Even if you are 100% secular, and in no way believe in non physical entities, this post should resonate somewhat, as it does with anyone objectively rational.
The baseline premise I start from is that the human experience is much reduced and in fact rendered inhumane by ignoring all those subtleties and nuances that make life worth living. The genuine smile or laughter of a small child, your loved ones giving you a heartfelt hug, the moment you catch the reflection of dawn sunlight on a snowy mountaintop, the few minutes of serene respite you get during a coffee break, and the meaningful smile you get from a pretty stranger. The happy coincidence of missing a deadline but it working out for the best for both you and the other parties involved.
In other words, life is not a series of checkboxes to tick off, human beings are not robots, and life on Earth is about a lot more than merely being as efficient as possible at doing our job and maximising our profit margins.
If you agree with me on this point, which could be expanded almost endlessly with ever more refined and detailed descriptions of the nuances of life, then the rest of this post should suffice to demonstrate how AI is essentially the gradual (but ever-increasing in speed, extent, and depth) moving directly away from the very essence of what makes us human, and towards a mechanisation that inevitably makes us less human, less healthy, and ultimately less stable.
In the original Matrix film, there is a scene were agent Smith explains that the machines had created a perfect world for humans to be plugged into, where they all had wonderful and perfect lives as far as their minds were concerned, and yet, that situation made lose “entire fields” of harvested humans.
Why? Well, those of us who believe in the human soul and free will think it’s because you cannot long imprison our essence. Its very nature rebels against the unnatural and artificial version of “perfection” and “order” that is ultimately reductive, stifling, and degenerative in the broader human sense.
If you are a teleologist you might invoke entropy of systems, and if you are an atheist you might invoke a God you supposedly don’t believe in that is just cruel.
This was a comment left on the OG blog by one Andrew Harrison:
I’ve always thought of art as being the synthesis of consciousness through media, therefore as AI is not conscious by this definition what it produces is not art. If you disagree with my definition then most of that which follows may be dismissed as something of a strawman argument I concede.
Furthermore, Human consciousness is the only kind we know of so far that can produce art, animals have some level of consciousness but do not produce art, and whilst in theory an intelligent alien, whether extra terrestrial or crypto terrestrial species might, and whilst some claim contact has already occurred, it isn’t yet publicly acknowledged and so remains no more than a speculative possibility as yet.
In summary AI is not just a tool in the artists hands because it replace his or her consciousness in the production of the work, to a greater or lesser extent, unlike an instrument or paint brush it actually manifests a part of the work, despite needing prompts in and editing out, nevertheless it is replacing part of the artist’s conscious creation of the work and therefore degrades the value of anything which may be created.
Finally the potential for extra dimensional intelligence to interfere with the creative process through the digital media is a further complication which however theoretical should also be considered.
Mr. Harrison concisely expressed the point very well, and finished off with the point that extra-dimensional intelligences may also be able to affect the result.
Whether true or not, there have been consistent rumours, some indicated by supposedly actual scientists, that the people working at and with CERN, are in fact in contact with entities from other realms of existence. In fact, though it is only a fiction point for my fantasy/noir/horror Inferos Vortex series of novellas, (the first two are out already, the third will be out later this year) it is what inspired them.
Other commenters too have made their understanding explicit:
While other worry about the public discourse, for reasons I honestly don’t understand or even see as existing.
Which then turns (as any serious philosophical debate eventually must) theological.
And indeed goes down interesting avenues of thought.
And that IS the point. People DO need to think about this stuff, and not just think on it but take action according to what they think is best for themselves and their lived ones and humanity as a whole.
Most people have absolutely no idea of the level of absurdity, delusion, lies, and control they are subjected to by people who at best believe that human beings are no better than farm animals to be herded, fleeced and used, and at worst truly hate them with a demonic level of contempt.
Take for example the point I have been making for some 4 years by actively working towards it, and have known since I was a young teenager, that is:
The entire FIAT money thing is a giant, absurdity bubble and delusion which puts the lie to literally the entire banking/finance system and consequently the very concept of taxation, and, by extension, almost the entirety of the functions of government and the related justice system. Listen to this brief video by the president of El Salvador Nayib Bukele.
So what is the logical response to that? There can be only one: work towards whatever it takes to become independent of FIAT money.
Easy? No.
Doable? I absolutely know it is. Why? Because humanity did not FIAT money for almost the entirety of its existence on this planet.
And no, it does not mean reverting to the stone age either, but that is material for a longer post, or series of posts, which I will get to. For now, realise the points of this post, and ponder them:
- AI is a further mechanisation of humanity.
- So was the Industrial Revolution and the Protestant “work ethic”.
- Protestantism was the secularising (and thus reduction to materialism) of actual Christianity (i.e. Catholicism).
- The corruption, frauds, and evil men that did (always) inhabit Catholicism (and always will) is not a reason to reject Catholic Dogma (which is correct, true, and good, and has consistently produced better human societies than any other ideology of philosophy ever devised or tried). It is only a reason to reject and eject such men, as actual Catholics do concerning the ENTIRE Novus Ordo fake “Catholic” Church of the heretic Popes of Vatican II.
- FIAT money is a scam, a delusion, a trap to keep you in chains stringer and more effective than actual iron chains
I shall return with more on the consequences of becoming independent of FIAT money soon.
This post was originally published on my Substack. Link here
