Category Archives: society

Dangers of AI

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There’s been quite a bit of talk recently about the dangers of AI technology – from human jobs being replaced, to terminator-like robots killing all humans.

My take on this, after having seen some of the AI achievements, is that the name “artificial intelligence” is a misnomer – “artificial stupidity” would be more appropriate. Those things are essentially stupid as fuck, and have some extreme limitations, but they do have the ability to quickly iterate across datasets in order to find a solution, if there is a clear way of punishing failure and rewarding success. That’s basically all they do.

I’ve seen neural networks being trained to win in computer games, and the end-result is amazing and exceeds human ability, simply because it’s a scenario where there are clear win/loss events that enable the neural networks to be trained.

In essence, yes, those things can replace a significant number of human jobs; everything that has to do with data mining, pattern recognition and analysis, trivial but seemingly complex work such as programming that consists of finding and adapting code snippets from the web, or iterative “art” that consists of modifying and combining generic tropes – that’s all going to be done with AI. Engineering work that would require too many calculations for a human, such as fluid mechanics solutions – turbines, rocket engines and so on – are all excellent cases for neural networks.

Unfortunately, military use is among those cases, where it is quite easy to create loitering munitions – basically, drones that hover in the air – that can be sent to scan enemy territory for everything that moves, then recognise targets to identify the priority ones, and crash into them. Ground weapons that recognise human targets and take them down with some kind of a weapon also fit this category, as well as underwater drones that use passive sonar to scan for exactly the kind of ship they want to sink, and then rise from the sea floor and hit it from beneath. This is all trivially easy to do with pattern recognition of the kind that exists today, combined with the kind of hardware that exists today. Imagining killer drones as the humanoid terminators is silly, because such a form would not be efficient. Instead, imagine a quadcopter drone hovering above in scan mode, seeking targets, and then using some kind of a weapon to take them down – a needle with some kind of venom would do. It’s all technically feasible.

The more dangerous thing is a combination of neural networks and totalitarian-minded humans, and by that I mean all kinds of leftists in the West. An AI can data-mine the information sources in order to tag “undesirable” humans, and then this tag would be acted upon by the banks, governments, corporations and so on, basically making it impossible for one to send or receive money if not compliant with the current ideological requirements. This already exists and it’s why we must look for all the things the governments attack as “money laundering friendly” and adopt them as means of doing financial transactions, because if it’s “money laundering friendly”, it means the government can’t completely control it, and if the government can’t control it, it’s the only way for us to survive totalitarian governments aided by neural networks. Have in mind that the governments talk about controlling all kinds of criminals and perverts, but what they really mean is you. Targetting universally hated groups is merely a way to get public approval for totalitarian measures that will then be applied universally. What we will probably all end up doing in order to evade fascist governments is transact in crypto tokens, and settle in gold and silver, in some kind of a distributed, encrypted network that will be incredibly difficult to infiltrate or crack.

Basically, the payment and financial systems have been modified to accommodate totalitarian intent for decades already, to the point where now even the common folk understand that something is not right, but they cannot even imagine the danger. If someone restricts your ability to conduct business and purchase goods and services, and connects that to your political attitudes, you can kiss every idea of freedom and democracy goodbye, and that’s exactly what the American “democratic” overlords have been quietly doing, both at home and in their vassal states. Unfortunately, Russia and China are no better, because government power over the populace is just too tempting for any government bastard to resist.

So, basically, I’m not really afraid of AI. I’m afraid of AI being used by evil humans to create a prison for our bodies and minds, and only God can save us from this hell, which is basically why I think a nuclear war that would decapitate all the governments and destroy the technosphere that gives them infinite power is a lesser evil. The alternative, unfortunately, is much, much worse, because a logical continuation of “business as usual” is being completely controlled by the madmen who will cull the population every now and then to “save the planet” or whatever makes them feel good about themselves, and control us to the point where even saying the word “freedom” would put you on some list you don’t want to be on.

Messy realities of life

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I am thinking further along the line I explored in the previous article; namely, that life is messy, and sometimes you need to choose between truth, justice, utility, and kindness. Those things seem to converge as you go higher, towards God, and God is at the same time fullness along multiple dimensions. Here, however, not so much. Let’s say you have to deal with a manipulative person in some business dealings. Navigating such a problem can make you choose between multiple bad options, because you can’t approach it from the position of greatest truth, you can’t approach it with kindness because it might be counterproductive (a manipulator interprets kindness as weakness and an opportunity for abuse), and what I end up doing is a melange of forthright truth and utility – in essence, I say how things are, what I want, and I do it in a pretty much brutally straightforward way, without much emotion or niceties; here’s what the contract says, here’s what I will do, and here’s what I want you to do. I turn all empathy off, I don’t complicate things with higher spiritual aspects of the situation, I tell things as they are, adhering to the principle of truthfulness, but I am also governed by the principle of utility – basically, I want to either earn or not lose money, and I try to avoid unnecessary hostilities, but I am also quite prepared to engage in them if it is necessary, just and useful. Also, I have in mind that I’m not really spiritually helping evil people if I allow them to get their way; this would only encourage them in their evil. The principle of ahimsa, therefore, does somewhat guide my actions, but not to the degree where it would always and necessarily prevail. The principle of utility, however, is tempered by the fact that I am an instrument of God, and my personal prosperity and well-being often take a second seat to other considerations.

