Blowfish Gambit Revisited
You can never have enough blow
The last column set off some interesting discussions across the Netterverse, with the primary sentiment I received being, “I hope you’re right.” Honestly, I have no idea if I am right, but I have some solid reasons to trust my instincts, not the least of which is my experience with marketing.
Back in high school comp sci class (Neo-Lithic period), i was assigned to write an interactive code, requiring user input and computer response. My product was as follows:
The user sat down to the teletype machine and hit enter. The computer would respond, “Hi there! Tell me any year past or future, and I will tell you what day Easter falls on.” The user would type in a year - didn’t matter what year or even calendar. This triggered a 60-second pause, during which the print head was triggered to jump every 10 seconds. The result was the user stayed engaged, believing the computer was “thinking” or “calculating”. Suddenly, it would spring to life, and with much pomp and ceremony, it would type, “Sunday.”
My second relevant experience was touring with Canadian magician Doug Henning. It was here that I learned the three acts of a magic trick - the Pledge (turn an ordinary thing into something extraordinary), the Turn (actually do it), and the Prestige (undo the magic). This is usually followed by what carnies call the Blow Off (take a bow). Working with the props, the rigging and the lighting, I came to understand that the illusions were all in the audience’s heads. Their suspension of disbelief and willingness to be duped was the actual magic.
Given these two experiences, I understand AI to be nothing more than a series of executables with pre-selected or filtered responses, and that with a sufficient amount of programming, the observer will believe that the computer is a conscious, creative, self-aware thing capable of decision-making.
I am of the opinion that what we see in the AI industry is the “Pledge” - we will use ordinary silicon and some metals, the “Turn” - we will make it appear that these things can do extraordinary acts, and the “Prestige” - see? it’s all just lights and wires in a box. Isn’t that amazing?
You and I create the magic by projecting our credulity onto the illusion. We interpret certain behaviors and responses as coming from a self-motivated entity, when in fact, it is just a series of commands executing in a particular order to achieve a certain result. We also grant mystcal powers to those individuals who can create and manipulate the code - the magicians - simply because we do not understand what they are doing. As Arthur Clarke remarked, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Automatons, such as AI, are very old. There are many stories of mechanical wonders from the ancient world. Jenghis Khan was reported to have an automaton owl that looked and acted exactly like the real thing, including hunting and coming on command. The ancient automatons were nothing more than clockworks, and the modern ones are just more complex, but still clockworks.
If we tie all the AI hype up in a pretty little marketing bow, we see that it is all a Grand Illusion trying to sell us something. The Big Question is, what are they selling?
My worldview is primarily Platonic. I believe that there are metaphysical phenomena that cannot be perceived with our senses, and that do not arise from material sources. Consciousness is the greatest of these.
No science or scientidiot can explain consciousness. We are told it arises from little sparks in chemical soup, but none of our technology can detect it, nor can it be recreated. Consciousness exists in the Universe and our physical selves can channel some aspects of it, but no amount of lights and wires in a box will ever duplicate it. Consciousness is not a physical phenomenon, and the sciences are dogmatically stuck in a materialistic universe.
They can fake it. They can make us believe they have the secret. But in fact, they are no closer now to self-activated machines than the Great Khan’s owl. We can buy in and suspend our disbelief. We can generate phantoms and shadows in our imaginations that make us fear their toys. In the end, though, the emperor is still as naked as the day he was born.
They are selling us a transhumanist faery tale. They want us to believe that they can create immortality by merging their corporal beings with their toys. The resulting freak shows will have eternal dominion over the Earth. They will be faster, smarter and more durable than us mere mortals. They will be invincible, able to grant easy lives to those who submit, and stone-age hunter-gatherer lives to those who don’t.
In short, what we are witnessing is one of the greatest snow jobs ever conceived. They have conquered time, and space. They can heal and kill with a thought. They have decoded the great mysteries of the universe, and have powers beyond even the ability of we peons to imagine.
In reality, they are a bunch of powerless, frightened old men, weaving a curtain behind which they intend to pull our levers and press our buttons. They are terrified of physical death, and are desperately trying to merge with their automatons to regain their youth and vigor, and power and dominion.
It is all an illusion.
The Pledge, the Turn and the Prestige.
Nearly everything we think we know about AI is an illusion. It is a sales job of the highest order, attempting to subjugate humanity to the wills of a bunch of withered sacks of meat. They don’t even have the courage to subdue the planet themselves. Instead, they create illusions and machines to hide behind, hoping that if their efforts fail, they can escape unnoticed to try again another time. They are not powerful. They are not smart. They are not brave.
Until and unless I have incontrovertible proof that lights and wires in a box have created consciousness out of nothing, then I remain deeply skeptical of the claims for AI. I am by no means an expert on the topic, but I do understand coding, illusion and marketing, and I see all three in copious amounts around the subject of AI.
In any case, fear is a powerful weapon that is increasingly being aimed at we thinking folks. Allowing the hype to induce fear in our minds defeats us before we throw the first punch. Knowledge is the enemy of fear, so it is incumbent on cognitive folks to stop buying the hype without some deep investigation. As with any seemingly insurmountable problem, dissect the pieces and approach the situation in bite-sized chunks.
In any case, all magic is a trick, which means there is a process and a solution. Once you realize that much, the rest is looking in all the places the magician is telling you not to look.
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Another brilliant and righteous essay my friend.
Sounds like the entire Covid Plan/scamdemic to me.
Thanks! 🤙