A Guide to Using AI for Evil or for Good

“Technology is neither good nor bad – nor is it neutral.” (A reckoning is coming)

Well, my friends, AI is here all about us. It’s coming at us like a fast bullet train, also surrounding us like a thunder shower of great intensity. At the same time, it presents itself to us as a simple tool, ready at hand for us to use in any way we see fit. It’s clear it’s a powerful tool that achieves much very quickly. That it’s helpful. That it’s also somewhat mysterious. It almost seems to have a life of its own as if it were a being.

Well let’s be clear, it is not a being. It is a set of hundreds of thousands of computers, using digital coding and mathematical algorithms that arrange the coding in ways that are useful to answer questions from the user. As Melvin Kranzberg wrote, “Technology is neither good nor bad, nor is it neutral.” I’ve written about this from various standpoints in https://roborobert.substack.com/archive.

So my friends, a reckoning is at hand, a reckoning is coming for the ways in which we use AI. Will we use it for good or evil? To make this very specific, the question is will you as an individual use it for good or for evil? It’s very clear we are given the freedom to use AI as we choose. Free to use it for the good, free to use it for the evil. The purpose of this essay is to provide a clear guide on ways we can use AI for the good and ways we can use it for the evil.

We are free to choose how to use AI, but it’s necessary that we are aware that we’re free to choose, and that we are aware of our choices and of their consequences. Eventually a reckoning will come to us based on how we’ve chosen to use AI. This freedom does not exist at the overall level of humanity, it exists at the individual level. Each of us is free to be, to choose to do good or choose to do evil. Each of us is free individually and how each of us use AI is how humanity uses AI: it will be the aggregation of choices by us as individuals that determines the overall use of AI by humanity.

So let’s begin our reflection on how you and I as individuals can choose to use AI for good or for evil. Let’s begin with how we might use it for evil. I know we typically prefer to begin with how we would use it for the good because we like to think of ourselves as good beings. However, we tend not to consider so much how we also tend to do evil things, the ways in which we can also be evil. So let’s begin with the freedom we have to do evil with AI, providing a guide on how to use AI to do evil.

A Guide to Evil Uses of AI

1. Using AI without thinking.

“Just let AI decide what to do, it has more data than anyone, it can assess all the positive and negatives involved in any decision, and choose the best one. Far better than I could do, I’ll only bring my prejudices and biases and stunted knowledge to what it suggests, making the decision worse.”

Why is this evil? It’s evil because the nature of evil is to be deterministic. It’s the nature of evil to say this is the only way to be, and you must be this way. It’s the nature of evil to enslave us to one way of being and then to require that others have to die who do not concur with that way of being. Thus, to give over our decisions to AI is to give them over to a deterministic outcome that can become evil. One can only overcome this evil tendency of AI if. after taking what AI gives you, you then add free human thinking to it. You bring free thought to it and say, okay AI, I see that you think this is the best way to go, however, I as a free human being add to this data that you have given me my own free thought and I see that I can do it this way differently if I so choose. This is the only antidote to the evil of AI. If we give over our decisions to AI without human oversight, human reaction, the freedom of the human to decide yes or no, then we are using AI for evil.

2. Using AI based on your likes and dislikes.

“I like this brand of AI, it always gives me what I agree with. I don’t like that brand of AI, it tends to give me what I don’t like. I’m more comfortable with the AI that I like.”

Why is this evil? It’s evil because likes and dislikes tend to end up in deterministic ways. For example, we can look back in history and see that even when one follows rules to do the good, to do what is perceived as a good, when taken too far it becomes evil. For example, we can see instances where the religious authorities tortured and killed human beings who held differences of thought on how human beings should be. Yet the religious authorities killed these people, tortured them actually, in order to get them to be quiet. Now the religious authorities in those circumstances said they were doing the good. They were only doing the good. Well, I think we can also see that what was considered good ended up evil. Why? Because when something good is taken too far to the extreme then it becomes evil. When evil is taken too far, it doesn’t become goodm it becomes worse evil. But good taken to extremes can become evil, good needs to be something done in balance. Thus, when choosing to use AI one needs to use it based on the extent to which it provides data that is neither liked nor disliked by you but can be understood by you to be reasonably true, whether you like it or not. This is the only antidote to the evil of using AI based on your likes and dislikes. The vendors of AI are aware you are likely to choose your AI based on what you like more than whether it provides something true, see my post https://roborobert.substack.com/p/theres-something-weird-going-on-in.

3. Using AI to do what you want, not what actually needs to be done.

“Time to plan our family vacation. I want a 4 star hotel on the beach. Grandma says she needs air conditioning and a place in the woods. The kids want access to skateboarding venues. My partner just wants somewhere quiet way up in the mountains. That’s their problem, I’m using AI to find the best 4 star hotels on the beach.”

