Very nice. I went back and read your whole antibot manifesto and sparring with chatdummy. very neat i never managed to completely break it like that. you were much more scientific about it than i was though, i just wanted to expose the nonexistence of a 'ghost in the machine' which too many people have managed to convince themselves exists.
Simulated Intelligence from the very beginning is about lies. Alan Turing planned the field when he made its measure the power to deceive. I can't remember where I read it but somewhere recently we were talking about the danger of experiential density-the way that screens never simulate the boring bits which make up the greatest chunk of real life. We experience a whole life in an hour and even if it is benign or otherwise beneficial material we were not made for this sort of imaginative overload. It distorts your view of life the way porn does for relationships.
But back to the Simulated Intelligence, its purpose is confusing when viewed by itself but when you look at these obsessions serially, humanlike aliens to parallel universes with other versions of ourselves to AI it seems clear that this all stems from loneliness from solitude. Having convinced themselves that other humans(and even themselves) aren't really people they are looking for some people who haven't been unpersoned yet. Walker Percy said something to the effect that modern man is a voracious nought, a vacuole sucking the life out of everything he encounters trying to fill the void in himself. The Simulated Intelligence will never be the person that they imagine they are creating, will never be a person at all. It is a tool, but a twisted tool, a witch's tool that partakes of the nature of its maker and cannot be used by an honest man. I am not generally a fan of Frank Herbert but his jihadis said it well, 'Thou shalt not counterfeit a human soul.'
Thanks, Jon. I agree about Turing. I recall reading through those transcripts in a long-ago college course and thinking, "WTF is this idiot up to? What's the point of all this, if not deception?"
I agree about experiential density, too. There are also other elements to the illusion that are minds have been trained to un-see or de-realize. "Where's my theme music?" one might say, as they enter a situation of import (even if it's only of import to themselves). I think that ties in with the notion of solitude and atomization, too. Maybe we are seeing a loop self-reinforcing states; the "exciting" unreality of edited life is contrasted with the "mundane" unedited experience, the latter is found to be lacking, and so even more of the former is consumed to compensate for the perceived deficit. The most vicious of cycles.
As for the idea that my GPT victories were rooted in science, I humbly disagree:
Perhaps I shouldn't have said scientifically but methodically. I implied something that I didn't mean. I noticed that you had a deliberate plan and went about it quite analytically. That was what I was getting at. Although, while you disclaim specific knowledge of the program I do think that your general knowledge of how such things are coded influenced your choices. I have quite a bit of experience with machine logic(mostly PLCs and industrial automation) and I was able to understand the specifics that you related but I wouldn't have come up with them on my own.
I interacted with GPT a little more after reading your chats. Nothing terribly interesting popped out but what most struck me is how entirely utilitarian and pragmatic its ethics are. I suppose that that is just a reflection of our culture and the terrible training material. But I think that if we trained it on Augustine we would just get a deceiver with better material though not an actual better tool. That is a big part of the deception is the confusion between the material that it spits out and the tool that does the selecting. The two are linked in our minds but are actually completely separate. It is a very structuralist/post-modern approach to intelligence.
"We experience a whole life in an hour and even if it is benign or otherwise beneficial material we were not made for this sort of imaginative overload. It distorts your view of life the way porn does for relationships."
The war for the mind has been going on a long time. I'm reminded of the quote from Mark Twain, "A man who does not read newspapers is uninformed. A man who does is misinformed." Though Screens may accelerate our process of Amusing Ourselves to Death, the problem of propaganda and flat out lying via the Press has been with us since before the founding.
I really like your speech in the closing of the piece though, Mark.
We're not in disagreement. A newspaper is itself a kind of screen, with the images printed onto it instead of projected or emitted. Like I said, it goes back to the cave, and even before it was described.
Mark: But you are also merely a shadow, flickering across the screen of existence. All is simulacra to them, all a fleeting, meaningless opportunity to steal sensations in the moment.
Tessa Lena: The power players don't care about the tiny spots of blood where the little guys were. We are nothing but cells in an excel spreadsheet.[...] Technology managed by people whose hearts are a mess, is not going to save us.
"The revolution will not be televised or TikTok’d. It will take place inside each and every one of us."
And, man oh man, did we ever see that revolution — as well as mass capitulation to the enemy — during the plandemic (and still).
