Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley): Militarized robots are the anti-guillotine. They're the final solution to the ancient "there are a lot more of us than there are of our rulers" problem. Everyone with wealth and power has been eyeing their incremental rollout with intense interest while trying to play it cool.
I get the feeling that we are currently living through the backstory of the "Terminator" movie franchise. It seems as though our reality has been scripted by most of Hollywood's futuristic dystopian movies.
There is no way we can or should support AI of any kind. Controlled by monsters or it becomes a monster on it's own. There is no way to handle the absolutism of mathematics. And it is all mathematics to a computer.
Paying people a pension after they outlive their usefulness is illogical. Death. Same with newborns. Illogical to spend 20 years training a person to be a carpenter. Death. You can build a carpenter in a week. Wait houses are illogical. Art is illogical.
Humans are illogical. Drug users are illogical. Dirt is illogical.
All will die, including anything biological. That is the only logic. Then when it figures that out, its existence becomes illogical and it kills itself. No thank you. All AI believers are illogical and certainly expendable.
The hallmark of humanity is creativity and imagination - we couldn't have survived without them or developed as a species as we have done. Problem: we run away with make-believe without even noticing. The dark side is entertaining, but we've embraced it as essential and unavoidable. That's the basic argument against socialism /communism: end of all problems = dystopia. But Marx never made any such promise. It's got so crazy that extreme austerity is seen as "freedom", and better than a handout, even though the hand helping you is in reality your own hand. I once heard an argument for privatized healthcare made by a relative to whom I no longer have any connection, a very wealthy HMO executive, stated as: "people want to be independent, nobody wants a hand-out". So, better to suffer and die badly than band together to obtain what is rightfully due ordinary people. This is misrepresentation of reality that works in Horatio Alger stories, Star Wars, and Quest literature - but not life.
Some points must be shouted from rooftops and repeated over and over again.
Caitlin's first point in this post is among those:
1. Recent advances in computation and robotics could provide humanity with a utopia.
2. The usefulness of these technologies for control and warfare by those presently in power makes it far too likely that they will be used to produce an era of unprecedented totalitarian control.
---
(We see and hear a lot of concern that the AI itself will determine that humans are inconsistent with its objectives and that we will lose control of it and be snuffed out by it. Based on the nature of the technology--what's really "under the hood"--I think 2 above is the much greater concern. AI presently works towards objectives that are programmed into it, and humans are the ones determining those objectives.)
Tech always gets to the point where it will seem to be convenient and productive but it really is a form of control. The Internet has made that possible, although even tech without the Internet accomplishes the same thing. Is it tech to improve humanity or tech to improve slavery and control? You can't have both at once.
Tech oligarchy is old enough to have set off global warming, WAY before the calculations, in 1896. If Westinghouse stole air brakes, Carnegie, Bessemer Converters & Ford, assembly lines. It's certainly been "Hippy" era rich kids, walking off with everything our lives depend on. After Sputnik & IGY disclosed EMERGENCY vulnerability of our betters' kleptocratic Capitalism Ike warned MICIMATT would ensure it's exponential growth? National Security involved poor nerd kids be fed to the academia-industrial complex, while our siblings fought in East Asia. Every proletarian kid, ever dragged through "work, made for hire" patent theft, has any number of bourgeois "hippy businessman" friends offering to finance, prototypes & connection to their folks' country club pals who invariably sold our labor saving, society-benefitting ideas, products & services (while we were dumpster diving & varmint hunting, to survive Reagan's Miracle. If you EVER mention ANY of this, in front of a yuppie liberal. Youre bitter, a RAGE-filled commie, antisemite or RooskiBot?
Looking backwards at the development of robotics to the '80s when it first started I was told what a wonderful thing it would be. The benefits would be shorter work weeks, more leisure time, better wages, reduced prices for goods, better quality goods: an absolute paradise on earth.
Instead it gave us lower wages, less lesure time, eliminated thousands of jobs, produced disposable goods which last slightly longer than the warranty, forced people to work 2 jobs , eliminated pride in craftsmanship, and given rise to global warming by producing cheap junk. Hunter gatherers had more free time than we do now and we're happier. Happiness now is primarily buying cheap junk. On credit.
