3 Wishes

By Ray Tabler

Djinn, jinn, genies (however you spell the word) are but one example of beings in the supernatural menagerie chronicled by human folklore. An uncommon aspect to djinn behavior (or so the tales tell) is that once summoned, the djinn is obligated to grant wishes to the poor fool who has called them forth. Usually, the wishes number 3. Why only 3 wishes? Probably because it makes for a good story.

A dizzying array of variations on this theme arise. The possibilities branch, and branch again. Can you wish for more wishes? Are there hard and fast restrictions on what you can wish for? Is the djinn trying to help you out, neutral (just doing my job), or maliciously following the exact letter of your wish to trip you up? And on, and on, and on. The decision tree is positively fractal in scope!

Here’s a little secret about folklore. It has 2 purposes. One is to entertain. That’s the sweet veneer, the lure to get you listening. The other purpose is to teach. That’s the bitter pill inside the candy coating. And the lesson isn’t about how to deal with supernatural phenomena. I strongly suspect that otherworldly beings, should you encounter them, aren’t going to follow the rules we think we know. No, folktales teach you how to deal with life, and other people. Which is a lot more useful than a how-to guide for supervising djinn, and probably a lot more complicated too.

The tale of the Little Red Hen informs the listener about the advisability of pulling your own weight. The fable of Stone Soup teaches that things usually work better if we all work together. The Boy Who Cried Wolf assures us that the group will have your back, until you piss the group off. Then you’re on your own, buddy. Now, that’s just my take on the morals of these stories. They’re debatable, and wide open to interpretation. Ain’t that funny? Just like real life.

Stories about djinn, and 3 wishes, introduce us to the law of unintended consequences. In short, be careful what you wish for. You just might get it. In a movie, a leitmotif is a short musical sequence, a few notes strung together to evoke a character or a circumstance for the audience, whenever the character or situation is on screen. The djinn could very well serve as a leitmotif for the history of technology. Every time we wacky humans come up with a new-fangled idea, there’s no tellin’ what we’ll do with it. The smart thing is to carefully consider all the ramifications before embracing a new technology. But where’s the fun in that? Just as well. Nobody follows the wise path anyway. We make all of the wrong choices, and some of the right ones, while we sort them out along our merry way. Because, how can we tell if something’s a bad idea until the bill comes due? Reminds me of what Winston Churchill said. “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing—after they’ve tried everything else.” The old fellow knew what he was talking about, being half American himself.

Domesticating horses made transporting goods a lot more efficient. It also carried conquering nomads, flooding off the steppes. The printing press spread knowledge at unprecedented speed. It also permitted tyrants to control the people via propaganda. Modern medicine rolled back disease with antibiotics and vaccines. It also makes bioweapons practical. Do you hear the music playing?

Which brings us to artificial intelligence, or what we’re calling AI these days. I’m not qualified to argue whether the AI label truly applies to large language models or not. But we can debate the consequences of what we’ve got, real AI or not.

The benefits are tantalizing. Detecting, maybe curing, cancer? Agriculture unchained? Self-driving vehicles? Rapid decision-making? The downside is terrifying. Upheaval in job markets? Unrestricted cyber surveillance? Merger of man and machine? Automated bureaucracy? (Ye gads!) It calls to mind the lyrics of Donld Fagan’s satirical pop song about a retro future, “IGY:”

“…A just machine to make big decisions

Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision…”

Right now the only sure thing we can say about AI is that it allows us to “think” faster. Will we think better? Please define “better” for me. Good luck with that.

Make no mistake. Mistakes will be made. We’re only human after all. Our compassion and our vision are flawed and myopic, at best. But that won’t stop us. In truth, it ought not to. The cost of our mistakes will be paid down the road by us, or our children, or our grandchildren. It has always been so.

There’s no going back. The djinn is out of his bottle, hovering above us in a cloud of swirling, blue smoke. He’s impatient for us to get on with our wishes. Someone’s going to make those wishes. That’s the way things are.

Why do the stories limit us to 3 wishes? That’s to remind us that things are going to get both better and worse with each wish we make. In truth, there’s no limit to wishes. No limit to benefits. No limit to consequences either. We are only constrained by our tolerance for dealing with the upsides and downsides of our choices. And where we find the balance point between the two.

We can shut our eyes, think nice thoughts, and pretend that AI isn’t here. That’s an option. Once an idea, a technology, has been invented, it’s very difficult to suppress, if not impossible. Not that people haven’t tried. In Japan’s Edo period firearms were a controlled technology for a couple of centuries. Until Admiral Perry sailed into Yokohama harbor with guns too big to ignore. The rest of the world was making wishes, even if Japan wasn’t.

The djinn is in the bottle. Pandora is in the box. The toothpaste is in the tube. Until it isn’t.

END.

Reference Links:

· Fables

o Little Red Hen – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Red_Hen

o Stone Soup – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Soup

o The Boy Who Cried Wolf – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Cried_Wolf

· Leitmotif – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leitmotif

· Churchill Quote – https://theweek.com/people/62215/winston-churchill-quotes-memorable-words-of-a-master-orator

· IGY Lyrics – http://www.steelydan.nl/lyricsof.jsp?id=81&FileURL=http://www.steelydan.nl:80/lyrics/IGY.txt

· Firearms in Edo Japan – https://ecambrose.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/handgun-control-in-medieval-japan/