I recall reading Neil Postman's book, "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business," around 2014 when I returned to college to earn a BA in Communication Studies. In the book, he informed his readers that the television was definitely invented as a mind-control device.
This was yet another excellent piece. I love your writing, your topics, and your perspectives.
Postman isn't read widely enough, in my opinion, and doesn't get the credit he deserves. He is part of the pantheon of prophets in my book, when it comes to seeing the postmodern, technocratic monster looming on the horizon. The artists have their role in describing the threat, but the more prosaic authors help to cement it in the minds that are most in need of changing.
It's a crazy world we live in. The ruling class wants to convince everyone that what's real is fake and what's fake is real, and they try to destroy the real world and make it ever uglier and more depressing in order to convince people to devote more time and attention to the simulacra. Their war on reality cannot go on forever, though.
Great essay, and the speech at the end was excellent!
Thank you for the peak behind the curtain of yet another Hegelian ploy. “Oh no…AI will destroy us all! Quick! Better build a global conglomerate of experts who know best how to throttle and control us into safety.” Whew! Another bullet dodged.
Literally the cure will always be worse than the disease with these people.
“In a perfect world, these screens would only transmit truths. We live in a different world. In ours, the greatest lie is that some person or group of people knows what’s true in any given moment, and knows this so well that they can and should be put in charge of the screens.
E. Michael Jones says "They believe Truth is the Opinion of the Powerful".
Will we get these more accurate maps out there? Will Our People use these maps to escape the kill boxes the livestock farmers seek to confine us in?
Very nice. I went back and read your whole antibot manifesto and sparring with chatdummy. very neat i never managed to completely break it like that. you were much more scientific about it than i was though, i just wanted to expose the nonexistence of a 'ghost in the machine' which too many people have managed to convince themselves exists.
Simulated Intelligence from the very beginning is about lies. Alan Turing planned the field when he made its measure the power to deceive. I can't remember where I read it but somewhere recently we were talking about the danger of experiential density-the way that screens never simulate the boring bits which make up the greatest chunk of real life. We experience a whole life in an hour and even if it is benign or otherwise beneficial material we were not made for this sort of imaginative overload. It distorts your view of life the way porn does for relationships.
But back to the Simulated Intelligence, its purpose is confusing when viewed by itself but when you look at these obsessions serially, humanlike aliens to parallel universes with other versions of ourselves to AI it seems clear that this all stems from loneliness from solitude. Having convinced themselves that other humans(and even themselves) aren't really people they are looking for some people who haven't been unpersoned yet. Walker Percy said something to the effect that modern man is a voracious nought, a vacuole sucking the life out of everything he encounters trying to fill the void in himself. The Simulated Intelligence will never be the person that they imagine they are creating, will never be a person at all. It is a tool, but a twisted tool, a witch's tool that partakes of the nature of its maker and cannot be used by an honest man. I am not generally a fan of Frank Herbert but his jihadis said it well, 'Thou shalt not counterfeit a human soul.'
Thanks, Jon. I agree about Turing. I recall reading through those transcripts in a long-ago college course and thinking, "WTF is this idiot up to? What's the point of all this, if not deception?"
I agree about experiential density, too. There are also other elements to the illusion that are minds have been trained to un-see or de-realize. "Where's my theme music?" one might say, as they enter a situation of import (even if it's only of import to themselves). I think that ties in with the notion of solitude and atomization, too. Maybe we are seeing a loop self-reinforcing states; the "exciting" unreality of edited life is contrasted with the "mundane" unedited experience, the latter is found to be lacking, and so even more of the former is consumed to compensate for the perceived deficit. The most vicious of cycles.
As for the idea that my GPT victories were rooted in science, I humbly disagree:
https://luctalks.substack.com/p/extrasensory-perception-modernity/comment/12726893
Perhaps I shouldn't have said scientifically but methodically. I implied something that I didn't mean. I noticed that you had a deliberate plan and went about it quite analytically. That was what I was getting at. Although, while you disclaim specific knowledge of the program I do think that your general knowledge of how such things are coded influenced your choices. I have quite a bit of experience with machine logic(mostly PLCs and industrial automation) and I was able to understand the specifics that you related but I wouldn't have come up with them on my own.
