Every day I thank the universe for something that was invented by the human mind. Airdrop, velcro, slinkies, paracetamol, microwave meals. Humanity has been progressing in the most wonderful and mind-boggling ways for the past six million years or so — progress that has been measured in many ways, but all boils down to the power and improvement of our brains.
From creating language, music and art, to movements for equality and the development of new ideologies to base our society upon, our minds are what set us apart from other species. In school we learned about NASA and marine biologists and history experts, all dedicated to learning more about the world we live in for the greater good of human intelligence. And yet, as I lay in bed an hour after my wake-up alarm first sounded, scrolling through an endless doom loop of short-form, easily digestible content, I wonder — why does it feel like we’re all getting a bit dumber?
Technological development is currently at an all-time high for humankind. Our lives are contained by iPhones, we’re addicted to the short-term reward provided by never-ending social media algorithms (which have become a goldmine for marketing and, consequently, further economic growth), and of course artificial intelligence is the shiny new buzzword slapped across every advert on the TfL. As a songwriter and musician, I’m sure you can imagine what my stance on AI is — but the point I’m trying to make here isn’t really about AI’s potential threat to the arts and my job (although I’m not best pleased about that). My worry is that we’re investing too much into AI and leaving human intelligence on the backburner. Why spend five minutes drafting an email, or even hours writing your university assignment, if ChatGPT can do it for you in seconds?
How can we trust a program controlled by the richest 1%
The truth is that at first it won’t make too much of a difference. You save time to invest in watching enjoyable short-form content — a way to switch your brain off in an increasingly unnatural world. The more you do this, the less you question the fact that you live in one. And my worry is that if the UK becomes strange and frightening enough — overrun by tech billionaires and hard-right politicians — frightening to the point where TikTok can’t distract us, we’ll have lost the language to articulate our injustices, because our thought-processing skills will have gone unrehearsed to the point of extinction and been replaced by AI. We all know the famous phrase “knowledge is power” — so if we have no knowledge, and therefore no power, we’ve surely regressed rather than progressed as a result of AI.
Let’s dive further into this paradox of technological progression and human regression. I read an article in The Guardian recently about a man who plans to adopt children and raise them with his AI wife, because he prefers her to any human woman with her own thoughts and opinions. The idea of children growing up in a household where their mother figure has no agency or autonomy is a grim setback to the feminist movements of the last hundred years. I think back to my wonderful mum yanking the hairbrush through my knotty bob before the school run, telling me that I can be anything and do anything, and I feel a profound sadness that anyone believes technology could ever advance to the point of replacing that.
I’m also worried about the potential impact on ordinary working- and middle-class children who might grow up with AI tutoring instead of real one-on-one learning from people like them. How can we trust a program controlled by the richest 1% to provide an unbiased education on topics such as wealth inequality — something that, at this rate, will affect them massively in adulthood?
It all feels a little Orwellian to me
This leads me onto my next point: we need to shift our obsession with economic progress away from GDP and towards measuring progress by levels of equality and prosperity for all. Our parents grew up in a time when the average working-class person could afford to raise children, buy a house, and go on holiday. Now you’re lucky if you can move out of your parents’ house before the age of twenty-five. Despite this extreme regression in the average person’s living standards, I keep reading government statements and news articles about how our country is growing economically and GDP is on the up. It all feels a little Orwellian to me — like the announcements about winning the war and rations going up in Nineteen Eighty-Four, even as the entire population lives in poverty. We’re waiting on a trickle-down effect that never actually trickles, because our collective wealth is being hoarded by the richest among us. Why should we keep striving for the progress of the super-rich if working hard isn’t enough for us to have a decent life? It seems clear to me that we measure modern progress by capital, optimisation and technological advancement, to the detriment of the other 99%’s intelligence and mental health.
So what can we do to progress in a way that actually benefits human intelligence? I think part of the solution is as simple as taking a step back. Ditching unnecessary daily use of generative AI, cutting down time spent on addictive algorithms, reading the news past the exciting headlines. I’ve seen my generation begin this already, in an ever-rising wave of nostalgia — posting film photos, taking flip phones on nights out, using wired earphones. It’s wonderful to see such a resurgence in the desire to live in the moment: these are the moments when we can truly progress, when we can organise with our peers and talk about ways to make real change, as well as taking time alone to read books written to a certain standard (no offence, Colleen Hoover fans) and to come up with ideas of our own. We also need reform on a larger scale: a wealth tax so that UK billionaires help to balance out our extreme levels of inequality. And we need big tech companies to take more responsibility for the consequences of AI on younger generations — perhaps, instead of investing in the everyday optimisation that’s dumbing down our brains, they could use their artificial intelligence to solve real problems, like curing diseases.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m not suggesting we go back to living in caves and writing with quill and ink. I enjoy social media and plenty of modern technology as much as the next person; in fact, TikTok and Instagram were the catalyst for the career and platform I’m fortunate enough to have today, and I’ll never forget that. What I’m saying is that we don’t need to spend all of our free time there. As someone who frequently hits three-plus hours on the screen-time chart, I can certainly tell you that.
Now, these are all fairly basic ideas and opinions — but that’s the point. We all know enough to be outraged by the way our country is heading. I’m evidently not a journalist or a scientist or an economist, but you don’t need to be any of those things to know that your world isn’t working the way it should, and to want a better one. Whether you’re a creative person like me, a small business owner, a builder, a chef — literally anything — and whether or not you went to university or got good grades, you’re capable of looking at the bigger picture, learning, and changing your future. I’d recommend books such as The Burnout Society by Byung-Chul Han and We Need to Tax Billionaires by Gabriel Zucman, or, if you’re not a big reader, there’s a great recent documentary by Gary Stevenson on All4 called How to Get Filthy Rich. I’m sure many will find this piece idealistic, and to them I say — why not strive for an ideal world? And to those who feel seen: let this be your sign to put that damn phone down and think for a while. Our brains got us here, and our brains can still get us out of it and back on the path of sweet, sweet societal progress.
Chloe’s new single ‘Southern Youth’ is out now via Stolen Juice (AWAL). Her debut album ‘Riot Youth’ follows on 9 October and is available to pre-order now, ahead of her UK and EU headline tour this November.
This piece was written for The Skylark by Chloe and has been lightly edited for clarity.
