Wednesday, September 25, 2024

The VP debate: Wake the fuck up!

[I finally decided to use the "f word" for emphasis, since nothing else seems to work.]

You couldn't write a science fiction scenario weirder than our reality. Here's an outline for a screenplay:


The Stupid-Ass Dominant Species of Earth

By D.L.

A humanoid species spreads like wildfire across the surface of a planet- Earth - moving into every corner, proclaiming its supremacy and intelligence, evidenced by increasingly complex technology. But the technological breakthroughs disrupt existing ecosystems without thought to connected systems, bringing death or worse to many life forms including humanoids, while making giant fortunes for a few. The arrogance and narcissism of this species leads it to pursue technology even after inventing mechanical thought (MT) that surpasses its own abilities, threatening to control and replace it. The same has happened with biological science, which has given the species the ability to remake its physical self, bringing the possibility of an MT designed post-human.

The species goes through a recurring phase in its evolution called "war," in which the unused potential of developing technology is realized in a haze of emotion, sexuality and violence. At the time of the story, the species is nearing a war phase, the third in an increasingly extensive series, this time reflecting not only struggles over national and ethnic borders, but over what types of mentalities the humanoids will have, what types of bodies, perhaps what types of souls.

Opening Scene: On the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, which has traveled to the past to orbit ancient Earth, focus on Captain James T. Kirk, whose ancestors left Earth shortly before their species made it uninhabitable, and First Science Officer Spock, a human/Vulcan hybrid, intellectual and stoic [the Vulcans were originally emotional and violent, on track to destroying themselves and their planet- as Earth's humanoids did- but they took control of themselves, embraced logic and suppression of emotion and avoided self-destruction- hint, hint!]. Kirk and Spock have time-travelled to Earth's critical moment to learn more about what went wrong).

Spock (peering into a small box): The species is organized into "countries" - overly large collections of individuals. The countries lack cultural/psychological coherence -having quite rapidly replaced 300,000 years of tribal existence- so they routinely use hostility with other countries as a unifying tool. As their technology becomes more invasive and controlling, wars, which are promoted to mask the never ending technological change by presenting it as defensive, have become bigger and more intense, and are now termed "World Wars." There have been two of these, ushering in an age where machines are everywhere, making never ending noise, killing thousands through malfunction, yet offering "convenience" to the extent that no one can resist their development.

Kirk: "Convenience?"

Spock: Yes, a word we have discontinued due to negative connotation. "Convenience" suggested tasks that were easy to do. For Earth’s humanoids, once the basics of food and shelter were obtained, making tasks as easy as possible became the major pursuit of self-conscious life. At the time of our visit today, the humanoids’ desire that tasks be easy has led them to the brink of World War III.

Kirk: Spock, I'm scanning their media. The most powerful of the countries claims to be a "democracy" in which citizens vote for leaders through elections, so that theoretically all humanoids of the country have a voice in its governance. An election of their top leader - the “president" - is coming up. I see something going on in their media...recent, from last night.

Spock: Yes, much of the population watched a debate between the candidates for vice president, the number two leadership position. I have just completed a review of the debate.

Kirk:That should be fascinating! What did they say about the coming refashioning of the human body and mind?

Spock: Nothing.

Kirk: What?

Spock: There was no reference in the debate, either from the moderators or the candidates, to the imminent end of the species' current form of body and mind.

Kirk (after a befuddled pause): But, does the population know that the changes are imminent? Is the state keeping the technology hidden?

Spock: No, there is no censorship. The technology is discussed throughout their media.

Kirk: Then...what...?

Spock: The species is essentially asleep.

Kirk:What can we do to warn them what's coming, something that won't violate the Prime Directive [a protocol that forbids interference with indigenous cultures]?

Spock: Perhaps we can send an ambiguous message, designed not to direct specific action, but to suggest at least that thought be given to something.

Kirk Hmm...Spock, is the new SkyWrite laser operational?

Spock: Affirmative.

And so it was that the next morning the mightiest country on the planet arose to a scarlet banner across the dawn sky reading:

HUMANOIDS OF EARTH: WAKE THE FUCK UP!
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Sam Altman spills the beans

In the online journal BBC Tech Decoded ("The Intelligence Age," 9/27/24) Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI and owner of ChatGPT, is mostly a cheerleader for AI ("In the next couple of decades, we will be able to do things that would have seemed like magic to our grandparents"), but he's upfront on some delicate issues, like replacement of traditional human jobs with AI jobs.

As a retired teacher, I was particularly struck by this: "Our children will have virtual tutors who can provide personalized instruction in any subject, in any language, and at whatever pace they need," explicitly predicting the automation of teaching and the raising of children by machines. The essay predicts a similar replacement of doctors: "We can imagine similar ideas for better healthcare, the ability to create any kind of software someone can imagine, and much more."

Altman claims this future will bring a "shared prosperity to a degree that seems unimaginable today." Although that may be true for AI researchers and investors, not everyone will be a beneficiary. For instance, it's hard to see what benefit will accrue to teachers or their students, who will have software instead of humans to nurture them, or doctors, whose patients will be assessed using averages, not the individual human.

Altman describes the future he sees: "Technology brought us from the Stone Age to the Agricultural Age and then to the Industrial Age. From here, the path to the Intelligence Age is paved with computing energy and human will." He apparently thinks the age we're about to enter should be called the "Intelligence Age." Why he thinks this is a mystery, unless he's only talking about machine intelligence. The typical human, with each forward step of AI, will get progressively stupider. As an obvious example, if cars become self-driving (a near certainty) then people will forget how to drive. The same holds for teaching and being a physician, and for virtually any other current human job you can think of. Humanity will become like the children of AI, cared for and protected by an intelligence it created but can no longer understand.

There is also the increasingly likely advent of widespread war, which will probably work to the advantage of AI, destroying traditional human systems that will then be replaced with efficient AI systems. It will be difficult for people to oppose this development, since survival will be at stake, and an AI mediated post-human civilization is likely to emerge.

Since this AI run civilization seems inevitable, one might ask why bother to critique it.  In my case the answer is that during the transition I prefer not to be assaulted by mindless advertising and propaganda, such as Altman's, designed to distract our attention from a full understanding of what is happening.  Such distraction is on display as well in the current campaign for U.S. President, in which there is no discussion of AI (or the biotechnology that promises to change our physical selves).  While we face an accelerated evolution, compressing millions of years of change into a few decades, the strategy is to lull us to sleep or distract us with chaos so we miss the transition.

I would rather talk openly about it, as that will be the only way that people outside the industry and politics will have any influence.
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