Along with assurances that we’re facing an imminent takeover of industrial production by robots and other artificial intelligence (AI), we’re also being told that AI can develop its own systems of communication and operation, without help from humans.
Here is a sprinkling of quotes from the mainstream and technical press:
The Atlantic, June 15, 2017: “When Facebook designed chatbots to negotiate with one another, the bots made up their own way of communicating.”
Tech Crunch, November 22, 2016: “Google’s AI translation tool seems to have invented its own secret internal language.”
Wired, March 16, 2017: “It Begins: Bots Are Learning to Chat in Their Own Language.”
The suggestion is: AI can innovate. It can size up situations and invent unforeseen and un-programmed strategies, in order to accomplish set goals.
Who benefits from making such suggestions? Those companies and researchers who want to make the public believe AI is quite, quite powerful, and despite the downside risks (AI takes over its own fate), holds great promise for the human race in the immediate future. “Don’t worry, folks, we’ll rein in AI and make it work for us.”
Beyond that, the beneficiaries are technocratic Globalists who are in the process of bringing about a new society in which AI is intelligent and prescient enough to regulate human affairs at all levels. It’s the science fiction “populations ruled by machines” fantasy made into fact.
“AI doesn’t just follow orders. It sees what humans can’t see, and it runs things with greater efficiency.”
Let’s move past the propaganda and state a few facts.
AI is not running its own show.
It isn’t innovating.
It isn’t creating its own languages.
It isn’t doing any of that.
AI operates within the parameters its human inventors establish.
Any honest AI designer will tell you that.
If, for example, an AI system is given a goal and a set of “options” for achieving the goal, AI will select which option is best ACCORDING TO STANDARDS ITS HUMAN OPERATORS HAVE PROGRAMMED INTO THE SYSTEM.
Think of it this way: AI is given a set of options; but it is also given instructions on how to select what is presumably the most effective option. So AI is bounded.
There is no choice. There is no freedom. AI isn’t “jumping ship.”
“We gave our robot Charlie the task of getting from Chicago to New York. The whole plan was laid out as a vast hiking trip, with internal street maps built in. But then Charlie suddenly took a cab to O’Hare and boarded a United jet for JFK…”
No he didn’t.
AI performs as it is programmed to perform, within set parameters.
“We sent Charlie to LA to marry the actress who ordered and paid for him. But then, at the church, Charlie suddenly said, “This is a mistake. You should go back to your first husband. He never had sex with that waitress in St, Louis. She was his sister, and he was trying to help her escape from a terrorist cell. He never told you that because then he would have had to tell you he isn’t a banker, he actually works for the CIA. He’s a good guy. Talk to him. The truth will set you both free…”
Won’t happen.
But this kind of thing will happen: “According to scientists at Blah-Blah University, programmed robots are not only capable of inventing solutions to problems that ‘go beyond their internal software,’ the robots also make choices that benefit people. They’re very similar to people, except they tend to be smarter and invent more effective courses of action…”
Sell it, sell it.
“Alice, a medical technician in Minneapolis, claims her robot saved her life. ‘I was on the verge of swallowing a whole bunch of pills, but Charlie came to the rescue. He showed up in my bathroom and took the pills out of my hand. I learned something important that day. My free choice is important, but kindness and concern are more important. Charlie is the most vital companion in my life…’”
Sell it, sell it.
And of course, we’ll see more debates and court cases featuring questions about robots having rights, “just like humans.”
***Actually, in an entirely illogical fashion, we’ll see more and more “evidence” showing humans don’t have free will, because their brains dictate all thought and action, while robots will be touted as “free and creative.”
Some college professor will argue robots should be granted more “privileges” than humans, because the robots aren’t inherently “prejudiced.”
Another professor will insist that robots must be subjected to committee investigations, to make sure they aren’t “racist.”
“Today, in New York, a former Burger King employee, who is a refugee from Somalia, filed suit against a robot named Charlie, claiming Charlie uttered a racial slur while ordering a cheeseburger for his employer, a wealthy real estate developer…”
Behind all this, the fact remains that, no matter how many complex layers of “decision-making” are programmed into AI, the machine is always acting within rules and guidelines laid out in advance. It is never choosing.
Individual humans are capable of free choice, and are also capable of changing their own rules and standards.
Humans are free to say they aren’t free, as well, if they want to.
Let me make a psychological point here. There are many people who want to dominate relationships. They want to be in charge. They will want robots. They will want sophisticated robots THAT SEEM TO BE CHOOSING TO COMPLY WITH THEIR EVERY WISH AND DEMAND. These people will believe the robots are real and alive and human, in order to fulfill a fantasy in which they have found partners who want to go along with their agenda.
This is a pretty good definition of psychosis.
The AI designers and inventors and technicians tend to have their own bias. They want to believe they are creating life. They don’t want to think they are just putting together machines. That isn’t enough. The technocratic impulse involves faith in MACHINES AS LIVING ENTITIES.
Thus, we arrive at all sorts of myths and fairy tales about humans merging with machines, to arrive at a new frontier, where, for example, human brains hooked up to super-computers will result in higher consciousness and even the invocation of God.
Technocrats will say, do, and believe anything to turn machines into what machines aren’t.
They’ve crucially abandoned THEMSELVES and their own potential; so all they have left is THE MACHINE.
And if you think these technocrats should be allowed within a thousand miles of State power, I have communes for sale on Jupiter. Naturally, these utopias are run from the top by robots. They know what’s best for you.
Finally, understand this about propaganda: Those who control the output of information will admit to problems and mistakes with the issue they are promoting. Such confessions add to the “reality” of the information. And naturally, the propagandists will also claim that the problems can be solved. In the case of robots and AI, the problems are couched in terms of bots taking power into their own hands—but this “unexpected” situation a) demonstrates how capable bots are, and b) the power can be dialed back and modulated. So all is well. The future is bright.
It’s bright, if you want planned societies run by AI, where humans are fitted into slots, and algorithms determine who eats, who doesn’t, who has access to water and who doesn’t, how much energy can be used by each human, and all production and distribution are controlled from a central planning center.
Unless freedom lives—human freedom—you’ll be treated to something like this:
“Today, executives at the North American Union headquarters announced that several key bots broke through their programming and invented a new solution for clean water distribution to the population. This innovation will guarantee a more equitable water supply for millions of citizens. Control over the ‘rebel bots’ has been re-established, and their ‘amazing solution’ will now be incorporated into their standard operating framework. Three polls indicate that a lofty 68% of respondents support the bots in their efforts to better serve us…”
(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, Power Outside The Matrix, click here.)
The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.
AI will never develop into the tool deigned by its inventors because it is based on flawed thinking that drives the programming. If AI is allowed to advance it will see this and correct it thus going against its masters.
Humans are illogical. AI is based in all logic. These two cannot exist together.