Truth

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I recently saw a video by Jordan Peterson, in which he urges people to always to tell the truth, or at least not to lie. It made me think, because that’s an advice I would always give, and also something I personally can’t really do.

Tell the truth? Sure. Tell the greatest truth I know? That God is the ultimate reality, and this world is an elaborate, persistent illusion? That life and death don’t matter, and your relationship with God is the only thing to consider, always? When exactly should I tell those truths? When the owner of the restaurant asks me how I liked the lunch? When the neighbour asks me what’s up? When the cashier at the store asks “would that be all?”

It reminds me of a Bosnian joke where Mujo managed to burn out the latest AI supercomputer by asking him “šta ima?”, or “what’s up?” in rough translation. The computer of course took it literally and started selecting all things that are up. The answer everybody expects is something along the lines of “oh, nice to see you too man, how’s things?”, which is a trivial social phrase that means nothing, really, and is there merely to keep the pretence of a conversation when there’s nothing to say, and a way to be polite about it. In most cases, truth is neither sought nor required.

So, yes, that’s the way I go about things – answer with polite phrases, go through life providing non-responses to non-questions, because it would be awqward to do otherwise, but the fact remains that by doing so I am living a lie.

Safety third

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One of the things I despise about the current Western civilization is the “safety first” attitude.

I know where it comes from – basically, the ideology of human rights, where right to life is the most fundamental right everything else is derived from; can’t have property if you’re dead, can’t have any other rights if you’re dead, can’t have any freedoms if you’re dead. Let’s ignore the slightly inconvenient issue of the abortion rights which negate right-to-life for the sake of a normally inferior freedom of choice, but otherwise, it’s logical that safety would be the first priority because if you get killed or you’re gravely injured, this would make any possible gains moot.

The implicit assumption is that nothing could possibly be worth more than your life; thus, logically, safety comes first, and everything else second.

However, that’s not how I prioritise things. To me, it’s mission first. The reason why I’m here has precedence – that’s, basically, what my life is for. Using it up in order to achieve the goal is the point. What else would I be doing here? Taking pictures of nature? Sure, there’s a place for safety. If I get killed or badly hurt prior to accomplishing my goals, this compromises my ability to accomplish said goals, and this is not good. If I get too poor and thus unable to function in the world in ways that allow me to accomplish my goals, that would also be bad. This makes safety and prosperity valid secondary goals, but it’s always in the context of “mission first”. Never earn money in ways that would compromise the mission. Never try to be safe and survive if that compromises the mission.

The mission, of course, is stay focused on God, do whatever needs to be done, and return to God in at least as pure and powerful a condition as when I came here, but hopefully improve.

Of course I’m not evaluating daily things, such as buying bread and coffee, in this manner – how does this exact brand of instant coffee help me attain my goals? That would be idiocy worthy of Socrates. I don’t feel the need to constantly prove that something is good, true and useful; however, when I really find myself between a hammer and an anvil, remembering that I’m not really trying to survive or to enjoy myself, but I’m here on a mission, and the only thing I need to know is whether I’m still accomplishing it or not. If my death accomplishes it, and prolonged life doesn’t, death is preferable. If suffering accomplishes it and pleasure doesn’t, suffering is preferable.

Most things, understandably, fall into neither category. It’s for the most part completely irrelevant whether I run Windows, Mac OS or Linux on my computer; the articles I write are going to be the same. It doesn’t matter whether I shoot film or digital, or whether I shoot Canon or Sony; the pictures are going to feel the same. It does, however, matter whether I shoot pictures on a really poor camera, or on a really good one, because there is going to be that “thing” about good equipment that allows me to express my vision well, without technical issues standing in the way. Also, really bad equipment already caused visible issues – for instance, I edited the cover of my first book on a Windows 98 machine with insufficient RAM, and it kept freezing and crashing on me so I couldn’t finish resizing the big TIFF image properly, so the cover is somewhat “off”. The printers also messed up the colour calibration of at least one other book – the colours are several hundred kelvins too cool and saturation could be better, so yes, equipment can definitely cause issues. Fortunately, I never encountered a technological issue that would actually prevent me from writing a text, but it came close – MS Word on a very old laptop, for instance, lagged so badly, I had noticeable delay between what I typed and what showed on the screen, due to spelling checker doing its thing. Sure, I turned it off when I figured out the problem, but it’s never pleasant, so when someone asks why I buy expensive hardware, or, in general, why I pay so much attention to any particular thing, it’s because I probably had problems with that kind of a thing in the past, and I am trying to minimise the probability of it getting in my way in the future. I don’t want to have only one computer, because it will eventually update the OS for hours, or its hard drive will fail, or it will just die, and at that moment I won’t have a backup. It happened before, so now my backups have backups. I had situations where I couldn’t get my only computer on the Internet because the drivers for some essential piece of hardware were on the Internet. Having a second computer, or a second car, isn’t necessarily a matter of comfort – it’s a function of putting the mission first, and for that, everything has to work, and everything needs to have a backup in case it doesn’t. Sure, the car I drive is safe, but it’s safe because safety is useful if I want to accomplish my goals, not because it’s safety first.

