Hi all, I'm working on a Solarpunk world building project and I want to know your thoughts on one of the main features of my world. To preface all this and provide some context, my world is an alternate-history with a divergence point sometime in the 2020s. The divergence was caused by a vocal and technically-skilled group of Green-Anarchists that labelled themselves as "Dawn".
Dawn did a whole host of things to ween people off of Capitalism and into my Solarpunk world, I've gone into immense detail on this but I doubt it's relevancy to my question so I'll omit all those details, but there was a tipping-point in which Capitalism crumbled and gave into Dawn's Anarcho-Solar world.
To make sure the world stayed Solarpunk and to give people stress-free lifestyles, they developed 1 AI and 1 AGI. The AGI manages all Dawn technology, such as Dawn power generation, carbon-capture, a global hyper-loop etc and the AI makes sure no one tampers with the AGI (For those unaware, AGI is Artificial General Intelligence, so for example Skynet is an AGI since it can think and do many things, but ChatGPT is an AI because it can only do text).
Most people in my world wont ever have to think about the AI and AGI, it is taught in my education system to make people aware in case of catastrophe but it mostly manages itself and is monitored by the longest-serving Dawn members.
I simply want to know if machines like this can exist in Solarpunk with it remaining Solarpunk, and if people like the idea or not. If you want to know more about my world building then feel free to ask! Thanks for your time in advance :)
P.S. I should mention that AI and AGI are mirrored across 8 different instances and for the most part work independently of each other, meeting only when strictly necessary. This is to give even more defense against tampering and error.
Edit 1: Changed title from Overlord to Background, Overlord implies oppression which the system doesn't do.
I'm not really sure, or, well, at least AI in what people tend to associate with nowadays. I think a solarpunk future is a future where degrowth is a main ethos for the development of the society. AI, as it currently exists, relies on global scale exploitation of not just artists, writers, but also people in the Global South living in abject conditions and are forced to accept mentally and physically damaging jobs to help "AI" to exist in the first place. Using AI, as far as I know, also comes with huge environmental costs simply because of how energy intensive it is to run and train its huge dataset. So the existence of stuffs like ChatGPT or Midjourney is a no go, unless "human ingenuity" could do something like being so cost effective energy wise that technology like that would require way less energy to run, or somehow the colonization of the universe would happen, but for the latter to happen will neccesarily require the kind of economy that centers growth above all else like capitalism.
Imo, Solarpunk technology should be local and open source and easily understandable for communities and individual to use, the factor of being environmentally friendly is also very significant and I don't think AI infrustructure would guarantee to fullfill those requirements.
That's the reason I would never understand the obsession with nuclear power or AI techinology of some solarpunk enthusiasts. These are all infrastrcutures that requires a degree of centralization of human and resouces, which drastically constrasts what solarpunk should be about. A solarpunk future is not fully automated luxury communism, but a low tech communism that still guarantees the well being of all. Low tech does not exist simply because of accessiblity, but also the capital E Environment.
Furthermore, the basic issue of human creativity being ripped off is also a thing that should be addressed. I don't belive in intellectual property, but we shouldn't need IP to protect arists from exploitation without consents. A solarpunk world is a world that respect human autonomy, so if an artist do not consent for their works to be used in training AI, their wish will be respectfully followed through. As an artist in art communities, I don't think that many people are fond of submitting their works to an AI so that others could code a drawing, so the dataset required for AI would not be enough, thus render AI useless. That's just creatives though, maybe scientists and researchers would hold different views? If that's the case, circle back to the question of energy intensity inherent in AI technology.
That's just AI in a very specific sense though, I don't know what constitute an AI. If AIs are just machines that can beat human at chess, or to predict patterns of local weather, or regulate irrugation system for farming, or organize documents, then sure, there's no reason why it should not exist in a solarpunk future. But the existence of such machinery should be put under scrutiny. If an AI could not be operated without significant environment impact, it has to go. Impressive techonology is not just codes, it's also very real, very material hardware that possess impressive processing power, and with it, impressive amount of energy, resources, and human power.
To address your AI specificly: I think your AI is HUGE, and I'm not confident about its place in a solarpunk world. Your AI would exist in some versions of communism, but solarpunk? I don"t think so.