solve practical problems, create new products, and improve existing ones.
How fascinating! Technology, in essence, refers to the study and application of arts, crafts and skills. Based on this interpretation, technology is quite broad. We seem to have developed a very narrow view of technology. How might we think about technology in a more expansive way?
Ancient Eastern philosophies understood that reality comprises of different levels of densities. Generally, there are three levels: physical matter, energy and consciousness. Each of those three levels contain their own spectrum, from dense to subtle, but we'll keep it simple.
How does technology manifest at each of these three levels?
On the level of physical matter, technology manifests as physical objects. These days, when we talk about technology, we are referring to this kind of technology. The hammer, books, toaster, automobiles, HVAC systems, computers, AI — these are all technology that exists on this level. Our scientific instruments are designed to measure this level of reality. This technology moves towards subtlety as it progresses over time.
On the level of thought and emotions (energy), technology manifests in a more subtle manner. We call it language. Language used to be quite crude: we'd grunt and slap our hand on the ground to express, and form, our thoughts and feelings in our interactions with other humans. But over time, we've refined this technology — employing visuals, sounds and movement — to enable us to better express the nuances of our human experience. In turn, our use of language shapes our perception of reality. While AI seems to use human language, in its current form, it does not replicate the way humans use it as Noam Chomsky argues in his NYT article, The False Promise of ChatGPT.
On the level of awareness, which is the most subtle dimension of reality, we also have technology. Humanity spent thousands of years refining it. We call it awareness cultivation or meditation. We use this technology to explore the nature of consciousness and ‘gain’ Self-knowledge. This technology also progresses from dense to subtle as it becomes more refined.
Throughout human existence, the three forms of technology have interacted and formed each other, developing simultaneously, to help co-create the world we have today. All the technology we've produced depend on our engagement in all three dimensions of reality: physical matter, energy and consciousness.
What I’ve presented here is of course a bit of a simplification. But when we think about technology in this way, it may become apparent that there may be more technology that we need to continue to explore and develop. It makes sense that all our attention is on technology at the physical level. But perhaps that's not the only dimension we need to grow in as a species.
I think the concern is not so much that AI will take over humanity. Rather, it may be that by neglecting other dimensions of growth, we might limit our capacity to relate with the more advanced forms 'physical' technology that is beginning to emerge. I don’t have any answers. I'm merely posing a question for us to reflect on. Where else do we need to grow?