Do middle-aged Abbeys hold a clue as to the future of AI data centres?
As humans, even with all the technology that surrounds us and with which we interact, many of us continue to obsess about the authenticity of what we see, hear and to an extent, touch. You could argue that with the ever-increasing use of technology, the spotting of something which is not true is becoming ever trickier, think memes and hallucinations. But maybe as humans we don’t want to know the truth, because the substitute is more ‘economically’ palatable.
As a Professor of Computer Science, and someone who has been engaged in the IT industry for some 45 years, I often find myself peering into the future and wonder whether it’s possible to make a prediction as to how technology and its impact on society will unfold. I’m not sure anyone has the perfect crystal ball; but there are strong clues from history that we should take heed of.
In 1841 the Scottish author Charles Mackay wrote a seminal book titled “Extraordinary Popular Delusion and the Madness of Crowds”. The book is a collection and commentary of “those moral epidemics which have been excited, sometimes by one cause and sometimes by another, and to show how easily the masses have been led astray, and how imitative and gregarious men are, even in their infatuations and crimes”.
And now the era of AI is upon us.
Ever more part of daily lives across developed economies; much is now being written speculating about the impact on individuals, communities, and society as a whole. But have we as humans been here before, witnessing the power of data, or rather the written word as it was colloquially known in the Middle Ages.
Commencing in the 4th Century, and over the course of several centuries, many hundreds of abbeys and monasteries were built across England and Wales. Some of these ruins still retain an architectural charm and remain spiritual resting places to this day. A short distance from Sheffield can be found the charming ruins of Roche Abbey which, set in a valley landscaped by ‘Capability’ Brown in the 18th Century, retain one of the most complete ground plans of any English Cistercian monastery.
Founded in the 12th century as a monastery of the Cistercian order, Roche Abbey was once home to 50 monks and 100 lay brothers; and unlike other Cistercian monasteries in Yorkshire, such as Rievaulx or Byland Abbey, Roche was modest in size which was more typical of the order.
Despite the monastery being suppressed in 1538, and most of the buildings dismantled, the soaring early Gothic transepts of this monastery still survive to their original height and are ranked in importance with the finest early Gothic architecture in Britain.
From Parchment to Processors
So, what is the possible connection of these many early century monasteries and the many emerging data centres hosting AI foundational Large Language Models (LLM).
Both are power stations of knowledge, Roche Abbey in the 12th Century, the AI data centre, the 21st Century.
From the 4th century onwards, abbeys and monasteries held the monopoly of power; the written word was literally the gospel with only a few privileged individuals, the Abbot, Prior, Monks, and Nuns, equipped with the skill to read, interpret, communicate, and copy the Latin manuscripts. Today the Data Scientists, Big Data Architects, Software Engineers, and Architects are the new masters who wield considerable power.
In the 4th century, everyone else was a servant to the word; today as consumers of AI services and applications, we’re quickly witnessing the move from being an AI provider’s customer to a consumer to be cognitively manipulated.
Entertain for one moment the idea that there are many parallels today between the dark data centres hosting AI generative models and a 4th century Abbey. Both store data, information, and knowledge. The database in the Abbey was laid down on parchment (animal skins) using iron-gall ink, the writing room was a Scriptorium where originals and copies were prepared. The data in the datacentre is laid down on a mix of tape, disc, or silicon using electrical and optical signals, and the writing room is the internet. And whilst the datacentres are federated, so were the abbeys with the sharing of knowledge across a network of abbeys that crisscrossed Europe and the Near East.
Security with any knowledge repository is critical, physically the datacentre is protected by barbed wire, intruder alarms and elaborate security systems, with key data encrypted and only those possessing the key able to unlock its secrets. Well, the Abbey was little different, walls, turrets, guards, spoken passcodes, locks, and keys. And unless you spoke Latin or some other obtuse language and were skilled in interpreting allegories you had no chance of making sense of the material that was before you.
It’s interesting to consider the notion that the 4th century abbeys were far superior to today’s AI-infused five ‘9s’ data centre in preserving data. Much of the data transmission from the 4th century remains with us today; beautiful manuscripts, handmade books of writings and illustrative parchments with no fear of data loss due to parity errors, disc head crashes, worn media or malicious hacking. And whilst today’s datacentre is ‘fed and watered’ by teams of Mechanical Engineers and Support staff, the Abbey was literally fed and watered by the monks and other clerical staff in maintaining the order, so providing the crops grew and the water flowed, the scriptorium could be kept online; no fossil-fuelled generators needed to be kept as backup power.
From Knowledge comes Power
Over time, abbeys quickly became so much more than a knowledge repository; being important centres and places of pilgrimage, they became a middle age Airbnb, local hospital, food bank and charity centre to all and sundry. Additionally, they productised their local fare and yielded incomes which attracted much attention from both the treasury at the time, and marauding raiders. How does this wider role and value of the monastery compare with the AI-infused data centre? Sadly, not well, rather than physical sheltering and caring for the community, it’s merely a hostelry which shelters and cares for data.
Now you might be wondering about the spiritual outlet offered by the Abbey, hasn’t AI and its intertwining with social media outlets become a new spiritual offering for those whose minds have sadly been cognitively hijacked?
The demise (or dissolution) of the abbeys across England got underway in 1536 with Henry VIII imposing his will on the whole of society, a kind of middle age Blofeld. Roche Abbey was raised to rubble in 1538 with its assets transferred to the crown, the land being given to the favoured few and the keepers of the Abbey tossed out on their ear. The motivation behind the dissolution of the abbeys and other ‘knowledge centres’ has been written about in tomes over many centuries. However, history is littered with individuals, supported by their cohort, changing the course of history and even technology. Century after century, some very odd manifestations have repeatedly appeared, global rivalry, nationalism, despoliation of the planet, and changes driven by strongly held unenlightened opinions; all of which have and continue to leave their mark.
So, when peering back into history, it can be said that planetary character changes often occur with the harvesting of knowledge which would otherwise be lost. Perhaps, with the rise of the AI foundational model data centres we’re witnessing an accelerated 21st-century repeat of a 12th-century journey. Yet more opportunity for false hoods to propagate. The AI LLM can ‘hallucinate’; I kindly say an ‘untruth’, and if Charles Mackay was alive today, perhaps he would just see this as yet further evidence of ‘popular delusions’ perpetuating across society;human folly changes only in detail and not in scale. So, a question for all, as I proposed at the outset, who do we trust, who do you trust, and why? History would suggest that just as the output from the written word from middle age monasteries led to century after century of tumultuous changes, will AI LLM’s lead to a different outcome?
Professor Richard Lanyon-Hogg C.Eng FIET FBCS
