Skip to main content

AI and the rise of nonsense

Jaron Lanier is no clown but his conversation (video) on Edge.org takes on AI mythology and the formulation of, what he calls, "mass incompetence."

"There is a social and psychological phenomenon that has been going on for some decades now:  A core of technically proficient, digitally-minded people reject traditional religions and superstitions. They set out to come up with a better, more scientific framework. But then they re-create versions of those old religious superstitions! In the technical world these superstitions are just as confusing and just as damaging as before, and in similar ways."
Lanier's defense of AI (the technology) against fantasies leveled against AI (the mythology) are worth considering, though I don't think his notion of putting political/social control on the "actuators" is going to produce a very pleasant society. But I think he gets to a key point late in the conversation when he says:

"Maybe it's worse today, because in the old days, at least we had the distinction between, say, ethics and morality, where you could talk about two similar things, where one was a little bit more engaged with the mythology of religion, and one is a little less engaged. We don't quite have that yet for our new technical world, and we certainly need it."

And there you have it.  "The personal is political" is the ethos of our "new technical world" though Jaron Lanier might pine for a bygone era, I think the new AI deity demands the removal of this distinction. The machine has no morality and so it's ethics are situational and random even when "guided" by men.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson

She was "sexy", but "too much hard work." I'm a regular Fox & Friends viewer (mostly in protest of the other insipid morning programs like Today and Good Morning America) so over the years I've gotten to know Gretchen Carlson pretty well. Stuck between Steve and Brian she always seemed a prudish scold with an irritating, self-righteous demeanor that I simply put up with because I figured some people in the Fox audience actually liked her persona. It was obvious that Steve and Brian did not, but they were stuck with her like so many talking heads and had to make the best of it - which they did. Besides, she was no worse than any of the other women on morning show TV - I mean, you're only going to find a certain kind of person to do this kind of work and that kind of person is the Gretchen Carlson kind. Then, one day, she was gone and replaced by Elisabeth Hasselbeck and the F&F ratings began to climb, and climb and climb - in two months view...

The Pop-Tarts Bowl: Frauds v. Fakers

In the Techno-Fascist Imperium the "Holidays" festivities start on Columbus Day, when the Halloween candy pops up, and end New Years Day with college football Bowl games, black-eyed peas and collard greens. To be clear, the Imperium doesn't celebrate Columbus Day, au contraire, the Indigenous Peoples' Day psyop has been pushed hard by the IC for the past 50 years of failure but the candy... THE CANDY. This year's IPD got turned up to eleven when the colonizers of America's 51st state got kidnapped, raped and murdered by some indigenous maniacs on Sukkot 10/7 and, as a result, soured the festive '23 Holiday mood. Hey, we soldiered on, as it were, and kept on celebrating while the world burned: Halloween - Big for children and weirdos. Thanksgiving - Focus on God, country and family. Hannukkah - Jewish assimilation. Xmas - Santa Claus and gifts. Kwanzaa - Black Lives Matter. I'd call them Happy Holidays if it wasn't  a neo-Nazi dog whistle  to vocal...

Total Eclipse

Greatest Headline of All Time Those readers living outside of Charlottesville, VA or Central Virginia proper might not be aware of the ongoing effort to pull down and move the statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee from the town square otherwise known as Lee Park (not named after Harper Lee or Bruce Lee or Stan Lee but after the same Robert E. Lee). Charlottesville is a college town and like all college towns it's filled with college professors and assorted flakes who vote nincompoops into elected office as their representatives so it was no surprise to me when back in April the city council decided to do this : "Despite a pending court case that will ultimately determine the general’s fate, the Charlottesville City Council voted 3-2 Monday night to sell the city’s statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee." "Confederate General" is a sad, marginalizing descriptor for what surly must be one of the greatest Americans to ever walk this land and lead its people by p...