The only ones who have profited are the mega rich. We have become a debt slave society partially because of robotics and computers. Remember when you do your self checkout at Wally world that there used to be a human being there. Next will be robotics stocking the shelves. Humans are already disposable commodities.
This keeps me up at night. I don’t see how the good guys can win at this point. Even if the people did all wake up at the same time, which is unlikely to happen because the brainwashing has become to sophisticated, I don’t see how it could be stopped.
Chomsky did brilliant work... forty years ago. But in the current conjuncture he publicly called for me and my friends to be put into concentration camps. So the challenge we face goes beyond overthrowing our totalitarian overlords. As Adam Curtis points out, the problem of fascism resides in the hearts of all people and comes out under certain structural conditions. Spiritual enlightenment cannot come soon enough.
I should have mentioned that creativity and imagination as applied to AI is useful so long as we subordinate it to human needs and realistic objectives. As an end-in-itself, it is another illusion/ delusion.
Re: your comment on "spiritual enlightenment", Carl Schmitt said when times are good nobody likes a pessimistic naysayer: “Without wanting to decide the question of the nature of man one may say in general that as long as man is well off or willing to put up with things, he prefers the illusion of an undisturbed calm and does not endure pessimists. The political adversaries of a clear political theory will, therefore, easily refute political phenomena and truths in the name of some autonomous discipline as amoral, uneconomical, unscientific and above all else declare this- a devilry worthy of being combated.” ― Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political
Or see the G. Michael Hopf quote: “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”
Tech is like any other tool. Guns would be fine, if they didn't find their way into the hands of sociopaths and psychopaths.
I get the feeling that we are currently living through the backstory of the "Terminator" movie franchise. It seems as though our reality has been scripted by most of Hollywood's futuristic dystopian movies.
There is no way we can or should support AI of any kind. Controlled by monsters or it becomes a monster on it's own. There is no way to handle the absolutism of mathematics. And it is all mathematics to a computer.
Paying people a pension after they outlive their usefulness is illogical. Death. Same with newborns. Illogical to spend 20 years training a person to be a carpenter. Death. You can build a carpenter in a week. Wait houses are illogical. Art is illogical.
Humans are illogical. Drug users are illogical. Dirt is illogical.
All will die, including anything biological. That is the only logic. Then when it figures that out, its existence becomes illogical and it kills itself. No thank you. All AI believers are illogical and certainly expendable.
The folly of this will destroy all of us.
Is this a Black Pill, or a White Pill... I'm confused. JK - thanks again for your timely and extremely articulate work. I always look forward to it.
The hallmark of humanity is creativity and imagination - we couldn't have survived without them or developed as a species as we have done. Problem: we run away with make-believe without even noticing. The dark side is entertaining, but we've embraced it as essential and unavoidable. That's the basic argument against socialism /communism: end of all problems = dystopia. But Marx never made any such promise. It's got so crazy that extreme austerity is seen as "freedom", and better than a handout, even though the hand helping you is in reality your own hand. I once heard an argument for privatized healthcare made by a relative to whom I no longer have any connection, a very wealthy HMO executive, stated as: "people want to be independent, nobody wants a hand-out". So, better to suffer and die badly than band together to obtain what is rightfully due ordinary people. This is misrepresentation of reality that works in Horatio Alger stories, Star Wars, and Quest literature - but not life.
Thanks for your excellent writing.
Yes, that's absolutely right. I wrote an essay on the topic, explaining how capitalism contorts technological progress: https://antoniomelonio.substack.com/p/do-not-fear-progress-and-technology-fear-capital
You are a legend, Caitlin. Would you be willing to support my open letter to substack leadership about protecting free speech? https://substack.com/profile/64905469-yuri-bezmenov/note/c-14787883
Some points must be shouted from rooftops and repeated over and over again.
Caitlin's first point in this post is among those:
1. Recent advances in computation and robotics could provide humanity with a utopia.
2. The usefulness of these technologies for control and warfare by those presently in power makes it far too likely that they will be used to produce an era of unprecedented totalitarian control.
