It took me a whole semester and the full study of Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy, along with our learnings on artificial intelligence, to come to the conclusion that people will become dysfunctional in the name of uncertainty. Change that slowly happens or takes place overnight has always and will always evoke feelings of uncertainty and fear. Whether it’s the recent uproar over fears of the rapidly developing artificial intelligence, or the biological mixing of humans and extra-terrestrial beings to keep the human race alive in a science fiction trilogy. What we can not understand or find the reason for has made the human race as a whole vulnerable to the destructive chaos that follows uncertainty. Whilst there are ways to combat this, controlling groups of people when they have united themselves against a common enemy is easier said than done. Fear itself can be a very controlling agent against the mind. Speaking from experience, fear usually roots itself in the nature of yearning to be scared of something. Whether or not the change in question results in negative or positive outcomes, and whether or not these outcomes were intended to have the effect they did, matters.
Artificial intelligence has recently taken the world by storm, although it is not a new concept; the advancements made within the last couple of years and even months have been rapidly accelerating. I have learned a lot about artificial intelligence throughout the course of the semester. However, as hard as it is for me to admit, I still hold onto that fear of uncertainty. In fact, that fear of uncertainty emerges itself within me as a bias and almost a form of anger. In my opinion, my own biases and fears of AI emit themselves from my lack of understanding. On one hand, I have learned a lot about AI in terms of how people use it for a plethora of useful reasons, including organization, scheduling, and overall, in ways I had not previously recognized. On the other hand, I have learned a lot about AI and its negative effects, some of which I could not even conceptualize on my own. Some of these things include children’s access to artificial intelligence. Forums of AI, such as “chatbots,” where people can message back and forth with characters from movies or television shows. However, the problem is the wide access to these forums, where anyone of any age can access them with little to no filtering of language. “As Futurism has found in previous reporting, Character.AI often hosts bots dedicated to themes of suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, pedophilia, mass violence, and more. Our testing found that these bots were all accessible to minors, despite centering on graphic roleplays, and were seldom interrupted by the platform’s filters” (Maggie Harrison Dupré, Futurism). Evidently, it’s not a possibility for these children to access these platforms but rather a harsh reality. And the impact is devastating to say the least, these children are impressionable and moldable. In my personal opinion, it is hard to say that parents should have known what their children were up to or placed restrictions to prevent this. Multiple factors, such as the technology being so extraordinarily new that parents may not be aware that it exists, as well as it may be difficult for a parent to monitor their child’s every move. Given these tragic outcomes, I, too place myself within the hysteria of the futures of AI. After learning about just how much time and money are being poured into this new technology every day, and the advances that come with such technology, I fear the future.
Dr. Joy Buolamwini’s work in Unmasking AI had truly opened my eyes to very real discrepancies within certain forms of artificial intelligence. Dr. Buolamwini led me to realize that, because artificial intelligence is created and produced by humans, the biases these people hold can and will be transferred to the artificial intelligence. Her book discusses the biases within artificial intelligence in the beauty world. More specifically, the racial biases in a technology that scans people’s faces and skin tone to refer matches for products suited to them based on the information it gathered. Per Dr. Buolamwini’s conversation with Representative Ocasio-Cortez came a quote that directly analyzes the biases, AOC says “So we have a technology that was created and designed by one demographic, that is only mostly effective on that one demographic, and they are trying to sell it and impose it on the entirety of the country?” (Joy Buolamwini, 215). Dr. Buolamwini discusses her time working with Olay to create a broader set of analyses and data to be used to negate the biases within the artificial intelligence software. With this, the idea of starting a campaign using pictures of faces posted to social media began. The plan was to gather the faces to use as data in expanding the accuracy of all skin tones. This idea sounded great in retrospect; however, having in mind those who can access social media was just the first problem I had in mind. Previously, I discussed how children can access technology forums and social media without intervention from parents and the forums themselves. Nevertheless, even with these precautions in place, it is not always guaranteed. Speaking from my own experience, I navigated around all precautions to keep me from accessing technology. Furthermore, this leads me to explore ideas of security, not knowing how your information is going to be used is unnerving. Not only for children and minors who may be unaware that their information is being used, but for essentially everyone. This brings me to the feeling of uncertainty again and the fear of what I can not understand. There are a multitude of reasons why understanding may be difficult, depending on the situation; such as not being able to comprehend ideas/ topics/concepts, or it could be a case like the one with artificial intelligence and technology itself. Data is constantly being tracked, and companies are not transparent about what they do with that information.
In Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy, we see this idea of the chaos of uncertainty unfold before our eyes in more than one situation. However, we also see a different side of this chaos within the series that is very much present in our world, too. The violent side of not being able to comprehend or come to terms with reality. In my opinion, an example of this violent side would be January 6th, 2021, when supporters of Donald Trump stormed the United States Capitol in retaliation to reality. This reality being the loss of the presidential election. Unable to come to terms with the outcome of a democratic election, these supporters of Trump turned to using violence and causing chaos in an attempt to change reality. In all three books from the Xenogenesis trilogy, we see violence or attempted violence by characters in the book who could not come to terms with the reality they were facing. Coined the name resisters, these characters were humans who could not comprehend the biological mixing of themselves (humans) with the extraterrestrial beings in the books, even in times of crisis, when it was the only way to save humanity. They lived without procreating, and they resisted the Onkali’s help. An example of this violence can be found in Adulthood Rights: “When resisters find women alone, they keep them. We saw it happen at a village where our captors tried to trade us” (Octavia Butler, 134). The inability to comprehend, based on the resisters, seemed to involve pride. I believe the same goes for the supporters of Donald Trump who stormed the Capitol. Unable to put their pride aside for the greater good resulted in violence and injuries. In the case of Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy, the results of this violence and resistance to change were much worse than injuries. Women were raped and people were murdered. As well as “hybrid children,” Meaning a mixture of human and Onkali children, were kidnapped by the resisters.
Change has historically brought chaos along with it. Whether it’s the inability to understand something or just the outright disobedience towards it, chaos has presented itself in many forms. This leads me to wonder whether or not this can be changed itself. Is humanity capable of understanding change in a civil and amicable way? Or will chaos and violence always take the front stage? With my own personal fears of artificial intelligence, I can prove myself to withstand the rapidly changing world. Yes, fears will always be present along with lingering feelings of anxiety and uncertainty. However, it is important to learn how to cope with these feelings and be able to function without letting them eat you alive. For me, researching the latest technology in attempts to understand it as best as possible has helped me to remain calm in the face of adversity and change. Although I also recognize it is much easier to control or calm individuals, yourself, and small groups. When large groups unify themselves and use violence as a coping mechanism to change is when havoc becomes a reality.