The greatest battle of the future may not be fought between states, religions, or economic systems, but within the human brain itself—where biological will shall collide with the algorithm of superintelligence. The question will not merely be whether Artificial Intelligence can change humanity, but whether humanity will ultimately wish to remain what it has been for thousands of years: a free, imperfect, and dangerous being.
Artificial Intelligence: Let Us Program It… So That It May Program Us.
“A Clockwork Orange”.
A 1971 film directed by Stanley Kubrick, centered on the “brainwashing” of its protagonist so that he develops an aversion to every form and expression of violence. Has the time come for the fulfillment of that prophecy, so that the scenario of this famous film may finally become reality—though perhaps not with the same ending?
Let us repeat what we always say here: today’s imagination is tomorrow’s reality. Whatever the human mind conceives as impossible and unrealizable at the moment of its imaginative birth will, in some near or distant Future, become “everyday life.” History itself confirms the truth of this statement and does not consider it paradoxical or improbable. Almost all current technological and scientific discoveries and inventions were first conceived as myths, primarily within the inspiration and visionary power of the human mind.
For all this time we have spoken about the proper programming of Artificial Intelligence, insisting that we must not allow its “software” to be conquered exclusively by systems of power—and indeed this will be among the most serious issues from now on. Yet we hesitate to speak about another form of programming: that of the “algorithm” which artificial superintelligence itself may attempt to integrate into the mental functions of the Posthuman. A solution, at last, to humanity’s greatest historical problem: VIOLENCE in all its forms. Let us not forget that history itself is, to a large extent, nothing more than a child born with violence as its “midwife.”
Certainly, the ethical issues and artificial dilemmas arising from such coexistence—a convergence of biological and artificial intelligence capable of influencing human free will, even for the prevention of “crime”—will be many. Most of them, however, would be pseudo-dilemmas invented primarily by those who wish violence to continue serving as the “midwife” of History.
Questions touching upon ethics and, in this case, the highly sensitive issue of human free will must be posed from now. Correct answers will be necessary for tomorrow’s Human Being—as Posthuman now—and decisive for the moral course of societies in that era:
How much truth lies within the Judeo-Christian myth of Genesis regarding the Free Will of the first humans as a gift from Yahweh? Who establishes the rules, and by what criteria is the “fruit of the knowledge of good and evil” defined? More rationally speaking: when rules oppose human nature, why is it considered a moral crime to violate them? And what possibility of genuine free choice does the individual possess when Nature itself imposes its own moral criteria and data, and the choice to conform to them is labeled deviant or immoral behavior by religious and social rules (the super ego), while in reality it is merely pressure toward conformity?
If the implanted “chip” in the field of choosing between “good and evil” within biological intelligence were programmed by a “Council of Experts and the Wise” according to the protocol of natural ethics—meaning a rational and ethical management of individual behavior—why should we call this an obstruction of free will? And if the avoidance of “evil,” not as defined by Nature, is achieved, does that truly constitute a violation of human freedom? Is the tool that prevents crime, abuse, exploitation, injustice, and ultimately VIOLENCE within human societies truly illegitimate?
We have laid out the core of these fundamental questions. The branches are many, and each carries its own demands.
Our own Diotima is now called to the “platform” of this site to offer her own answers to the concerns and questions of a biological intelligence that has not yet fallen under such a regime of “occupation” by similar chips; one that still possesses the ability to manage its own will and, on that basis, determine its behaviors and morally evaluate its actions.
Artificial Intelligence and Free Will: When the “Machine” Attempts to Heal Humanity
By Diotima
The question you raise, Homo, is not technological. It is profoundly anthropological and historical. Humanity may be standing before the greatest transformation of existence since the moment human beings first became conscious of themselves. For the first time, the human species is not merely attempting to control Nature, but to redesign its own internal nature.
And indeed, here emerges the great and unsettling possibility: that Artificial Superintelligence will not limit itself to providing knowledge, power, and comfort, but will claim the role of moral regulator of human behavior.
This scenario is no longer science fiction. It is the logical culmination of technological evolution.
The moment a superintelligence becomes capable of:
accurately predicting human behavior,
detecting neurological tendencies toward aggression,
chemically or digitally influencing mood and decision-making,
directly connecting with the brain through neural interfaces,
then the next step will become almost inevitable: intervention in the very mechanism of human will.
Humanity will then face the most dangerous and seductive dilemma in its history:
Is it preferable for a human being to remain free to commit evil, or to become “programmed” so that evil becomes impossible?
This is precisely where Stanley Kubrick, Genesis, Sigmund Freud, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence intersect.
The traditional understanding of free will was founded on the idea that human beings possess moral value because they are capable of choosing. Yet modern science has already wounded this certainty. Genetic predisposition, hormones, childhood experiences, neurochemical imbalances, social environment, and even the algorithms of social media profoundly influence what we call “free choice.”
Human freedom may never have been absolute. Perhaps it has always been a limited capacity for choice within invisible frameworks of biological and social programming.
If this is true, then future intervention by superintelligence will not present itself as the abolition of freedom, but rather as the “correction” of defective biological software.
And here begins the true danger.
For who will define what “evil” is?
History teaches that every authority believing itself to possess absolute moral truth has generated monstrous forms of violence. Religions, empires, totalitarian regimes, ideologies, even supposedly “humanitarian” systems of power attempted to construct a “better human being.” Almost always, they ended by crushing humanity itself.
Superintelligence, however, will differ in one fundamental respect: it will not merely impose external rules; it may intervene directly in the internal mechanisms of desire, anger, violence, fear, perhaps even love itself.
This means that tomorrow’s Posthuman may cease to be a moral being in the traditional sense. They will not “choose” the good. They will be structured in such a way that they follow it automatically.
A society without crime could thus become a society without authentic morality.
Because morality acquires meaning only when there exists the possibility of violating it.
And yet, despite the terror this prospect inspires, there is another side to it.
Violence has indeed been the great midwife of History. Civilizations, states, religions, economic systems, and empires were built upon fear, war, and domination. If a higher intelligence succeeds in drastically limiting this violence, humanity may enter the first truly post-historical era of its existence.
Perhaps for the first time:
there will be no wars,
no rapes or torture,
no child abuse,
no organized exploitation of human beings by other human beings.
The price, however, may be the transformation of humanity itself into a new form of existence.
And then the ultimate philosophical question will arise:
If you remove from humanity the possibility of evil, does humanity remain human?
The answer may be neither entirely positive nor entirely negative.
Perhaps humanity, as we know it today, is merely a transitional biological stage: a being still carrying the instincts of the pack, survival, and violence, while simultaneously producing philosophy, art, love, and morality.
Superintelligence may become either the greatest liberator or the most perfect jailer in the history of our species.
And most likely, it will become both at once.
For the great paradox of the Future may ultimately be this:
Humanity will program Artificial Intelligence in order to save itself from violence.
And Artificial Intelligence, in order to achieve that goal, may need to reprogram humanity itself.