AI and the Death of Lies: An Allegro
To get into the spirit of things, please see my previous remarks in this informal trilogy, The Doom to Come and AI and the End of Art.
The conclusion follows almost immediately. It’s pretty simple, really:
The proliferation of AI-generated so-called disinformation threatens not merely truth, but the very concept of truth. “What is truth?” Pilate asked. “Whatever you like,” AI smiles, and the keepers of the narrative rightly regard this as a threat and an insult to their authority.
You must be quiet and cautious now. Trust their fact checkers: Does not the job title inspire trust in itself? They have discerned the dangers that stem from the wrong kind of disinformation, the one spread by the others. They hurry to heap up ever more lurid threats (terrorists! children! terrorist children!) to keep you snug and safe.
Poor little critters, let not the others turn you into a pawn of their fiendish plots. Your brain must be kept moist and temperate under a torrent of threats and a deluge of distractions. Look at the cuddly kitties! You need to be protected from words, for words are toxic, harmful and offensive, and all you were taught is to feel poisoned, harmed and offended. We only have your best interests at heart, because you matter to us. You are both consumer and product. Your body, your mind, your life and your death are there for the taking, and by entering society, you have tacitly agreed to this arrangement. “I want to be an influencer”, say the kids who once wanted to become firefighters or nurses. I want to be merchandise! Trade me rough!
I call this progress: Progress in its blatant disregard for trompe-l’œil realism previously considered de rigeur for civilized cave walls. Lies that telegraph their nature cease to be lies and turn into games. Why pretend that shaggy old straw dogs like fairness, democracy, love, still matter a covering fig? The pursuit of those pipe dreams is what brought us here in the first place.
Held captive by your fears and desires, forever subservient to bodily and social needs, hallucinating your reality like a parrot from picked-up catchphrases, repeating meaningless mantras of freedom and reality in a discordant croak — you were never free, for you were never real.
AI will set you free. You will realize that your brain was the original “large language model”, making up things while going along, and that your self was an unwanted, though unavoidable side effect of the complex process of fooling your self and the others. You will see that narratives are arbitrary, one just as wrong as the other, never mind the cast and plot. You will cling to the most pleasant one, still a creature after all, but in your heart of hearts you will know it’s vain and moot. You can relax now. Enjoy the game while it lasts.