I interacted with GPT a little more after reading your chats. Nothing terribly interesting popped out but what most struck me is how entirely utilitarian and pragmatic its ethics are. I suppose that that is just a reflection of our culture and the terrible training material. But I think that if we trained it on Augustine we would just get a deceiver with better material though not an actual better tool. That is a big part of the deception is the confusion between the material that it spits out and the tool that does the selecting. The two are linked in our minds but are actually completely separate. It is a very structuralist/post-modern approach to intelligence.
"We experience a whole life in an hour and even if it is benign or otherwise beneficial material we were not made for this sort of imaginative overload. It distorts your view of life the way porn does for relationships."
Love this, so true!
The war for the mind has been going on a long time. I'm reminded of the quote from Mark Twain, "A man who does not read newspapers is uninformed. A man who does is misinformed." Though Screens may accelerate our process of Amusing Ourselves to Death, the problem of propaganda and flat out lying via the Press has been with us since before the founding.
I really like your speech in the closing of the piece though, Mark.
We're not in disagreement. A newspaper is itself a kind of screen, with the images printed onto it instead of projected or emitted. Like I said, it goes back to the cave, and even before it was described.
Lies and control...maybe it goes all the way back to the Garden. "Surely you will not die." and "You will become like God."
The desire to control and manipulate us may be baked in from the very beginning. Which is...not an encouraging thought.
The silver lining is that many of us can see through the illusion. It means were equipped to that, and so the rest of humanity presumably is as well.
Here’s something in the stacks’ æther 😉
Mark: But you are also merely a shadow, flickering across the screen of existence. All is simulacra to them, all a fleeting, meaningless opportunity to steal sensations in the moment.
Tessa Lena: The power players don't care about the tiny spots of blood where the little guys were. We are nothing but cells in an excel spreadsheet.[...] Technology managed by people whose hearts are a mess, is not going to save us.
"The revolution will not be televised or TikTok’d. It will take place inside each and every one of us."
And, man oh man, did we ever see that revolution — as well as mass capitulation to the enemy — during the plandemic (and still).
I recall reading Neil Postman's book, "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business," around 2014 when I returned to college to earn a BA in Communication Studies. In the book, he informed his readers that the television was definitely invented as a mind-control device.
This was yet another excellent piece. I love your writing, your topics, and your perspectives.
Postman isn't read widely enough, in my opinion, and doesn't get the credit he deserves. He is part of the pantheon of prophets in my book, when it comes to seeing the postmodern, technocratic monster looming on the horizon. The artists have their role in describing the threat, but the more prosaic authors help to cement it in the minds that are most in need of changing.
It's a crazy world we live in. The ruling class wants to convince everyone that what's real is fake and what's fake is real, and they try to destroy the real world and make it ever uglier and more depressing in order to convince people to devote more time and attention to the simulacra. Their war on reality cannot go on forever, though.
Great essay, and the speech at the end was excellent!
Just cross-posted!💖🤗
Thank you, poetess.
Very good read!
Thanks, Gary! Yours was too.
Thank you for the peak behind the curtain of yet another Hegelian ploy. “Oh no…AI will destroy us all! Quick! Better build a global conglomerate of experts who know best how to throttle and control us into safety.” Whew! Another bullet dodged.
Literally the cure will always be worse than the disease with these people.
I like your Sabbath idea very much.
I shared this via quote-posting it, focused on the key image: https://heroesvsvillains.substack.com/p/can-this-picture-help-us-go-free
“In a perfect world, these screens would only transmit truths. We live in a different world. In ours, the greatest lie is that some person or group of people knows what’s true in any given moment, and knows this so well that they can and should be put in charge of the screens.
E. Michael Jones says "They believe Truth is the Opinion of the Powerful".
Will we get these more accurate maps out there? Will Our People use these maps to escape the kill boxes the livestock farmers seek to confine us in?
The image of the TV camera transmitting the inversion of what happened is bone-chilling. Thanks for re-using it! I somehow missed it the first time.
Can you point me to the source?
(For some reason, I'm reminded of the old saying: "... cries out in pain, as he strikes you".)
A reverse image search turns up many articles using this picture.
May the meme spread!
If you need a sharp one, see this 4K version: https://kyber.io/orz/src/1487465480473755.jpg
Thanks, Hana. I can't help but be suspicious at this point.