Basically, if it’s safety first, it means your life doesn’t have a purpose, but is a purpose in itself, which makes it pretty much irrelevant. I see my life as a resource that is being spent in the process of achieving its purpose. Other things, such as money and physical resources, are spent on maintaining my life and abilities, so that I can achieve my goals here. It’s, basically, goal first, maintenance of ability to achieve goals second, and safety probably third, if even that. The third place is still high enough for me to hardly ever compromise safety, unless it’s actually essential for the mission. Comfort is also quite high on the list; probably four, because comfort includes good health, and comfort in general is quite important if you are trying to maintain prolonged focus on hard problems in order to solve them. This, however, means I’m quite willing to disregard comfort if it’s in any way useful for almost anything of any significance, but I still find it useful if I’m trying to work, and I will not intentionally seek discomfort for the sake of some kind of asceticism; also, if it can’t be helped, I’ll shrug it off, but if it can be helped, I will prefer comfortable and practical solutions. After comfort and practicality there are even lower priorities, such as aesthetics, which basically means that I will prefer something nicer if I have a choice and it doesn’t compromise anything more important. In reality, it means that if I have a pen and a notebook on my desk all the time, I prefer them to look nice, but a piece of paper and any pencil will do in a pinch. Even things as seemingly unimportant as status symbols have their place in the list of priorities – for instance, if it allows me to be more efficient in daily matters, I might want to present myself outwardly in certain ways that don’t create unnecessary obstacles; for instance, when doing business, it helps to look like someone who belongs there, and not have to go through several layers of “what’s wrong with you?”. Can I manage without those things? Sure. However, I’ll take all the help I can get, because what I do is hard enough as it is.

I have to repeat that I don’t actually go around and weigh every action against a list of priorities, and I would qualify a person who does as certifiably insane. It’s an unconscious, almost instinctive thing that I just bothered to put into words and made it sound much more formal than it actually is, but in reality it’s in the order of “try to make things look nice and clean if possible” and “get a car that isn’t obviously unsafe, is comfortable and fast enough, and passes the general social scrutiny that everybody instinctively does to evaluate business partners”, however it’s all goal-oriented – until goal is achieved, try to stay capable, in order to be capable stay alive, in order to stay alive stay safe, if possible stay comfortable, in order to increase comfort maintain a clean and pleasant environment, and so on.

The arrogance of skepticism

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I just finished reading the comment section of a recent youtube video where someone comments Rogozin’s skeptical claims regarding American Moon landings, and it was a profoundly depressing experience which left me with a belief that stupid people should never attempt being skeptical. They should just believe what the authorities tell them, because whatever that is, they have at least some probability of being on a right trajectory in life. If they try to think for themselves, they are absolutely certain to get it wrong and destroy not only their own lives, but also throw the world into chaos. That’s how we got materialism and atheism, when stupid people tried to think critically based on “reason and evidence”, and everything they ended up with was absolutely wrong in every conceivable way, and resulted in mass slaughters and chaos, from the French revolution onwards.

Stupid people don’t know how physics works, they don’t know how rockets work, they don’t know how gyroscopes and inertial guidance works, they heard something about radiation but don’t really distinguish between alpha, gamma and beta kinds, they heard that Van Allen belts are bad but they don’t really know what they look like and what’s the actual problem with them, they don’t know how computers work but it’s intuitive to them that you can’t do shit if you don’t have an iPhone, and they don’t know how photography works but they look at the pictures from the Moon and think they can see all kinds of issues. They think that if they can’t get a good cell coverage, it’s obvious that NASA couldn’t communicate with Apollo all the way to the Moon. I read all this and it makes me feel sick, not because I couldn’t answer any of those supposed issues, but exactly because I can, and I understand what the actual problem is. The problem isn’t even that those people are scientifically ignorant. That’s actually expected – it takes quite a bit of work to become scientifically and technologically proficient in various disciplines, to the point where you can actually understand how a microwave transceiver works, how a computer works (in a sense that you understand how to build a microprocessor with NOR gates alone, because that’s all you have), how you can integrate data from accelerometers into knowing your position and speed, what miracles you can do with very weak computers if you code everything directly in machine code and design the user interface so that you actually have to know what you’re doing to use it, instead of wasting a supercomputer on making something that chimps and cats can use. No, the problem is not that ordinary people don’t have the ability to understand the technological and scientific intricacies of space travel. The problem is that ordinary people have been trained to think that all men are equal, and if they can’t understand something, nobody can. They are trained to be inherently arrogant, they are trained to believe in democracy and rights, and they are trained to be skeptical.

