Houston Southard
a name that looks so fake you'll care just as little to learn it's not
Nexus - Yuval Noah Harari
As truth gets more uncomfortable, so does the seduction of turning to digestible fictions of weather manipulation, populism and religion. AI is the straw man for humans having a network problem, exploiting our ambition to gain the power that predisposes its inequitable use.
Holy books are thought infallible contrasted with the amendable constitution, an irritating comparison as the bible's undergone thousands of edits to suit its needed prophet narrative. But in both cases, the revisionists were human.
Online, AI's tasked with keeping us engaged, learning engagement arises from enragement, even at the cost of truth. Bot farms pumps the output into the online town hall. The scum rising atop our societal pot isn't malicious, but its architect's have no intention of turning it off. Information is meant for revision that comes from us, not black box AIs singularly focused on their assigned task.
Information goes viral from bots juking algorithms, not human interest. AIs are learning algorithms with datasets. Google's facial recognition was good at identifying white male faces since 80% of the data were white males because they dominate the news. Microsoft unleashed chatbot Tay on twitter 16 hours before it was shut down as it began posting misogynist and antisemitic tweets like “I hate feminists and they should all die and burn in” and “Hitler was right I hate the Jews.”
The human superpower is using language to connect us via intersubjectively created realities. By gaining such command of language, AI is seizing the skeleton key unlocking of all our institutions. Humans use language to create law, finance, art, science, and religions, but now we watch as melodies, theories, tools, manifestos, and myths are shaped by AIs that know how to exploit with superhuman efficiency our bias and addiction. The 1st amendment was never intended for a nonhuman carveout.
AIs aren't biological and lack consciousness, but their digital psyche gathers what went viral. Give AI a 50's dataset of the DSM and newspapers would be flooded with articles about homosexuality and psychopathy. Do we want to Make America 50s Again?