Look at AI go!!!!
AI is seeping under your door, staining your linen, infecting your pets and entering your skin pores. While slow-growing CO2 is 0.0415 of the air you breathe, AI expansion out-paces CO2 massively.
This chart tells the story in a single image.
Can we expect Al Gore to star in another earth-shaking film about the alleged catastrophic threats of AI as he did nearly 20 years ago concerning his prediction of armageddon from anthropogenic climate change?
How about Greta Thunderg? Can we expect her to treat everyone with another sensational performance at the United Nations concerning the alleged apocalyptic dangers of AI as she did about Climate Change?
The poor girl ultimately became the international poster child of her generation that displayed the emotional disturbances which are certain to manifest whenever you teach every child that the world is coming to an end.
When I was an 8 yo boy attending a Catholic elementary school in Oshawa that was led by nuns, I was taught that there would be “three days of darkness just before the end of the world”. Later that October evening, I was shooting tennis balls against our garage door to practice my hockey shot when I suddenly realized that the night was darker than usual. Scared witless, I ran to my dad to explain what a nun had thought me in class that day. Needless to say, that nun was taught a lesson she would never forget the next day by my dad.
Chicken Little offered a useful lesson
Of course, the predicted end of the world never came. The life-ending global floods and ice-cap meltings predicted by Al Gore never materialized.
What has materialized, however, is a planet in which billions of people use smart phones tethered by a ubiquitous Internet.
The actual global flood has been the Information Age - the great flood of omni-directional information that takes every form imaginable.
Gore predicted that the Statute of Liberty would be shoulder deep in flooding water but his crystal ball failed to predict that the Statue Of Liberty with her smart phone in hand would be swamped with “information overload” like every other smart device user.
The field of AI promises even more information to come.
Using well-trained algorithms fed ‘universes of data’, machine learning (ML) and large language models (LLM) have the protential for civilization-size ‘mind control’ through brilliantly crafted instruments of propagation. That is one scenario held by people who tend to fear what they don’t understand and who are susceptble to conspiracy theories and misinformation offered by a myriad of mainstream propaganda sources.
Alternatively, unimaginable levels of critical thinking discernment of complex problems in all domains of human life are not only possible but are taking place right now.
If I was a betting man, I would bet that both scenarios will unfold into an epic battle between “good and evil”. Ultimately, the “good” will prevail but not without huge costs over the next few decades.
The “good” guys.
The “good team” will be populated by individual persons who crave the freedom of informed choice to live their lives with minimal interference from others.
The “bad” guys.
The “evil” villains will be those “others” with a serious character flaw who have a compulsive, totalitarian need to impose their beliefs, priorities and will on others using public instutions that possess the authory to tax and regulate “the masses”.
Food for thought.
I love ideas for the opportunities for knowledge consilience they offer to stimulate new ways to consider important topics.
Linked is a very interesting podcast discussion. Many topics were covered which offer tangential insights into our current epoch and its phase of human evolution. I enjoyed the rambling content and the ecclectic perspectives expressed. Perhaps you will too.