Just as there are calculators for calculating, there will soon be machines for forming opinions
I believe that all fiction writers (those who spend their lives delving into the mystery of human passions; not the purveyors of adventure) know that there are few things more superficial than opinions. No one knows this better than public opinion engineers like Edward Bernays, author of The Engineering of Consent (1955) and architect of the CIA’s first major plot in Latin America against a democratic government in 1954. Such achievements are more likely in countries where a large proportion of the population is trained to believe from early childhood.
Does anyone want to waste their time in the most miserable way possible? Well, all you have to do is get into an argument with someone who has their own convictions. I’ve never been entirely clear on why some of us wear ourselves out writing opinion pieces in newspapers, much less why others—hiding behind heroic anonymity—do the same by insulting us without even having finished reading them. I understand that we all need to vent our frustrations somewhere, but that’s what toilets are for. A civilized appreciation for disagreement (a virtue not invented by the 18th-century French) is increasingly rare, if not dangerous. Of course, there are still rational people out there, which justifies any effort at communication. But the opposite is usually the case: someone whose convictions have been mortally wounded will cling tooth and nail to any argument that might support them, even if thousands point in the opposite direction—if reality doesn’t conform to their convictions, so much the worse for reality.
For example, is anyone in the United States in favor of guns on the streets? Well, it won’t matter if a decent man with no history of mental illness shoots his daughter because he didn’t like the way she was dressed. Somewhere, he’ll find a justification for his convictions: the man who pulled the trigger was someone who, had he had a stick instead of a firearm, would have committed the same tragedy. That man will hate the murderer almost as much as he hates those others who hate guns, because at least the murderer was in favor of guns. Meanwhile, everyone else who hates guns will go so far as to blame the father for his daughter’s misfortune, just as much—or even more—than they blame the murderer.
When has a staunch believer ever questioned the Bible’s literal perfection because of some nationalist massacre, the occasional reference to slavery, or Noah’s claim to have crammed millions of animals—each pair representing its species and incapable of evolving into others—onto a wooden boat? Any argument, reason, or questioning is a complete waste of time when you’re facing someone with convictions. That’s why people band together in arrogant sects they proudly call churches, or in ideological communities they no less proudly call the cause or the party. On social media, the problem is apparently solved by unfriending that idiot (the idiots are always the others) who insists on having a different opinion, until—without realizing it or even admitting it—each person becomes the center of their own sect.
The saddest thing is that there is nothing more mechanical and predictable than “one’s own opinions”
Because quite a few people hate the idea that some outsider might even question their convictions—even if they’re democratic superstitions that, from time to time, compel them to put up with some poor fool who thinks differently. You’ve probably heard such nonsense as: “He’s a good guy; he’s a leftist, he’s a progressive”; or “He’s a very good person, a true conservative who goes to church every Sunday.” As if there weren’t any progressives or devout believers who are bastards. As if a party, an ideology, or a religion could make someone good who isn’t.
The saddest thing is that there’s nothing more mechanical and predictable than one’s own opinions. For decades, calculators have existed to solve complicated mathematical formulas, and now there are also translation tools so that some genius can argue that it’s no longer necessary to learn other languages. Of course, no one questions why we need sports, even though there are machines that do everything faster, stronger, higher, and farther than any Olympic champion. Why would we need our brains if machines can do everything better? Well, maybe we still need them to watch soccer on TV and porn on the Internet.
Once, a genius with a college degree told me in a Hollywood bar that even if machines render math and language departments obsolete, we’ll always need our brains for more creative things—like forming our own opinions and weighing in on issues important to humanity. But really, do we need a brain to offer opinions based on ignorance of nearly every discipline that humanity has known until quite recently?
Just as there are calculators for calculating and translators for translating, there will soon be (if they don’t already exist and go by the name of big media) machines for offering opinions, since these are much more predictable than a mathematical operation or the translation of a poem. It would be a shame, of course, because giving opinions is one of the favorite pastimes of our time—as useless and inconsequential as Team X or Y winning the Super Bowl.
Do we need a brain to offer opinions based on ignorance?
It’s at least puzzling that the geniuses at Google haven’t yet developed an “Opinion-Giver.” Apple could launch a portable version, so everyone could have their “Own Opinion” at an affordable price. All you’d have to do is enter some basic data on ideological preference, sexual orientation, the candidate you voted for in the last election, whether or not you attend church, whether you’re addicted to CNN, Fox, or Democracy Now, country of residence, annual salary, ethnicity, tribe, gender or transgender status, marital status… and that’s it: your own opinion pops right out.
With this, the sport of forming opinions would remain intact, with the advantage that to practice it, you wouldn’t even need to strain your gray matter much—just as a true sports fan doesn’t need to strain his own muscles much when watching his favorite team. Although, of course, perhaps to receive a personal opinion, it might not even be necessary to go to the trouble of filling out some kind of questionnaire about our preferences, because the government and the soda and condom companies already know it.
Jorge Majfud, April 21, 2015
“While universities make robots that look more like human beings every time, not only because of their proven intelligence but now also because of their abilities to express and receive emotions, the consumerist habits are making us every time more similar to robots.” (Cyborgs, 2012)
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