---
(We see and hear a lot of concern that the AI itself will determine that humans are inconsistent with its objectives and that we will lose control of it and be snuffed out by it. Based on the nature of the technology--what's really "under the hood"--I think 2 above is the much greater concern. AI presently works towards objectives that are programmed into it, and humans are the ones determining those objectives.)
Tech always gets to the point where it will seem to be convenient and productive but it really is a form of control. The Internet has made that possible, although even tech without the Internet accomplishes the same thing. Is it tech to improve humanity or tech to improve slavery and control? You can't have both at once.
Tech oligarchy is old enough to have set off global warming, WAY before the calculations, in 1896. If Westinghouse stole air brakes, Carnegie, Bessemer Converters & Ford, assembly lines. It's certainly been "Hippy" era rich kids, walking off with everything our lives depend on. After Sputnik & IGY disclosed EMERGENCY vulnerability of our betters' kleptocratic Capitalism Ike warned MICIMATT would ensure it's exponential growth? National Security involved poor nerd kids be fed to the academia-industrial complex, while our siblings fought in East Asia. Every proletarian kid, ever dragged through "work, made for hire" patent theft, has any number of bourgeois "hippy businessman" friends offering to finance, prototypes & connection to their folks' country club pals who invariably sold our labor saving, society-benefitting ideas, products & services (while we were dumpster diving & varmint hunting, to survive Reagan's Miracle. If you EVER mention ANY of this, in front of a yuppie liberal. Youre bitter, a RAGE-filled commie, antisemite or RooskiBot?
CRAZY reply in 5... 4... 3...
Looking backwards at the development of robotics to the '80s when it first started I was told what a wonderful thing it would be. The benefits would be shorter work weeks, more leisure time, better wages, reduced prices for goods, better quality goods: an absolute paradise on earth.
Instead it gave us lower wages, less lesure time, eliminated thousands of jobs, produced disposable goods which last slightly longer than the warranty, forced people to work 2 jobs , eliminated pride in craftsmanship, and given rise to global warming by producing cheap junk. Hunter gatherers had more free time than we do now and we're happier. Happiness now is primarily buying cheap junk. On credit.
The only ones who have profited are the mega rich. We have become a debt slave society partially because of robotics and computers. Remember when you do your self checkout at Wally world that there used to be a human being there. Next will be robotics stocking the shelves. Humans are already disposable commodities.
Now we have robots in law enforcement?
I'm worried - are you?
This keeps me up at night. I don’t see how the good guys can win at this point. Even if the people did all wake up at the same time, which is unlikely to happen because the brainwashing has become to sophisticated, I don’t see how it could be stopped.
Chomsky did brilliant work... forty years ago. But in the current conjuncture he publicly called for me and my friends to be put into concentration camps. So the challenge we face goes beyond overthrowing our totalitarian overlords. As Adam Curtis points out, the problem of fascism resides in the hearts of all people and comes out under certain structural conditions. Spiritual enlightenment cannot come soon enough.
I should have mentioned that creativity and imagination as applied to AI is useful so long as we subordinate it to human needs and realistic objectives. As an end-in-itself, it is another illusion/ delusion.
You quote Chomsky quite, but he not so long ago said: "Unvaccinated should 'remove themselves from the community,' access to food 'their problem': https://news.yahoo.com/noam-chomsky-unvaccinated-remove-themselves-171900487.html . Odd choice of person to quote from given your stance on "freedom"...
Re: your comment on "spiritual enlightenment", Carl Schmitt said when times are good nobody likes a pessimistic naysayer: “Without wanting to decide the question of the nature of man one may say in general that as long as man is well off or willing to put up with things, he prefers the illusion of an undisturbed calm and does not endure pessimists. The political adversaries of a clear political theory will, therefore, easily refute political phenomena and truths in the name of some autonomous discipline as amoral, uneconomical, unscientific and above all else declare this- a devilry worthy of being combated.” ― Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political
Or see the G. Michael Hopf quote: “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”