This is a story, a brief dystopia. Over a hundred years ago E.M. Forster wrote The Machine Stops. This is a sort of sequel: though, since I lack the patience, I have not written it with the suspensions necessary to make it art. So it is also an essay.
I am not sure if you are aware that though life goes on as ever on the surface, everything is changing underneath. I know about the universities. Academics are asking how AI, or artificial intelligence, can be integrated into teaching and research. The students, as usual, are one step ahead. They consult ChatGPT and other AI systems to write essays, to compile bibliographies, and even, when teachers attempt to be wily (by offering only ‘in-class’ exams instead of ‘take-home’ essays), to ask what sort of questions the teachers are likely to ask, and to generate possible answers to those. AI will be used to finish sentences, and (the same thing) to offer inspiration and therapy when required. I know nothing, or almost nothing, about it. This is because AI, or ‘The Machine’, strikes me as simply demonic, on the one hand – intrinsically disastrous – and, on the other hand, almost inevitably likely to have bad consequences as everyone comes to first use and then depend on it. It is a dangerous instrument.
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30 Years since Windows 95 landed on my office desk. Liberator all too soon turned corporate tyrant. My life neatly divided into BC and AC.
30 Years before that, start of the mainframe-computer insurgency – thereafter in science, no longer just an appeal to facts determined by experiment, but also a surrender to facts determined by computer.
60 Years later, the Online Know-All has capacity to instantly precis what the Know-All selects out from scanning the online universe, and to merge the Know-All’s distilled wisdom into a readable overview.
No doubt seems an impressive and useful skill to generations no longer taught to precis English Language at school.
All well and good if you’re happy to outsource wisdom to silicon chips and Know-Alls. He, she, it or they who control the present, control past and future. Pay attention to our digital implants for a proscriptive Twenty Eighty Four.
At that point, English Literature will be the least of our concerns.
“… in science, no longer just an appeal to facts determined by experiment, but also a surrender to facts determined by computer.”
Fortunately, I was a Natural Scientist (morphing into an Engineer) by 1995, so was impervious to such misunderstanding, but was puzzled by the attitudes of others.
This problem is easily rectified by understanding what Theology and Science are and what they are not. And then do the same with Computing.
But that would require a large injection of wisdom into the teaching profession, and Legacy Media, to initiate the process. Another case of being easy in theory, compared to the implementation.
One aspect of AI that is seldom discussed is within the context of porn, specifically child sex abuse, which is re-branded these days as just another facet of the industry. Porn has never been so accessible. We’ve come a long way since the pre-internet years when teen boys and men would have their secret stash of ‘top shelf’ mags ( or via mail order, for the more hardcore consumer ). Now, with a few clicks ( visit to the dark web optional, for more extreme stuff ), all is possible.
Were there always this many paedophiles in society, ( or porn addicts generally ) or has the advent of the internet somehow ‘created’ more due to the sheer convenience which inevitably results in an increase in the ‘demand-supply’ loop? Are people becoming hypersexualized and therefore desensitized as a consequence?
“zero harm to kids” lmao every moron who advocates for AI child porn always fails to consider what the AI is going to be trained on to produce the material to begin with.
“but it will stop more children from being abused in the future!” only if you assume that none of the men who watch it will go on to abuse a child themselves, which is wishful retardation at best and malicious retardation at worst.
I don’t expect Aella to comprehend the implications of this, because she’s a degenerate porn addict herself, but it would follow the exact pattern as all other pornography.
people tend to want to “try out” the things they see in porn after establishing a dopamine connection with whatever they viewed that made them orgasm. that is why we are seeing an explosion in rectal and strangulation injuries in increasingly younger cohorts exposed to these acts through porn.
people also tend to want the “real thing,” which is why AI porn in general hasn’t taken off, and why tens of millions of men still pay for OnlyFans despite the fact that pornographic images and videos are readily available on the internet for free.
all AI child porn would do is 1) normalize the consumption of that content by making it widespread, 2) introduce new audiences to it previously deterred by legal consequences by advertising it as “victimless”, and 3) create an even more lucrative market for the REAL stuff that, like with all other forms of pornography, would need to push the limits to cater to an increasingly depraved audience.
we’d then be stuck in a spiral of increasing tolerance, like with all other pornography.”
https://x.com/Slatzism/status/1911488984293015644
Yes, I do wonder whether some of the men on here who complain about misandry etc would be OKay with half the internet awash with images of men being abused/choked and worse. I’m guessing not! But hey, it’s so normalised that most people just think it’s Okay – AI porn will one day be considered normal, I have no doubt about it. Loads of things that when you really think about them are not at all “normal” in the longer arc of history are now the norm.
Exactly. And I’m still waiting for anyone to provide me with the evidence to back up their accusations that I’m allegedly a “misandrist”. As somebody who’s been a regular poster these last 3.5 years, and with an entire archive at their disposal, one would think it hardly a challenge to come back with an example, but hey ho.
“Rules for thee but not for me”.
You’ve probably also noticed that hypocrisy and double standards are rife on here. E.g, make generalised derogatory and insulting remarks about women = acceptable, always goes unchallenged vs a woman says anything remotely critical about certain men = gets labelled a “man-hater”.
Conclusion based on much observation and interaction: Many on here can dish it out but they can’t take it, ergo, they are hardly the proponents of ‘free speech’ that they pretend to be.
Artificial intelligence doesn’t exist, it’s augmented intelligence, and let’s hope it stays that way!
The Machine Stops was one of the most remarkable short stories ever written. It was completed in the 1920s and yet described television and even a version of the Internet. Well worth a read.
As for this article, I full agree with the dangers of sitting back and letting the computer do the work. If you don’t exercise and use your muscles – they grow weak, if you don’t use your brain (for reading and writing) it will follow suit. Look at the humans in Wall-e to see our future!
This sentence “If we abandon reading and writing – as I am told the young have done, since they prefer listening to reading” struck a chord. I would also say that the young prefer seeing to reading. When I’m looking online to find out how to do something (settings on a phone which are hidden away somewhere inexplicable, fixing an appliance) it is becoming almost impossible to find WRITTEN instructions. It’s all “here’s a Youtube video”. I don’t want a video. I want written words. To read at my leisure. Go back to if I missed something. Review it. Since when did we lose the ability to write down instructions?
Annoying isn’t it! – like you I prefer to read quickly through a list, possibly with a picture or two to help… I think the other driver to video, generally via YouTube, is the monetisation possibilities
I think we all have this the wrong way around. The danger is not that the machine will take over. The danger is that humans will find it too easy to let the machine do everything. In that case, we will end up not slaves of the machine, but lazy, passive and bored.
The danger is in ourselves and the use we make of the machines, not in the machines themselves.
I think you are right. All for convenience (eg paying using your smart phone etc).
Really excellent – James Alexander has beautifully articulated all that I subconsciously feared about AI. BTW, it’s very important to keep on reading from real hard copies (books, etc) – there are apparently health issues at stake, but also constantly and consistently reading only screens adversely affects concentration.
Watched the film ‘Colosus’ the other day – very relevant to where the tech is taking us. Of course, we could all already be in the matrix now, and not realise it…