AI Solution to Cultural Drift?
On reflection, I am now a bit more optimistic about solving cultural drift, *if* we can get broadly human-level AI, or ems, before our current civilization falls. My hope is that while most folks seem strongly against letting capitalism control a lot more of our human world, they seem to be more okay with letting capitalism control much of the world of AIs. Capitalism can plausibly drive cultural evolution strongly enough to end cultural drift.
Two scenarios could block this: we might either love or hate AIs too much. If people love AI too much, they might seek to give AIs many rights and protections, including “protecting” them from capitalism in many of the ways that humans are protected.
On the other hand, people might hate AI too much, fearing that it will kill us all if allowed too much freedom to choose its own culture. They might instead make and enforce laws requiring AI to be “aligned” via slaving AI to human culture, and thereby preventing capitalism from evolving more adaptive AI cultures.
So the sweet spot is a middle attitude: seeing AIs as okay but neither sacred nor Satanic. For once muddling through, instead of being principled, might be just what the world needs.