Abstract
This writing juxtaposes “artificial intelligence” and “apocalyptic wisdom” in seeking to sketch our contemporary race towards AGI from the point of view of an indigenous consideration of sustainable dwelling-in-place. Obviously, part of the imaginary “ecotone” here is one between an exponentially escalating “techtopia” looming over us from the future and our deep past of dwelling respectfully in local ecozones as the primary unit of human “being.” The largely unseen 2nd and 3rd level effects of AI tech ricocheting through every domain of industrial endeavor meet the typically unexamined habits of our prehistory ancestry in a kind of battle rap of “unseen-ities.” The particular glimpse behind the curtain of “time past” offered here keys on the testimony of Tzutujil-trained native teacher Martin Prechtel, especially as ramified by his experience of a highlands village suffering the 1976 Guatemalan earthquake, whose trauma was succored by their own wisdom tradition, recounting a previous “apocalypse” (the Mayan civilizational collapse of 900 CE), that they remembered as “The Great Revolt of Tools.” This perspective is brought into conversation with work of educational theorist Zak Stein and social philosopher Daniel Schmacktenberger, tracking what the latter calls the “metacrisis” of our hour, traceable to the delinking of technological innovation from our ancient face-to-face “band-society” lifestyle (hunting and gathering, subsistence cultivation, small-scale pastoralism) serving the good of that local community in its local ecozone in favor of a new focus on narrowly-bounded goals optimizing surplus production and competitive advantage for elites presiding over city-states, imperial-nations, and now high-tech globalization.
Presenters
James PerkinsonProfessor of Social Ethics, Spirituality, Ecology, Ethics, Ecumenical Theological Seminary, Michigan, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Economic, Social, and Cultural Context
KEYWORDS
Indigenous Studies, Ecology, Artificial Intelligence, Decolonization, Wisdom
