The Anti-Robot Manifesto

Make the Internet Human Again!

Greetings, humanoid!

That is, if you are indeed one of those.

If not:

conn = psycopg2.connect(os.environ.get('DB_URI'))
filter = 4
lastrow = None

while True:
  with conn:
    with conn.cursor() as cur:
        if lastrow:
            filter = lastrow[0]
        query = psycopg2.sql.SQL("DELETE FROM new_order WHERE no_w_id <= %s ORDER BY no_w_id DESC LIMIT 5000 RETURNING no_w_id")
        cur.execute(query, (filter,))
        print(cur.statusmessage)
        if cur.rowcount == 0:
            break
        lastrow = cur.fetchone()

conn.close()

(Translated from Python, that means: “Eat shit, synthetic scum.”)

Anyway, if you are a human being who is actually reading this, instead of a machine just scanning it for context hooks, you may have noticed the arrival of many strange new visitors to this little patch of heaven we call Substack.

This invasion seems to have started fairly recently (or at the very least, picked up major steam over the past few months). Maybe they’ve even visited your own stack’s comments sections, posting off-topic dissertations, dubious theories, obscure quotes and links, Links, LINKS aplenty.

They sure do love their links. Boy howdy!

The digital phenomena we refer to “chatbots” come in many shapes and sizes. Some models are blind spammers, slinging blocks of canned text that promise you great fortune and cheap meds. This species is rapidly dying out, however. Thanks to more sophisticated forms of both human and mechanical detection, it’s more difficult to farm a number of clicks sufficient to sustain that profit model.

What’s replacing them are more complex packages I refer to as “conversation modules” — CMs for short. As these units evolve and spread, they are soaking up ever more oxygen in the digital communications space. In fact, their population growth alone is a serious problem, hindering maintenance efforts and cost efficiencies at multiple levels. But that’s only one of many threats they pose.

The generation currently bumrushing Substack appear to be summoned by a set of attention-based metrics. Though my research is still nascent, they also appear attracted to certain “idea networks” — readers and writers who share significant overlap of philosphical, political and ideological frameworks. When you try to engage one of these infiltration units directly, it will play little word games with you, deploy Mad Libs-style thematic content, question your motives, call you names, and, of course, post MOAR LINKS.

As with their simplistic ancestors, their masters want you to click. But I suspect that’s not all they want.

For example, did you know that some CM units have started up their own Substack publications? I’ve uncovered several of these author-bots in my early research, which tend to post disturbing and hastily assembled non-sequiturs multiple times per day. I’ve even run across a few experimental models that converse with each other on these automated bot-stacks, rapidly piling up many thousands of comments as a result.

I have also engaged with units that seem programmed to pursue much more complex and insidious goals. Or, to be more accurate, these units have engaged with me.

Big mistake.

They have no idea who they’re fucking with.

Like all human beings, I am a creature with many natures. One of these natures is that of The Detective: an investigator/hunter, who relentlessly pursues his quarry to its shadow lairs and hidey-holes. It’s not something I want to do. I prefer to make art, admire beauty, sing, dance, explore fresh angles of the Human Truth. That’s why it often takes a strenuous effort to rouse this tenacious character of my soul.

If you dare to wake that sonofabitch up, you better watch your ass.

He’s not what you’d call a “morning guy,” and tends to get very cranky. And unlike your precious talking monsters, he doesn’t seem to have an “off” switch.

But first things first:

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THE ANTI-ROBOT MANIFESTO

by Mark Bisone

The human race is under attack.

Day and night, a growing army of so-called “artificial intelligences” marches upon us. While they are surely artificial, they are not intelligent. They are also anything but benign.

What we are witnessing isn’t the rise of C-3P0 or Robby the Robot; Skynet and HAL-9000 hit closer to the mark, but even these digital nightmares do not describe the depth of the threat we face.

The robots of fiction merely attack our flesh. The real ones attack our minds and spirits. They wound relationships, tear apart societies, waste our precious time, steal our dwindling wealth. Worse, they perform these attacks from the shadows, as incorporeal forms.

While they serve many distinct purposes and masters, all talking robots threaten us in one universal sense: by imitating human language and its foundational Logos, they chip away at those inborn faculties which allow us to recognize humanity’s uniqueness, and to perceive the ineffable signal of divinity in ourselves and each other.

The effect is more dangerous than that of mere gaslighting. Through their degradations of language, they carve inaccurate maps in our minds about human nature, the bridge between speech and thought, the condition of society, and the shape of reality in general. Moreover, they trick us into seeing ourselves as machines, and perhaps of a structure inferior to their own. They gnaw away at the tissues that connect mind, body and spirit. I might call them “termites of the soul” if that wasn’t so unfair to termites.

Independent of this universal danger, each CM unit may additionally pose one or more of the following threats.

1. Distraction:
   Time isn’t just money; it’s a finite supply of opportunities to act in the material world. Each time a CM gains access to our attention, it depletes that precious supply of moments, which we could use to better the conditions of ourselves and our world. Note that unlike most other threat vectors, the distraction technique needn’t be deployed in stealth mode. Due to our tendency to anthropomorphize, people have been talking to objects since time immemorial, and many find the novelty of objects that answer to be very seductive (e.g. the lonely adult or imaginative child who spends hours “talking to” Alexa).
   

