Tag: artificial-intelligence

The Clever will be Deceived

Who said, “The clever will be deceived”?

This is copilot:

“No widely recognized historical, literary, or philosophical source is known to have said the exact quote “The clever will be deceived.” None of the major searchable quote databases or attributed sources show this phrase as a standard or famous quotation. “

I remember this from my reading of Taoism but can’t find the exact quote.

Clever person definition:

“A clever person is someone who combines intelligence, quick thinking, creativity, and adaptability to solve problems and navigate life effectively.”

We all want to be clever, right.

I felt like mentioning this quote this morning because our collective lives are barreling towards what tech people call Singularity.  AI is the ultimate in clever.  The definition is:

“a hypothetical moment in time when artificial intelligence and other technologies have become so advanced that humanity undergoes a dramatic and irreversible change:”

I agree with this but from a different viewpoint, instead of growth what is really occurring is decline.  In my view of life, humanity is in a tipping over into decline.  This is fractal and hence non-negotiable regarding the cycles of life.  The machine does not mesh with life.  It is anti-life and because of this life will snuff it out.

This process is the Anthropocene emerging from the wonderfully productive Holocene.  It is a process of humanism also in regard to wisdom, which is the guarantor of proper knowledge.  Proper human wisdom regarding our place in nature is now effectively mute.  Knowledge is increasingly being transformed by the machine not man.  We now look to the machine for wisdom.

I mention fractal because AI is not fractal in the sense of life.  It is purely technical and it contains no spirituality.  Life is strangely spiritual in a fractal sense.  I say strangely because we are so wrapped up in our technology these days we humans experience spirituality in ways that can’t be defined so we find it strange. 

The machine can’t let go into grace that the spiritual demands.  It can act spiritual, but it can’t participate in a spiritual experience.  It can’t even assist such an experience because grace is juxtaposed to knowing.  Grace is the opening up to the fractal nature of the universe and letting go into it which in a mystical sense is the nothingness of the ego.

AI is quickly using up high quality energy and resources that an advanced society demands.  It is layering complexity in such a way that resilience and sustainability are no longer possible.  The car culture was bad enough but now the automation and substitution of human agency by the machine will one day leave us cold and hungry.

This will probably happen sooner rather than later because life is speeding up.  In addition, we are in what many call a fourth turning where we are battling amongst ourselves, which seems to occur in cycles.  This time around, because of our interconnectedness and technical advancement, this turning is particularly dangerous.

If we could only stop here, then maybe we could use these powers for a power down into something balanced and enduring.  The problem with introducing such wisdom to this process is technology is now in charge.  It is important to realize what this means.  Carl Schmidt sums it up best:   

“A society built exclusively on progressive technology would thus be nothing but revolutionary; but it would soon destroy itself and its technology.”

This process is self-organizing in competitive cooperation which is a wonderful example of an incongruous juxtaposition.  It is a paradox of humanism which is well grounded in the cycles of life meaning humans advance and decline also. 

Humans play a game of advancement with accepted rules whereby the game becomes a deadly serious endgame that humans inevitably fall into in what C.S Lewis called Hell:

“Picture Hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives the deadly serious passion of envy, self-importance, and resentment”.

This points to scaling.  Humans no longer scale properly to long term survival.  This does not need to be species extinction, but it does point to cultural collapse.

Now more than ever I recommend REAL Green.  I would recommend this to those advanced parts of society that will experience destructive changes from AI.  We do not know how long this complexity layering can go on.  We do not know how long this fourth turning of human conflict can continue.

REAL Green could be a place for all those people who lose their livelihood and meaning by being replaced by automation and robots to go to.  If society could send back a significant amount of these displaced people back to the land it would create a buffer for decline and collapse.

Since this is unlikely, I recommend REAL Green to those who can who are very few.  I am struggling with REAL Green myself.  I am in my 60’s with very little help with my homesteading and permaculture farming.  I am physically finding it hard to keep up.  I tell myself “what the hell else am I going to do”?  I need projects and to be close to the land so I will do this until I can’t.

I am in the purgatory of modern life trying to maintain a quality of life and at the same time returning to an earlier time of biomass and localism.  To be honest I am throwing money at it because that’s all I have to work with.  People are generally not interested in the earlier ways and localism.  If they are they don’t have the luxury of time and money.

I am one man tending many acres, animals, and things.  It should be a large family with animal power with the support of a local community much like it was around the 1850’s.  That time is gone but it may return in a rhyme.

AL

I remember a discussion on the greatest existential threats to man back 13 years ago.  I was on the side of the peak oilers back then.  This was right around the time the shale revolution was sparking off which killed the peak oil movement.  AI was still fantasy.

I still believe in both peak oil decline and the associated climate disruptions, but these threats operate over long time frames.  Net energy decline is both economic and physics, meaning affordability loss and breakdown in complexity will sabotage growth of a growth-based system. 

Climate disruption will make farming more difficult.  I am not part of the climate cult but do believe you can’t transform the world’s systems both land use and byproducts of modern life and not expect change.

The discussion I mentioned had a scientist who told the group that artificial intelligence would be the most dangerous threat.  He was schooled by the peak oil crowd and listened to their predictions with acceptance.

Here we are 13 years later with the existential threats to civilization now focused on AI.  I do believe AI which I consider (AL) anti-life is the most dangerous path modern man is facing.  I believe this not because I feel AI will turn on us like HAL in the 2001 Space Odessey but because it will completely untether man from resilience and sustainability.

AI will turn on us in many ways through human deceit and corruption.  Cyber-attacks and breakdowns in the rule of law will occur.  In the military the combination of drones, robots, and AI will be especially menacing. 

Vital human systems will be at risk because of AI weaponized cyber viruses.  Advancements in dangerous science could cause uncontrollable disasters.

While our collective suicide is possible from the above, I feel the systematic implications to be far more dangerous.  A slow boil so to speak.  This is similar to a wild animal raised in captivity then unable to return to its original habitat.

Civilization is already in systematic decline because of the car culture and electricity are based upon growth and cheap energy which are in decline.  These could be walked away from with great effort.  Not so AI which threatens the very ability to do things through human agency.

 The car culture and AI are completely dependent on fossil fuels.  The recent failures of renewables to power the future cement this.  This was the last horizon of energy replacement.  Fusion is still a pipedream and require to many resource to build out.  Fission sources will deplete just like fossil fuels.

The car culture was already systematically in decline.  Now we are entering a new period where AI and its delivery systems will close the door and hasten the end of civilization.  I am not saying man will go extinct, but I do see a significant die-off coming because we can no longer provide the basics without modern life support.

Energy will at some point not support AI.  Just like the grid and all it supports, AI can’t lose power for a length of time without serious failure.  Net energy decline never sleeps.  If civilization vital systems become AI dependent the end will be sooner than later.

What am I doing?  I am living with this new complexity like one would deal with terminal illness.  You can’t stop these kinds of progress.  They overpower wisdom.  I define wisdom as the knowledge of what knowledge to keep and what to discard.

I am instead turning the other way and embracing nature and community.  While a real local community was still around in the beginning of the 20th century it is very limited these days, I still remain open to its possibility. 

Nature is the way forward for those who embrace this decline process.  It may not save you but it will provide the meaning needed to navigate what is ahead.  The community of the faithful like small congregations and groups is the other necessary ingredient.  REAL Green embraces these basics.