We need character, ethics, wisdom, grit. These things are aided and refined by hard times, but then they are passed to the next generation through the humanities.

The humanities have lagged our technological progress for a century or more. What if we used AI for one purpose only: to build the character of our kids? Or should I say, all of us?

This is a big ask of AI, or for that matter, educators of any sort. It's rarely been actively coached/taught/attempted. We've pretty much figured people either had "it" or they didn't.

Our schools, by and large, haven't known how to pass along these qualities to younger generations. Universities, especially those known as party schools or those who dive over into a "nothing should ever be unpleasant" hippie-dippy ultra-left neurosis, could be said to actively erode these qualities.

And let's be clear: By "younger generations," we should really be talking about the Boomers on down - that's basically everyone still kickin'.

Sure, we can all have our gripes: the Boomers had Vietnam looming and outrageous interest rates of the 80's. Gen X were latchkey kids. Etc.

Covid was our only recent test - and not to minimize or dismiss anyone's loss or discomfort, but just to take it at a macro level - it mostly killed old people who'd lived through some glorious days of prosperity. And there is no "right" to stay alive. We did what we could with all the measures taken, but sometimes Death comes for you.

But before the boomers, there were LOTS of CONSTANT hard times. Polio might sweep through and kill half the kids in town. The Great Depression could wipe out your family’s savings overnight, leaving you to line up for bread. World wars weren’t just distant headlines. They took your brothers, rationed your food, and blacked out your nights. Children worked in factories, antibiotics didn’t exist, and losing a tooth could lead to a fatal infection. In that era, hardship wasn’t a phase. It was the backdrop of life.

Life, to be blunt, was cheaper. And more often did you see someone pay the ultimate price of dying too young. And so, men and women of reason were tested with tougher blows to see the value of different ethical choices.

I can't believe school didn't teach me this easily fact-checkable earth-shattering piece of data: In the late '40's, in order to balance out the war debt and invest in the educational future of America, the US income tax over $200,000 was a ninety-frickin-percent bracket!!!

Wow. Can you imagine that? Talk about pulling together, each in order in his ability to help. What leadership. What belief in country. What lack of entitlement by rich people. And this is why the boomers got such cheap college, which ultimately led to our massive ascendancy for the last 30 years.

We passed along valuable skills in the marketplace, but no one was clever enough to pass along grit, character and the rest.

Unfortunately, somehow these traits have been mixed up in religions that themselves weren't always clean, and which, through the not-so-holy actions of their clergy, led our culture to the other side: materialism, with a culture demonstrating a "the Me decade" (and let's be real, not 'looking inward to find truth' but more like 'lemme get that Porsche').

And while struggles and come and gone for our culture, we've still had it pretty easy in the middle class and above, which represented (past tense) a large portion of the population.

And so the backlog of wisdom, grit, character and the rest has only fallen farther behind.

Perhaps that's a long intro to this main point: Can AI be employed to raise Character, Wisdom and Grit?

I don't know if we can do it. Some might say it's impossible, and they might have a convincing argument. They might even be right. But I would argue we have to do it anyway.

People talk about the "AI Alignment Problem." But it's laughably obvious that humanity has an alignment problem. As long as there are wars and rampant greed and ineffective communication, our efforts are not aligned toward humanity flourishing into the future.

Since AI will be trained on humans, it seems unlikely that it will solve this.