Why is this evil? It’s evil mainly because although AI will certainly give you a great list of four-star hotels on the beach, even if you go there with your family, you will have only one person who is getting what they want and need, and many others who are not getting what they want and need. Thus, in the end you’ve chosen to act in a way that is the least beneficial for everyone concerned. This is evil because until everyone is well, no one is well. We need in our use of AI to use it in a way that takes into account the needs of everyone involved in that particular action. If we only act for ourselves without regard for the consequences of the action on others, we are choosing to use AI for evil not for the good, we are using it to diminish the action needed.

OK, that was pretty horrible having to first look at the evil uses of AI. But it’s also quite useful to have looked at the evil uses of AI, because if we are first aware of how we can use it for evil, then we can also be aware of how we can use it for the good. So let’s get on with looking at using AI for the good.

A Guide to Uses of AI for the Good

1. Thinking about the ways in which AI can enhance and improve my thoughts.

“I’ve been thinking for a while about how I can better articulate my thoughts about the positive and negative aspects of AI. I’ve written them down to my best ability. Why don’t I now use AI to list the positive and negative aspects of AI. It will simply list what’s out there in the world of thought about AI, and I can compare its lists to my own thinking to see if there’s something I haven’t considered.”

Why is this using AI for the good? It’s because in our thinking, we often are biased. Or biased by what others have told us when we were young as to how we should think, or biased by our social conditions in which we grew up, or biased by the communities in which we live, and how they determine the world. And we’re biased by the times in which we live. AI does not have a particular bias in it. It has only the aggregate biases of the human thoughts that are in its digital coding. And of course, the algorithms that the AI vendor has chosen to use as a way of finding the digital coding to answer a question. There’s also some bias there, but these biases are not as particular as my own individual biases. Thus it’s for the good if I test my thinking against everything else out there while continuing to be very aware that there are also some biases in the aggregation of human thought. Also some biases in the algorithms chosen, also some biases from the company providing the AI product, for example, is it being done to make profit for investors or is it being done to help bring about some other kind of good. Nonetheless, I am expanding and enriching my thinking by using AI in this way.

2. Using AI to find my way through my likes and dislikes to become conscious of the feeling present when something AI brings me can feel true, beautiful and good, aside from whether I like it or not.

“I really like poetry and other artistic uses of language to describe my feelings. Yet others say they prefer the use of numbers and mathematical formulas to help them describe their feelings. The other day someone said the most beautiful thing they know is the number seven. I wonder what that is like? Perhaps AI can give me some indications.”

Why is this using AI for the good? It’s because that which is true, beautiful and good exists in itself without respect to whether I like it or dislike it. Truth beauty and goodness are facts in and of themselves without regard to an individual’s feelings toward them. Yet we can also have feelings that respond to the presence of something that is true, beautiful, and good in itself, whether we like it or not. AI can be very helpful in this regard. It has no feelings. 🙂 Yet it will give you as much input as you desire on aspects that you wonder about in regard to your feelings. For example, you can ask AI, give me examples of when human beings have expressed numbers as being true, beautiful, and good. AI will deliver you a bunch and then you yourself can decide what is there that might be different than my likes and dislikes yet also I can feel as being good. Thus, the use of AI this way has expanded and enriched my feelings.

3. Using AI to round out the variety of possible actions before I act.

“I’m ready to change my job. I’m fed up with my bosses, the work itself, I’m burned out. So I wonder what AI might give me as the various actions I can take with regard to my situation. In addition to quitting my job, what other varieties of actions might I take that would help?”

Why is this using AI for the good? Because when we act we have done a deed and this deed exists with all of its consequences. We cannot go back and undo a deed. Once the deed is done, it is done for good or for evil, for the better or for the worse. Thus AI can be a great help here before I act to have me help me think through the variety of possible actions I could take. For example, in this example of wanting to leave a job, AI might suggest, well talk to your boss or change to another position in the company or first find another job before you quit etc. It could be very helpful to me to have laid out a number of various actions I could take other than the one of quitting the job which is the action I am ready to take. In this case AI can be used for the good. It has no point of view on what you should do. 🙂 It merely lists everything that is possible to be done based on its databases and the algorithm it is using. AI is very useful in this regard and can be used for the good. Before you do the deed, before you take the action, you’ve considered the wide variety of possible actions, you’ve expanded the possibilities.

OK, there we are. We’ve reached the end of our investigation of how AI can be used for evil or for the good. I think you can see in general when AI is used for the evil, it is used in a way that is narrowing and confining, a kind of imprisonment, bringing something to an end, to a close. It reduces freedom. When AI is used for the good, it is more of a freeing, an opening up, a beginning, a becoming. It increases freedom. Think about yourself 10 years from now, reflecting on how you used AI. A reckoning will come to us from our use of AI. What have we done? What have we brought about? What were the consequences? Have I expanded myself, or have I diminished myself? Am I more free, or more imprisoned?

I hope these ideas have been helpful to you. Here is a table summary to keep beside your computer the next time you use AI: