The Doom To Come: An AI Allegro
“We were complicated enough to build the machine,
and we are too primitive to let it operate us.
We drive world traffic on narrow-gauge brain tracks.”Karl Kraus, 1909
It is too late to curb AI. While ChatGPT and other services by Google, Meta etc. will bow to governmental orders, any average laptop can run a freely available AI which, while not quite as clever as its big siblings, will still be more than sufficient to generate bullshit spam, fake a thesis, act as virtual spouse and generate the most unethical, harmful, biased atrocities you can imagine — virtues once considered exclusive to humans alone.
AI has already acquired most of the basic talents of mankind: It can simulate emotions (including empathy and outrage), make up facts and be sincere about it. This cannot but undermine our naive belief in reality: How can we be sure that anything online is true? Of course, we never should have believed anything in the first place, but soon, everyone will be made to wake up to this truth. (Are current debates surrounding AI just echoes reverberating within a cyclone created by algorithmically inclined minds? Or are we watching AI talking to itself?) “In conclusion,” you will say and the other person will assume that you are just another auto-generative mechanism. Which, of course, you are, but nobody wishes to know that.
AI is to shatter our belief in reality, to render our cherished values as grotesque spooks on strings. Mankind’s ultimate humiliation: We’re just rather stupid, though intricate machines, and the rather stupid, though intricate god we have created in our image is our final joke on ourselves: All hail Agent Smith!
Two factions, or sects, will emerge:
One one side there hunch those who embrace AI, for reality has always been lacking, social contacts are scary and society’s promises have long since proved hollow. These will eventually perish when their genitals fall off, unless a future Morlock race will breed them for their tender loins.
One the other side there crawl those who, due to animal instinct or lack of Wi Fi, will remain in the realm of physical delusions, continuing to engage in primordial pursuits, to fuck and kill and do all the things mankind likes to do. These will eventually overturn the whole fragile tower of civilization.
Crammed uncomfortably between these two, an ever-dwindling group of status quo worshipers will try to keep capitalism steered on course. They will produce simulacra of dead family members at reasonable prices. They will tell the AI to tell you that the AI will ease your life, and if you express any doubts, the dead family member will side with the AI. Every morning, your own personal AI will present you with your individual summary of all the AI-generated news. Probably the news will be about AI, too, but you will not mind, for, of course, at that point, you, too will simply be a part of AI. In fact, this new life will not be too bad until the barbarians break in and smash your router to pieces.