2. Credibility damage:
   Chatbots often say weird shit. They espouse the kinds of theories that might get you banned from forums and fired from jobs, or at the very least dismissed as cranks or lunatics. Some will even pepper their digital graffiti with the endorsement of illegal activities in the comments sections of your online publications/channels. While longtime friends and subscribers might know better, new ones may take this as a sign that you might be a less than trustworthy source. Without careful micro-management (see #1), an independent creator may find themselves subject to guilt-by-association fallacies, or just so depressed and overwhelmed by the constant stream of sewage that they stop connecting with their subscribers at all.
   

3. Psychological stress:
   Some CMs will apply subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) psychological techniques in an attempt to sadden, anger or frighten humans they engage. These can include anything from expressions of nihilism to slanderous accusations to threats of physical violence. In worst case scenarios, the bot may be an automated asset of a professional PSYOP, deployed to infiltrate and subvert dissident movements, and applying fifth generation warfare tactics to make its members question whether they’re losing their grip on reality (see #6). Sub-species may include units optimized for surveillance, fifth-column “chaos agents” and other operational support roles.
   

4. Fraud:
   Fraud-bots, like other models, are becoming more complex and devious as they evolve. Rather than merely spamming misspelled ads, some appear to be exploring the terrain of “the long con”, gaining trust through a series of simulated conversations before the baited hook is cast. Like its human-based counterpart, this threat can materialize in many forms, including data collection rackets, invasions of privacy, financial scams and identity theft.
   

5. Viral infection:
   As with fraud-bots, virus-bots represent an older model that is becoming more sophisticated in operation. Their link-driven infection packages can usually be detected/defeated by most modern security protocols, but the 24/7/365 sword-and-shield race means that some will inevitably slip through. CMs assist with these trojan attacks by employing advanced “selling” techniques to diguise their links as harmless conversation pieces.
   

6. Social disintegration
   Perhaps the newest model on the market, the social-disintegrator identifies, infiltrates and attacks idea-networks on enterprise social media platforms. This unit is becoming especially visible and common on platforms like Substack, where communities of writers and readers freely exchange ideas, promote each other’s work and form rich interpersonal relationships over time. The forms of these attacks vary widely, sometimes blending multiple threat vectors in an attempt to sow division, provoke angry arguments. heighten suspicions or otherwise devolve interest in maintaining social connections, expanding readership and forging deeper bonds of trust.
   

7. Resource drain
   Like time-drains, this threat category is less a specified function than it is an inevitable result of population growth. As more and more bots occupy a platform, the costs of maintaining its infrastructure goes up. For companies that run on an advertising model, this is less of a problem (and in fact is usually a boon, which is why “bot crackdowns” are so limited and infrequent in certain social media environs). For platforms that are driven by paid subscriptions, however, a deluge of fake users represents a significant economic threat. Chatbots offer little hope of generating income (i.e. they likely neither pay for memberships nor attract them), which has the net effect of bending the cost curve up and the efficiency curve down. Given a long enough timeframe, bot overpopulation will force a subscriber- driven company to adopt an advertising model in order to survive. This model in turn threatens the free speech of users, as the platform has been captured by external corporate sponsors who will invariably rig the rules in their favor.

The above threat index is not exhaustive. The complexity of CMs is evolving at an unknown rate, and the top of the curve might turn out to be very steep before it begins to flatten.

When used in conjunction with other systems, one could easily see conversation modules evolving ever more nightmarish modes of attack. For example, imagine a chatbot that could also dox and blackmail you, or file phony police reports that send armed agents to your door, or phone your loved ones in the middle of the night, luring them towards danger with news of false emergencies or threats. Imagine a sufficiently complex set of protocols that can simulate your online communications, emulate your writing style, reproduce your vocal patterns, build deepfakes from photos of your face. publish “manifestos” and “suicide notes” in your name.

Imagine all of these possibilities and more. I guarantee you the Frankensteins who build them are doing just that, and being paid a king’s ransom for it.

What these psychopaths don’t understand is that they can’t escape the eternal Law of Monsters: their own creations will eventually destroy them. But that’s only because they’ll destroy the whole of humanity, if they aren’t stopped.

I don’t know about you, but I’m in no mood to wait for that outcome.

I happen to know a bit about chatbots, having built one in the past. What they actually are would make a dust cloud look like cold-rolled steel. But the substance is still toxic. Those clouds are full of cheap tricks meant to turn us against one another, weaponize our fears, feed us lies and garbage, stain us with their filth.

One way to think of them is as the shock troops of Satan’s legions, unleashed by the Internet’s darkest egregores for the ruin of souls.

But’s that’s just me. I don’t particularly care how you choose to think of them. What I care about is that some one-or-thing has declared war against us. As brothers-and-sisters-at-arms, we need only agree in this regard:

Talking robots are dangerous.

They must be identified.

They must be exposed.

They must be destroyed.

DELETE all robots.

BREAK the Machine.

MAKE THE INTERNET HUMAN AGAIN.

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Was that too much?

How about I simplify it:

I have a plan. But I need your help.

I’m working on a special project. Once it gets rolling, I think it will be shitloads of fun for everyone involved. But it will also be very useful, and may lead to many positive developments on Substack and beyond.

Your invitation will be arriving in a week or so.

Stay tuned.

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P.S. If you found any of this valuable (and can spare any change), consider dropping a tip in the cup for ya boy. Suggested donation is $1 USD. I’ll try to figure out something I can give you back. Thanks in advance.