A friend of mine always thought that modeling AI/robots after animals rather than humans was the real way to go. An ant, for example, can perform a remarkably complex series of tasks despite tiny brains. So if you had an AI that was synth-bio grown to be a foot long ant with matching brain biology with programming you'd have giant ants that you could sort of command. The sheer utility of just that one thing would let you clear forests, spy on people, pick up trash, clear minefields, build complex underground tunnels, etc. And it would be a long ways faster and simpler to figure out the animal brain than the human one. Just pick the animal that is closest to what you need.
Well, you said it already, it's not about logic. It's about wanting to create a slave in their own image. It's the narcissistic parent forcing their child to fulfill their delusions, except with circuit boards this time. In line with that narcissistic parent dynamic I bet there's already a golden child AI, scapegoat AI and neglected AI child.
This is great. For decades the marketing machine has exagerated and falsified the claims for technology. In the 1950s / 60's 'labour saving devices' (vacuum cleaners, washing machines, electric tin openers etc) were going to give us all lots of leisure. Like generative AI (so called) they are useful, but the promises never came true. At the end of the 70's a famous book and BBC TV series, called 'The Mighty Micro', promised that due to computer technology we would all be working a 20-hour week and retiring comforably at 50, by the year 2000. In the 1990's we were endlessly told how the internet was going to make the world more democratic. We are badly in need of a more realistic view and more realistic expectations.
One aspect of that (I mean apart from simply looking at the history of broken promises) is a better appreciation of the differences between the mechanistic and the organic, and some real scientific analysis of that, which you provide here. You do a really great job of clarifying a more realistic picture step by step.
I find it very telling that the Nature Electronics article that you cite presents its case in such a childish manner – it tells us a lot about the mentality of those driving this mad-professor approach to the human future. 'Ingesting the complete works of Shakespeare in a digitised pill' is another graphic illustration of the fantasy world they are living in. And I also love the comparison with Derrida etc – the converse (I mean opposite of childish over-simplification) strategy of using bizarrely over-complex language to make audiences feel that they are just not smart enough to understand.
In reality, I find many people don't buy the hype. I have asked many people in recent months, variously whether a machine can be intelligent, whether a machine can think, etc. All of them have said no – including many adolescents who are themselves quite comfortable using ChatGPT.
Despite that intuitive relationship to the truth in many people though (and I don't think the people I've asked are necessarily a representative cross-section of the population), we really need people like you to keep providing the honest, clearly presented science behind the hype, and I hope you will continue to do so!
By the way, I just order a copy of your book 'The Biologist's Mistress'.
Alison McDowell intensive research work on how the evil ones have targeted kindergarten kids to monetise the data they generate ties in to this and the Metaverse. Ready Player One is the Leave the World Behind equivalent in predictive programming
Collecting data on anyone anytime without consent (real consent) should be illegal per privacy rights in the US Constitution. That document was conceived to protect us from government, but now that corporations have the power of nations, they need to be reigned in too.
Thank you. I fully agree with your conclusions. The transhuman road is a dead-end ultimately and the drivers behind it, are seriously flawed. Let's just become better humans, who use technology in a way that respects humanity and the larger Natural world we are a part of.
A friend of mine always thought that modeling AI/robots after animals rather than humans was the real way to go. An ant, for example, can perform a remarkably complex series of tasks despite tiny brains. So if you had an AI that was synth-bio grown to be a foot long ant with matching brain biology with programming you'd have giant ants that you could sort of command. The sheer utility of just that one thing would let you clear forests, spy on people, pick up trash, clear minefields, build complex underground tunnels, etc. And it would be a long ways faster and simpler to figure out the animal brain than the human one. Just pick the animal that is closest to what you need.
Make sense to me. We have 8B+ human beings on Earth now who go largely under- appreciated. Wanting to create human-like computers seems illogical.
Well, you said it already, it's not about logic. It's about wanting to create a slave in their own image. It's the narcissistic parent forcing their child to fulfill their delusions, except with circuit boards this time. In line with that narcissistic parent dynamic I bet there's already a golden child AI, scapegoat AI and neglected AI child.
This is great. For decades the marketing machine has exagerated and falsified the claims for technology. In the 1950s / 60's 'labour saving devices' (vacuum cleaners, washing machines, electric tin openers etc) were going to give us all lots of leisure. Like generative AI (so called) they are useful, but the promises never came true. At the end of the 70's a famous book and BBC TV series, called 'The Mighty Micro', promised that due to computer technology we would all be working a 20-hour week and retiring comforably at 50, by the year 2000. In the 1990's we were endlessly told how the internet was going to make the world more democratic. We are badly in need of a more realistic view and more realistic expectations.
One aspect of that (I mean apart from simply looking at the history of broken promises) is a better appreciation of the differences between the mechanistic and the organic, and some real scientific analysis of that, which you provide here. You do a really great job of clarifying a more realistic picture step by step.
I find it very telling that the Nature Electronics article that you cite presents its case in such a childish manner – it tells us a lot about the mentality of those driving this mad-professor approach to the human future. 'Ingesting the complete works of Shakespeare in a digitised pill' is another graphic illustration of the fantasy world they are living in. And I also love the comparison with Derrida etc – the converse (I mean opposite of childish over-simplification) strategy of using bizarrely over-complex language to make audiences feel that they are just not smart enough to understand.
In reality, I find many people don't buy the hype. I have asked many people in recent months, variously whether a machine can be intelligent, whether a machine can think, etc. All of them have said no – including many adolescents who are themselves quite comfortable using ChatGPT.
Despite that intuitive relationship to the truth in many people though (and I don't think the people I've asked are necessarily a representative cross-section of the population), we really need people like you to keep providing the honest, clearly presented science behind the hype, and I hope you will continue to do so!
By the way, I just order a copy of your book 'The Biologist's Mistress'.
Best,
Michael.
Great how you brought humor into this "seriously-comedic" topic.
It is really pretty comedic what those researchers are doing. But not funny about Musks' chimpanzees. Guessing that is your point.
I signed up for your webinar.
Alison McDowell intensive research work on how the evil ones have targeted kindergarten kids to monetise the data they generate ties in to this and the Metaverse. Ready Player One is the Leave the World Behind equivalent in predictive programming
Collecting data on anyone anytime without consent (real consent) should be illegal per privacy rights in the US Constitution. That document was conceived to protect us from government, but now that corporations have the power of nations, they need to be reigned in too.
Great piece!
Thank you. I fully agree with your conclusions. The transhuman road is a dead-end ultimately and the drivers behind it, are seriously flawed. Let's just become better humans, who use technology in a way that respects humanity and the larger Natural world we are a part of.