AI, the metaverse and art will blend into a safe world of fantasy. Unavoidably.

I want to start this story with two issues, 1. observation and 2. experiment.

1. Observation determines experience, so what do we not observe?

We experience what we observe. And we live in the world that we observe. A simple example: we do not see ultraviolet (UV) light with our naked eye, so we do not experience it, and so, we live in a world as if UV light simply wouldn’t exist. That is, until 22 february, 1801. On that day, in Jena, Germany, the physicist Johann Wilhelm Ritter discovered UV radiation. And now we know. And now, we use it for killing bacteria, creating fluorescent effects, curing inks and resins, phototherapy and suntanning, for instance. So, since 1801, we live in a world with UV.

2. Experiment determines truth, but what if an experiment is not possible?

The fundamental principle of science is the experiment. A scientific statement is true, only if it has been confirmed by an experiment. Until proven by an experiment, any scientific statement is an assumption, a hypothesis, an unproven theory at best.

In the humanities, that seems to be different. Let’s take the political sciences. The effect of political measures or a new law on society and economy are often difficult to measure and even more difficult to predict without prior experience, to say the least. An experiment is not really possible. So, a lot of the justification depends on the believe or conviction that a certain measure or law is right. And more than often, the justification aligns nicely with the supposed interest of the group that is represented by the political party.

So, how about the arts?

First, I want to go back to the origin of our thinking, feeling and experiencing. The brain. Our brain is split into two more or less connected parts, the so called ‘old brain’ or brainstem and limbic system, and the ‘new brain’ or cortex, including the prefrontal cortex. The old brain mostly houses our intuition and feelings, the new brain houses our thinking and ratio.

But there is an interesting feature that our brain generates: ideas, fantasies, daydreams, hopes, fears. That is, thoughts, intuitions and feelings about phenomena that not, not necessarily or only partly are true or are a distortion of reality, ie. the reality that we observe.

Now, since the invention of photography – well, actually, already much earlier – step by step artists started to feel less and less tempted and obliged to copy reality as it is. It started very visibly with the impressionists, but really started much earlier, of course. Artists started to create a fantasy world. Let’s not look at painting for a change. For example, the Swan Lake ballet is very much a fairy tale, a made-up story. Artistic expressions allow for a lot of freedom in interpretation. Very different, for example, from engineers building a bridge.

AI is creating a new reality, mostly virtual

Now, let’s look at AI, creating a new virtual reality, often called the metaverse. Maybe, in the near future, many of us will live – partly – in a so called augmented reality, a mix of real reality and the virtual reality of the metaverse. It sounds far away, but really most of us already for a bit live in a virtual reality. Through our smartphone. And it will increase, fast.

Let’s talk about narcistic infringements. It was Sigmund Freud who first described human history as a series of narcistic infringements, disappointments about ourselves. Repeatedly we kicked ourselves from our self-invented pedestal. It started with Copernicus, who found that are not the center of the universe. Then Darwin found that we are not created after the image of God, but merely a slightly more intelligent ape. Then, Freud himself discovered that we are not hardly as rational and autonomous as we wish, but largely driven by urges and instincts with only limted (and some say no) free will.

The really interesting point here, of course, is that these infringements resulted from collective illusions that we created to fantasize ourselves into a position that we never had in the first place. So, the disappointment was really totally artificially created by ourselves. We never were the center of the universe, and all these other great things that we attributed to ourselves. Illusions, fantasies, … mind models.

Now, Freud clearly didn’t know about AI, artificial intelligence. But if he would, he might have called AI – possibly combined with proceedings in neuroscience – another narcistic infringement. It turns out that our intelligence is not as special as we always thought. Even machines can be more intelligent than we are, and maybe one day, we will discover life forms in the universe who are way more intelligent than us.

So, let’s go back to the duality of our brain, maybe even of our identity, of who we are.

How can fantasy be useful in an evolutionary way? Well, simple, if you can think in terms of scenarios and probabilities, that could well save you from being eaten by the proverbial sabretooth tiger. But in our thinking we are mostly copycats. Typically, acting like everyone else, hence sticking with the group, used to be a very good survival strategy in the stone age. We are not hardly as original in our hardwired thinking as we want to believe. I dedicated my first art project to this topic: the Blank Slate project: many artists claim to be creative and original, but we hardly are so. We copy the behavior (‘mimesis’) and desires from our conspecifics (‘mimetic desire’). That’s another narcistic infringement, right? Originally discovered by French philosopher antropologist Rene Girard. It’s like in the movie When Harry met Sally: “I want to have whatever she has!” And, of course, it is what fashion is based on, and really most of our entire economy.

And it makes sense. Having what everyone has, being like everyone is, makes you part of the group, it gives you a position in the group. And, evolutionarily, the group means safety, bigger chances of survival.

So, how about authenticity? How about finding your ‘true me’? Haha. Well, this is where it gets interesting. We make ourselves believe, that we are unique, authentic, etc. But, really, maybe we aren’t so much. Yet, we keep on telling ourselves that we are. We love to live in this state of fantasy. Many years ago, I called it the ‘happy pink glasses’ through which we look at ourselves. Strongly romanticised.

Yes, mind models!

We create realities to shape ourselves. Seemingly safe realities, that is. Even if they are fake, fake news, un-truths, plain lies.

And that is where the metaverse comes in. That is exactly how (and why) ultimately the metaverse will be a success. Because it gives us (fake) security, safety. In the metaverse we can create the perfect ideal safe reality. Alas, it will be fake. But still, we will desperately want to believe it.

Here’s a quote from an article I wrote in 2017 about AI chatbots:

We are a deeply social species. Put us alone on a desolate island and we go crazy or die of loneliness, not so much of hunger. Loneliness among the elderly is a major cause of disease and death in modern societies. If we want to really punish a person, we put them in isolation in a prison cell.

And yet, for many of us, direct interaction with other people is often a source of stress. Other people can bring trouble. People can be very mean. They may hurt our feelings by pushing us down on the status bar, by creating uncertainty in our life, by lording it over us, by leaving us or keeping a distance, or by treating us unfairly – to name just a few things we tend to do to each other.

Unfortunately, many of us do not have the self-confidence, mental strength or social or financial position to stand up against those who treat us badly. Life can be pretty miserable then. But AI never treats us badly. It’s just a machine, it’s software. AI is never threatening.

You can have AI call you ‘sir’ or ‘madam’, if that makes you feel good. AI brings certainty in your life by giving clear, unprejudiced answers. AI is servant and only authoritative, when we allow it to because we trust (or need) it. AI will never leave us, it is interested in us. AI is fair to us and plays no games with our soul. (And if otherwise, that is because of the people who trained the AI, not the AI itself.)

To many people AI can thus easily become our #BFF, Best Friend Forever. Once we feel familiar and comfortable with the AI, it will fill the gap.

So, it will be our lack of safety, of feeling secure, of feeling threathened, that will drive us to the safe fantasy world of the metaverse.

And, let’s be honest. Isn’t art often creating a similar safe world of fantasy?

That is how art, metaverse and AI will come together.

It’s gonna happen. I’m sure!