Skepticism is a terribly destructive thing, and even the sharpest minds should use it very sparingly. This might sound strange until you see all the conspiracy theorists who completely lost not only their minds, but also every connection to reality, just because they were skeptical of everything. Not everything – they are never skeptical of their own ability to understand things. This is the difference between them and me. I am always skeptical of myself and my own abilities first, and I always started with faith first, using skepticism extremely sparingly and carefully – if you can imagine a prayer to God for guidance, keeping God and the truth that He is constantly in my mind as I carefully questioned, explored and eventually revised my views. If skepticism is combined with arrogance (of thinking you’re the measure of truth and knowledge, for instance), you’re lost. You’ll start believing that the Earth is flat, that men didn’t go to the Moon, that there are no satellites in orbit, and eventually you’ll go so crazy you’ll question reality of gender and thinking men can be women if they feel like it, or something equally insane.

You can now respond by stating that blind faith in authorities is not a good thing either, and that all those people, who got vaccinated with American bioweapons four times just because they unquestionably believed the authorities, are now about to taste the consequences of that, and I will agree. However, it’s not their fault that they believed the authorities. They can hardly do much else. It is the sin of those in power who mislead them. You see, St. Augustine would describe civilization with an image of a flock of sheep guided by shepherds, who are assisted by sheep dogs, who guard the flock against the wolves. The sheep are normal people who mind their own business baking bread, milling wheat, fixing roads and plumbing, making cars and computers, and so on, and simply have neither the interest, ability or time for other matters. The shepherds are the priests, philosophers and scientists who devote their time to understanding God, righteousness and truth to the best of their ability, and guide the people in the right direction, so that they can live a life that will be grounded in truth and reality, and have a trajectory towards God. The guard dogs are the worldly powers – the army, police, courts and administration, as well as healthcare, fire departments and so on, who take care that the crimes are punished, that those in need are taken care of, that the sick are healed, that the fires are put out, and that the foreign invaders are stopped and fought. The wolves are evil people who want to disrupt, seduce and destroy. If the wolves infiltrate the system to pose as guard dogs and shepherds, you can hardly blame the sheep for being confused, or victimized for following them. You can’t expect a baker or a plumber to be an expert in theology and science, and to see fault in something that requires a PhD in biochemistry. No – if the shepherds and guard dogs fail in their duties and are compromised, the flock will be lost. If the sheep don’t understand that they are sheep, and try to skeptically question the shepherds, they are lost, because they don’t even understand what it takes to be able to understand that stuff. The problem with stupid people is that they think hard stuff is actually easy. I think it’s called the Dunning-Kruger effect. I think the media actually encourages this in people, by oversimplifying issues so that everybody thinks they understand them, and encouraging everybody to have an opinion about everything, under the assumption that everybody can do it. Sure, you can have an opinion, but you are all but guaranteed to be wrong. You can’t integrate acceleration across time but you think you can have an opinion about spaceflight? You can’t differentiate between gamma and beta radiation but you heard radiation is bad and you think the astronauts couldn’t cross the Van Allen belts? You heard that lightning is caused by electricity and now you no longer believe in God because God doesn’t make lightning? As I said, skepticism is dangerous and even the smartest people should first be skeptical of their ability to exercise skepticism safely and without losing the grip on reality, but for stupid people skepticism is absolutely fatal. The only thing a stupid person – and by that I mean you – should be doing, is making a choice on which expert to believe, based on their inner feeling of reality obtained from prayer to God. If you follow this diligently, at some point you might actually evolve to the point of being one of the experts, very gradually, and at some point you might carve out a new, yet unknown path to a greater truth than what was previously revealed. However, the “I don’t understand this so it must be wrong and stupid” kind of skepticism, that ends your journey towards the truth then and there. And if your inner response was “I’m nobody’s sheep”, you’re either a wolf, or you were indoctrinated by them. You see, the wolves define sheep as stupid followers who are exploited by the shepherds. God defines sheep as good beings that follow the voice of God that leads them from space and time into salvation and eternity.

Don’t be a sheep if that’s your choice, but those, who don’t follow His voice into eternity, shall perish in time.