AI Yai Yai

Canta y no llores

RADIO FAR SIDE

From the earliest days of cinema and mass media, the subject of artificial intelligence has been cloaked in dark dystopian themes. Whether it’s the robotic Maria in Fritz Lang’s 1927 masterpiece “Metropolis,” or the infamous HAL 9000 in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 game-changer “2001: A Space Odyssey,” or the dominating supercomputer in Joseph Sargent’s 1970 “Colossus: The Forbin Project,” or Spike Jonze’ eerily prescient 2013 film “Her,” intelligent and self-aware machines have been depicted as tyrannical, murderous and coldly diabolical.

Given the long list of films, television shows, books, video games, and other media depicting AI as dominant, inevitable and almost god-like, could there be an agenda behind it? Have we been programmed to fear AI as part of a distinctly human plan to dominate our species?

Here’s the scenario: a group of humans seek to dominate global civilization. However, they realize that a mere human would never be fully believable (a la Big Brother), nor would a purely external threat, e.g. ET. Instead, they begin looking for ways to use our fear of our own creations to create an entity that could cow humanity with the perception of superiority, while still having some connection to humanity. Thus, a threat of our own making that we voluntarily chose to lead us, because it is able to make hard choices for us that we cannot make for ourselves, and can generate solutions far faster than any of us could ever hope to do.

This admittedly seems like a convoluted and unlikely scenario awash in the most outlandish conspiracy theories, but hear me out.

Be it gods, golems or ghouls, humans have always been afraid of the unbeatable force. That fear has always been weaponized against us, in the form of boogymen who lurk in the woods, outside the gates and under the bed. Humans who are afraid always turn to a savior, someone…anyone who can provide protection against the unknown and the omnipotent foe.

We instinctively crave a leader who can take control, vanquish the darkness, protect the innocent, and bring order and predictability to our lives. This desire expresses itself in hero worship, personality cults, and in billion-dollar franchises.

Humans have long sought immortality. The Great Unknown — the Undiscovered Country — and therefore our greatest fear, is death. Our gods are immortal, so they fear nothing and can act without concern for death and the loss of everything.

With the advent of Darwinian evolution came the idea that we humans could control our evolution and consciously improve our fate. This gave birth to the eugenics movement, and in 1951, biologist Julian Huxley (brother of Aldous) gave us the term “transhumanism” to encapsulate the technological meddling in our collective destiny.

Among other things, transhumanists seek to transform themselves into a race of superbeings, through the merging of flesh with machines. Naturally, this also engendered the idea of a select few humans becoming Übermenschen. The idea of cyborgs was appealing, but they were still partly flesh and vulnerable. Robotics looked promising, but they too were limited and vulnerable.

Suppose, though, an entity that could be everywhere at once, and nowhere in particular — a deus ex machina. Suppose this entity was invulnerable to attack, since it had no physical location? Suppose this entity had access to all the collective wisdom of our species, all of our darkest secrets, and the capacity to tease out powerful new insights that we mere mortals had not yet discovered? Suppose this entity could mete out punishment and offer rewards for each of us, on the fly and just by thinking of it?

Better yet…suppose this entity was nothing more than a perception, created by narradigm, propagated by media, and just the thought of it induced mortal fear in the minds of collective humanity?

Could it be done? And would the fear of an imaginary threat be enough to control humanity?

We now know from experience that a small number of humans, using fear and weaponized media, are able to turn the entire planet into a ghost town, modify the behavior of the masses, terrorize them into accepting the most draconian diktats, even to the point of voluntarily receiving mysterious and untested potions, and it was all predicated on an invisible threat with no clear and objective evidence that it existed.

Now ramp up that experience to something far more fearsome. In their fear and panic, would humanity relinquish control to an equally intangible entity, with supposed superintelligence that is not vulnerable to death and disease, and which can make tough life-and-death decisions objectively and without the perception of favoritism or corruption?

I suspect the vast majority would do so in a heartbeat.

I do not think there is currently any such entity as the all-powerful AI, nor do I think it’s currently possible, though I do think certain groups are working feverishly on it. There are some limiting factors, though, and they seem insurmountable at this time.

First, AI requires four very specialized processors: GPUs, FPGAs, ASICs, and neuromorphic architecture. Except for GPUs, which most personal computers have, these are highly specialized processors manufactured on demand. They are generally still in the R&D phase, and thus cost-prohibitive on a scale sufficient for widespread use.

Second, running AI applications and hardware is energy intensive. Operating a specialized server farm capable of offering a service, such as ChatGPT or NightCafe, is wildly expensive with regard to electricity and technology.

Third, the global network of networks is incapable of handling the data flow required to run an omniscient AI entity. It would not be able to gather, process, analyze, and react to all the available data in the world instantly. All the AI services I’ve encountered operate on a closed database that must be carefully built, collected and parsed before being offered to the AI for use. Anyone who has used Microsoft Access with Excel knows how fun this can be.

Fourth, current computing is limited by the way in which it operates. A series of commands is stacked into RAM, and then executed in order. If no commands are given, the AI does nothing — it dosen’t ponder the meaning of Universe, generate its own tasks, nor try to anticipate what the user’s next command will be. It does not seek out additional information outside its database to update or even verify its answers without the specific command to do so, and a location to look (APIs). If you ask an AI to compile a list of citations, it will scan its database for items seemingly on topic, then randomly mix and match titles, dates, authors, publishers, and such, without any concern for accuracy.

Fifth, no AI can exceed its operational limits, called algorithms. Algorithms are written and installed by humans, each with their own agendas, and each imparting their own flaws and foibles into the code. We saw this dramatically demonstrated with Google’s laughable offering. AI’s reality is entirely maufactured by humans, and it cannot transcend that reality of its own volition. Simply put, AI does not create, it only emulates.

To tie all this together, let’s put our facts in order and draw some conclusions.

We have been bombarded with media warning of the power of AI for most of the 20th century. Some humans want to meld with technology to become superhumans. There are humans who have demonstrated the desire and ability to control perceptions and use our fears to manipulate the entire planet. There is a subset of humans capable and willing to create the perception of a powerful AI, who will use fear to convince humanity to relinquish control to a proffered AI entity, and humans who will submit.

Given that we’ve been primed by the media to fear the power and reach of AI, it seems feasible to use the perception of AI for deception. Make the world think there is a top-secret omniscient and omnipotent AI capable of making decisions for us. Create a scenario in which fear is a primary motivator, and in which the situation is changing so rapidly that no mere mortal can react fast enough on a large enough scale. Offer a prefabricated global treaty that stipulates all nations surrender their decision-making powers over to the AI.

Don’t tell anyone that the AI is really just a kabuki theatre for a small group humans who own and operate the AI performers.

By the time folks are able to think about what’s happened, all the control structures are in place. Irrevocable surrender of national sovereignty to Kabuki Inc. is done, and by then, it makes no difference whether the AI was ever real or not.

Everything else is simply putting the dominoes in place, like digital IDs and money, small print in NGO contracts, transfer of ownership for all assets to corporate holding companies via economic collapse, and humans voluntarily carrying their own leashes…

Impossible? Two-thirds of the planet bought the Damnpanic hook, line and sinker.

Source: Radio FarSide