The compass, a simple navigation device, really. Put a magnetic rock on some random leaf suspended in water and there you have it, a rudimentary compass: groundbreaking in the field of navigation. As humanity progressed, its unwavering ingenuity never faltered. This led us to develop this peculiar tendency to follow a systematic methodology of "Design, Develop, Deplete, and Dispose", which we have applied to essentially everything we have ever made. Inevitably, the compass also fell victim to the same fate, being unapologetically replaced by the much more advanced GPS.

There is, however, another tool that humans have to their disposal..."The Moral Compass".  This inexplicable feeling that tells us what is right and what is wrong - and more prevalent than the latter, this urge to always do the right thing. This one tool that is so necessary for mankind that all 8 billion of us share it without failure. What’s intriguing is the fact that its existence contradicts the very idea of Darwin's theory of evolution, for it poses no obvious benefit to the beholder but arguably can often be a drawback. I know that sounds confusing, but allow me to illustrate with a simple analogy: Let us take a crocodile. Like your average crocodile, this reptile doesn’t possess a moral compass. It's a simple being, driven by instinct alone. If worn down to the point of starvation, it might just decide to eat its children and live to see another day. Then there’s this other crocodile. This creature has somehow, developed a moral compass. Under the same conditions, it would refuse to sacrifice its children, like the conscientious crocodile it is, simply because it would be the "right thing" to do. Yet, unlike the other, it’s rewarded with death by starvation.

 In fact, this lack of morality is the primary reason behind the massive outrage against AI since it always offers perfect solutions, but not exactly the most moral ones… This seems an easy fix at first glance; just give Artificial Intelligence a moral compass and most of the issues people have with it will be solved. Upon closer inspection, however, you reach an immovable obstacle, one that even halted the unstoppable march of human progress… You see, AI learns strictly on a trial-and-error basis. Give it a problem and it will give a hundred answers. If they fail to satisfy, it would choose the best version, vary it slightly and produce another hundred, repeating the process until it lands on the "Perfect Answer". Yet, the perfect answer isn't always the "Right Answer". Morality isn’t something that can simply be developed through trial and error. You either have it, or you don't.

 Unexplainably, the beauty of it all is that without a moral compass human society as we know it could never have developed. If us humans had no inclination to do the "right thing", all social structure would soon devolve into a chaotic mess of selfish desire – only the law of the jungle would prevail. But as of now, we have begun to rationalize and justify our actions by looking at monetary gain, our moral compasses have become clouded by our own imprudence. And now what do we have? The "Perfect Answer"; a society unlike anything before, with the most food, water, and security at our disposal and the lowest levels of poverty and disease to worry about. Yet people don't seem to be any happier. What we do not have is a society guided by the consensus of morality and thus one in which people would be happy to live in. Or in other words, the "Right Answer”.

This problem arose when us humans, as dumb as we are, tried to apply our usual approach of, "Design, Develop, Deplete and Dispose”. Once we failed to improve upon it by using our rationale, we tried to discard it... And where has that led us?

Spiraling out of control.