Hello, and welcome to Free World Blues. Starting in late 2022, and intensifying now into 2026, the year of this recording, I’ve encountered ever-more babble about the ostensible technology of “artificial intelligence”. Some commentary is broadly positive, with claims that “AI” will provide cures for diseases (finally freeing us from cancer, AIDS, and LIGMA), that “AI” will generate massive economic growth and material abundance, that “AI” will solve serious problems like climate change, etc. Some commetary is broadly negative, claiming that “AI” development will lead to some sort of cyberpunk dystopia. I don’t mean the cool kind of cyberpunk dystopia where you ride your motorcycle through atmospheric, rainy streets under glowing neon signs written in Japanese on your way to meet your girl at a noodle bar and plot the overthrow of the government; I mean the uncool kind of cyberpunk dystopia, where virtually all wealth is controlled by a few massive corporations that charge you money to breathe and hack your NeuraLink to turn you gay during Pride Month because some CEO gets a trillion dollars in stock options for every 0.1% increase in sales of “bottom-friendly burgers”. Ahem. Beyond the broadly-positive and broadly-negative angles, one also hears predictions that I will call “existentially negative” – these encode the idea that “AI” won’t merely result in harm to the human species, but to our extinction. This is the full-on robot-uprising narrative, and is often associated with the Terminator and Matrix film franchises. That said, I don’t particularly like the phrases “robot uprising” or “terminator scenario” or similar, because in reality, ideas about humanity being threatened or even destroyed by its own intelligent automatons are much older than the Terminator franchise – these ideas much older than robotics, much older than computing, and in fact much older than the English language. These phrases give comparatively-modern works entirely too much primacy, and that isn’t fair – I believe always in giving credit where credit is due, but likewise, I believe in not giving credit where credit is don’t. Beyond the broadly-positive, broadly-negative, and existentially-negative predictions, there are what I call “nefariously positive” predictions. These aren’t as common, at least on heavily-censored platforms, but I still encounter them. The heart of a “nefariously positive” prediction is this: “AI” will have broadly negative effects on Mankind, and the vast majority of people will end up vastly worse-off by any reasonable metric of wellbeing, but,
Intelligence requires agency (ability to commit a crime)
“Parallelization superintelligence” ==> Limits of parallelization (one woman can have a baby in 9 months, but 9 women can’t work together to have a baby in one month). At some point, you reach a level of not only diminishing returns, but NEGATIVE returns, as systems spend all their time talking to each other and no time actually doing work. “Too big to succeed”.
The “rise” of AI is more the fall of social skills. Auto-catalytic cycle: the less people rely on each other, the better for AI. The real harm of the Internet is reduced human inter-reliance. The story of translating Spanish.
3B. On the topic of translation: “If you don’t know where you’re going, you can’t get there”. This is true of MOST really important problems. Learn a language – you’ll discover that you don’t always agree on translations. For example, translations of the Bible.
- Papyrus intelligence (“not intelligent” doesn’t mean “not useful” – AI is like Wikipedia, useful, but not intelligent.
- Limits of computation (logic gates)
- Simulation is not reality (Champagne)
- AI cannot compete with art anymore than flowers can, or birdsong can compete with music.
- Companies are bluffing (Issac Arthur – “don’t get in a fight you can’t win…but, actually, even a fairly-matched fight is a pretty bad idea…”)
- Consciousness (specifically, self-awareness) IS required for intelligence, and computers are NOT self-aware. Examples of “multiple-plan-execution” (anaesthesia, aviation examples).
- “We can physically scale computers as much as we want” – nope, due to gravity (black-hole effect) and interdependent calculations (limits to the speed of information transmission)
- Crypto-bros
- Not all Humans are intelligent (a contgroversial take – like the “9/11 compromise” theory or saying “some humans were created by God, while others evolved”). NPCs CAN be replaced by computers. Human-ness versus personhood.
- The human brain does NOT have a limited capacity (language-learning).
- “AI is gonna take over” is shilled by people who have a financial interest in scaring you. This includes Occupation Media which wants your attention, CEOs who want investment and barriers to entry, NGOs who want money to defend against a non-existant and indeed impossible threat, and attention whores of all sorts. Yes, I am better, because I don’t suck corporate (or NGO) cock for money. The solution IS the decommercialization of the Internet (fireworks-on-a-plane example). There is no money in saying “the sky ain’t falling”, because that sort of messaging doesn’t sell umbrellae. Then again, I am not in the business of selling umbrellae – I don’t even like them!
- “Enlisted men are stupid, but devious and bear considerable watching” (US Marines handbook)
- “The same people who sold NFTs and shilled the Metaverse are now trying to convince you that computers can think” (can’t even hotbox in the Metaverse).
- “alexander de tocqueville whom I assume most Americans have read”
MUST:
-Terry A. DaVIS VOICE!!!
-Alex Jones voice