Tag: technology

Demons become Angels

We all have demons.  In many cases these demons are in the mind.  Those things that cause mental pain and suffering.  In a reconciliation with acceptance grounded in humility combined with a going forth in newfound wisdom, transformational experience can result.  I am speaking here of the spiritual and of the sacred of the individual, but this applies to the macro too.  Meaning and truth from experience result in wisdom.  A wisdom that is a decision process of what to keep and what to reject.  This process can create angels which are serendipitous.  Demons become angels.

There is no denying that tech has been our collective angel.  It has saved us from so much pain and suffering.  It has given us hope in the future.  It is also taking us like a boiling frog to the cliff of a status quo shift from advancement to decline.  Currently tech is on a revolutionary course that may destroy us.  I say revolutionary because it is now self-organizing without real constraints.

It is my view that this process of change is without the basic wisdom of reflecting on what knowledge to keep and what to reject except around the margins.  This is most apparent with AI which I have given several posts on, but it is not confined to AI.  It is also as basic as the modern car culture that has made globalism possible.  It is basically the complexity that we are embedded with more generally.  All those things that bring relatively affordable and reliable food, water and shelter to us.  Mainly from fossil fuels, advanced materials, and the grid.  A grid that is of power and digital.

This complexity exposure risks failure far more than the threat of AI applications of autonomy and performance turning on us.   There are many warnings of the machine turning on us once it achieves the singularity of transhumanism.  What is more likely to turn on us is a vast investment in a network that can’t be sustained resulting in a bifurcation of destructive change where abandonment, irrational, and dysfunction cascade.  This is present even without AI in our complex global culture of just-in-time support but increasingly this complex is now far more exposed with the huge AI bubble.

It is my basic opinion from my life system of REAL Green that this AI bubble of both finance and tech will be stopped in its tracks by basic constraints of human confidence, resources, and economics.  It is often the weakest links that bring a system down.  The AI bubble has so many weak links.  One of the weakest is our civilizational complexity itself.  It is apparent resources and capital may be a hard limit, but complexity is less understood.  Resources and the capital threat appear less immediate.  The complexity issue is less understood but may be more immediate.

The complexity issue points to a door passed through and then a return is no longer possible.  We may have created an enhanced system that fails without a backup plan.  Many important skills and hard-won knowledge could be lost in a relatively short period of time.  Vital resources used up and mal invested in a way of life with no future.

I am speaking of that angel that are those wonderful things both abstract and physical that give our world a feeling of comfort and enjoyment.  This angel may become our demon if the AI revolution adapts civilization as the technocrats and tech oligarchs wish for.  Robots and an artificial general intelligence may be just that switch which flips an angel to a demon haunting our collective soul with collapse.

I want to offer hope to you that entertain my REAL Green adaptation.  This hope I offer is that this AI bubble will burst soon and the result will be painful but longer term useful.  I am also speaking of the related renewable and battery tech driving the energy transition.  That bubble has burst but has achieved some great tech for the macro decline process that the planet and human civilization is in.  This AI demon may hit the wall of constraints both physical and abstract that serendipitously stop the unrestrained revolution of technology.  This is the last frontier that could end our civilizational growth based mal adaption fantasy.

The angel of this is some very useful tech that can be applied to powering down our growth-based system.  A way of life of manifest destiny which is a way of life without a future.  We are still going to need growth to adapt to decline that will be the mess of a failing modern life.  Modern life to me is an everything bubble but one that has created some very powerful tech that if reoriented with hard-won wisdom could make the decline process less swift and dramatic.  The survival of a species is dictated by its resilience to the speed and depth of a shock.

I have no idea if this demon we have created will end up being an angel.  If what is occurring right now were to be stopped very soon before its infection into the vital organs of civilization the resulting and remaining capabilities could help us through the bottleneck ahead of a failure of the narrative of unending growth in a finite system.  If a wisdom that comes out of this hypothetical crisis is strong enough to overcome the cascading decline of abandonment, irrational, and dysfunction then we may have an angel of transformation to a new mankind post techno man.

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.