It's remarkable how much sci-fi comes true. If we imagine it we find a way to do it.
The Terminator movies come to mind with the sick push to meld AI and human like robots. These are the dreams of adolescents, which sums up tech billionaires.
Colonizing other worlds, will never happen. Destroying this one, sadly yes. Money creates ignorance, separation from reality.
After watching a truly terrifying montage of small drones tracking down soldiers and blowing them up, I can’t help but think how quaint the idea of individually intelligent bots walking around with laser guns turned out to be. The future turned out to be way more efdicient.
I don’t recommend anybody watch those videos, btw. The way the soldiers react, or rather don’t react, is chilling. These drones are coming in windows, through doors, etc. There is no escape. At least not for long. The terror and despair they must feel when they hear that noise…I can’t really imagine it. Or perhaps I just don’t want to. They are currently controlled by human pilots, but they really don’t need to be…which is where this seems to be going.
Stanislav Petrov prevented nuclear Armageddon in 1983 when he disobeyed orders to counter a nuclear attack from the US which was actually a Soviet satellite warning malfunction. Removing humans from kill chain decisions seems to me to create a dangerous new level of automation.
There is also a visceral element as you point out in machines making binary decisions to kill people. It's disturbing to contemplate.
How long before such devices become present at No Kings protests and similar. Military gear always trickles down to domestic law enforcement.
Really good post. Yes Thiel's philosophy is disgusting, and like so many in the far right, he is blatantly hypocritical. Examples include pretending to be anti-war while making billions off the wars his companies support, calling for universal national service while supporting a guy who avoided service due to fake "bone spurs" and is now grifting off the public at a level never seen before, and advising not to gloat over enemies while, again, supporting a guy who does that to a degree never seen before. Thiel's philosophy is disgusting, inauthentic, self-blind and self-serving. Somehow we must harness these insane times to redesign our economic model to prevent this huge gap in wealth and influence.
Thank you, Cylvia. Like Musk, Thiel spent time in Apartheid S. Africa as a boy. I have to wonder if that's a factor.
Yes, the hypocrisy (or more likely deliberate manipulation of truth) is disgusting and built on shocking harm. The cigarette industry has been bad enough. How could one sleep at night selling a product causing so much misery?
Palantir takes profit from death to a new level and seeks absolute authoritarian control.
Like most of the ultra-wealthy, the arrogance and lack of recognition that money is not wisdom is appalling.
I would venture that many of those who struggle economically in life can offer more wisdom, but that's an incomplete answer. Plenty of poor folk are as hateful as Thiel.
Maybe we should point at education. This is not a slight on teachers. Education starts at home. What are we being taught whether as mere high-school graduates or a Stanford product to create such inhumanity?
Is it all a perversion of survival of the fittest?
You're absolutely right, we need a new economic model, degrowth or a circular economy and one that offers enough for all, not grotesque wealth for a few. This way of living on the planet is coming to an end, one way or another.
Thank you, Geoff- The sentence you wrote about the palentir-eanbled drones featuring autonomous, efficient murder of unarmed Gaza civilians sticks with me. Without traceability to the decision-maker, the responsible party(s), and a lack of accountability for mass murder, this use of AI is clearly reprehensible.
For me, all AI is reprehensible. It's biased (Western perspective) stolen intellectual property, and each variant is being used to propagate the narrative of its owner, Musk's Nazi promoting Grok the worst of the lot. The energy and water use in an increasingly hot and drought stricken world is inexcusable.
And yeah, the more impersonal murdering people is, the easier it is to do. AI completes the evolution of joystick, video game war. We don't even need an operator now.
Israel uses an AI called Lavender where human decisions on killing people was reduced to an average 20-second decision.
This reads like a sci-fi horror movie plot. And the scariest thing is that it is real, and we are living in it.
It's remarkable how much sci-fi comes true. If we imagine it we find a way to do it.
The Terminator movies come to mind with the sick push to meld AI and human like robots. These are the dreams of adolescents, which sums up tech billionaires.
Colonizing other worlds, will never happen. Destroying this one, sadly yes. Money creates ignorance, separation from reality.
After watching a truly terrifying montage of small drones tracking down soldiers and blowing them up, I can’t help but think how quaint the idea of individually intelligent bots walking around with laser guns turned out to be. The future turned out to be way more efdicient.
I don’t recommend anybody watch those videos, btw. The way the soldiers react, or rather don’t react, is chilling. These drones are coming in windows, through doors, etc. There is no escape. At least not for long. The terror and despair they must feel when they hear that noise…I can’t really imagine it. Or perhaps I just don’t want to. They are currently controlled by human pilots, but they really don’t need to be…which is where this seems to be going.
Stanislav Petrov prevented nuclear Armageddon in 1983 when he disobeyed orders to counter a nuclear attack from the US which was actually a Soviet satellite warning malfunction. Removing humans from kill chain decisions seems to me to create a dangerous new level of automation.
There is also a visceral element as you point out in machines making binary decisions to kill people. It's disturbing to contemplate.
How long before such devices become present at No Kings protests and similar. Military gear always trickles down to domestic law enforcement.
Really good post. Yes Thiel's philosophy is disgusting, and like so many in the far right, he is blatantly hypocritical. Examples include pretending to be anti-war while making billions off the wars his companies support, calling for universal national service while supporting a guy who avoided service due to fake "bone spurs" and is now grifting off the public at a level never seen before, and advising not to gloat over enemies while, again, supporting a guy who does that to a degree never seen before. Thiel's philosophy is disgusting, inauthentic, self-blind and self-serving. Somehow we must harness these insane times to redesign our economic model to prevent this huge gap in wealth and influence.
Thank you, Cylvia. Like Musk, Thiel spent time in Apartheid S. Africa as a boy. I have to wonder if that's a factor.
Yes, the hypocrisy (or more likely deliberate manipulation of truth) is disgusting and built on shocking harm. The cigarette industry has been bad enough. How could one sleep at night selling a product causing so much misery?
Palantir takes profit from death to a new level and seeks absolute authoritarian control.
Like most of the ultra-wealthy, the arrogance and lack of recognition that money is not wisdom is appalling.
I would venture that many of those who struggle economically in life can offer more wisdom, but that's an incomplete answer. Plenty of poor folk are as hateful as Thiel.
Maybe we should point at education. This is not a slight on teachers. Education starts at home. What are we being taught whether as mere high-school graduates or a Stanford product to create such inhumanity?
Is it all a perversion of survival of the fittest?
You're absolutely right, we need a new economic model, degrowth or a circular economy and one that offers enough for all, not grotesque wealth for a few. This way of living on the planet is coming to an end, one way or another.
Thank you, Geoff- The sentence you wrote about the palentir-eanbled drones featuring autonomous, efficient murder of unarmed Gaza civilians sticks with me. Without traceability to the decision-maker, the responsible party(s), and a lack of accountability for mass murder, this use of AI is clearly reprehensible.
For me, all AI is reprehensible. It's biased (Western perspective) stolen intellectual property, and each variant is being used to propagate the narrative of its owner, Musk's Nazi promoting Grok the worst of the lot. The energy and water use in an increasingly hot and drought stricken world is inexcusable.
And yeah, the more impersonal murdering people is, the easier it is to do. AI completes the evolution of joystick, video game war. We don't even need an operator now.
Israel uses an AI called Lavender where human decisions on killing people was reduced to an average 20-second decision.