In the long run, humans and machines are all dead

Written By Iyad Rahwan

In 1923, British economist John Maynard Keynes famously wrote, “in the long run, we are all dead.” This statement is often used as evidence that much economic policy, and Keynesian economics in particular, only cares about the short term, happily sacrificing the long-term future. However, the statement was actually made to highlight the difficulty of making predictions about the very long-term positive consequences of policy. It is a caution against making too many short-term certain sacrifices, in exchange for very uncertain long-term gains.

When it comes to AI, we may take a balanced approach, allowing us to reap the immense short- and medium-term benefits, rather than hamper progress in the name of very uncertain long-term risks we do not yet understand.

But if we take a very long-term view, we are confronted by the limits of our human existence, and indeed, by the limit to all existence. In her book, “The End of Everything: Astrophysically Speaking”, North Carolina State University cosmologist Katherine J. Mack explains what happens to our universe in the very, very long-term. The march of entropy will destroy all order in the universe, and every star in the universe will eventually fade. In a visually stunning documentary film, we see how all matter will eventually be annihilated. Perhaps humans and machines can work together to further their collective destiny amid such cosmic forces.

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Iyad Rahwan
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