A Distant Past and the Inner Chimpanzee, 58
Some day, and that day may never come, I’ll call upon you to do a service for me. (Don Corleone, Godfather, agrees to murder someone for a neighborhood mortician but expects some future favor in return, The Godfather, 1972)
Successful people have successful friends. (Jane Roberts, lawyer and wife of John Roberts, Chief Justice of Supreme Court, testifying before Congress, The Roberts had likely not disclosed correctly that Jane Roberts earned more than $10 million in commission as a legal recruiter from 2007 to 2014)
But as the powerful know, the right to call in a future favor is priceless. (Brooke Harrington, author of article entitled “Mob Justice,” The Atlantic, May 7, 2023)
And then there was the failure to disclose luxury travel by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and a large real estate sale to a law firm, by Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch…. And remember, while not stated in the Constitution, the Supreme Court took it upon itself more than 200 years ago to be the final authority of what the specific law is and how it ought to be interpreted, resulting in both good and bad outcomes for millions of Americans.
The Battle of Ngogo
Chimp Empire is a documentary series on Netflix. It is filmed in the Ngogo Forest in the Kibale National Park in Uganda, It’s a fascinating story with incredible filming that took something like a year to complete. It is a tale of the largest known community of chimpanzees in the world that, for unknown reasons, split into two distinct and hostile groups, one community known as the Western Faction and the other community known as the Central Faction.
We humans and chimpanzees split off from our common ancestor around 6 million years ago, but it’s easy enough to see ourselves in our closest ancestor the chimpanzee. Chimp Empire is a Machiavellian marvel with shifting alliances, “political” maneuvering, pounding testosterone, subterfuge, incredible violence, tribal loyalty, sex, and some loving parenting. It is us.
The producers of Chimp Empire found themselves asking some essential questions: Are we better than chimps in resolving conflicts? When are we actually just as bad? As a species, how far have we come? Yes indeed, how far?
Comprehending the Difficult
I had intended to write about what’s been called the “loneliness” epidemic in the United States and the idea of “belonging,” very real problems for many of us and, in my opinion, is connected to much of our increasing dysfunction as a nation and the unthinking, cult-like behavior that so many of us now exhibit. The current research on these subjects is growing.
By chance, however, I came across two articles, both thought provoking and disturbing, but worthy of a temporary detour because of the numerous, interconnected parts that could ultimately affect every single one of us, but which we probably are not remotely prepared for.
Machines Will Be Capable of Learning, Solving Problems, Scientists Predict. (Conference at Dartmouth College, July 10, 1956)
According to the article, the conference should be considered the birthplace of “artificial intelligence.” Well, a conference did in fact take place and it brought together a lot of smart people that discussed artificial intelligence. But the problem is that this article is not real; it was made up by a computer, called ChatGPT.
ChatGPT has been in the news and called everything from the latest self-absorbed toy, a writer of college term papers, the way of the future and of course, the cause of the eventual demise of humankind. But rest assured, there is still a bridge in Brooklyn for sale. What do you want to believe? Well, you could ask ChatGPT or its growing number of computer cousins.
Admittedly I didn’t know that the writer James Joyce and the revolutionary Vladimir Lenin met at the Cafe Odeon in 1916 in Zurich, Switzerland. For me this is a fascinating, historical bit of information. What did they talk about—Joyce one of the greatest writers of the 20th century and Lenin, within a few years, the first leader of the new Soviet Union?
Oh sorry, but we have no proof whatsoever that these two men ever met; however, the Cafe Odeon was a popular spot for exiles, revolutionaries and writers and both Joyce and Lenin were in Zurich around this time. Sadly, at least for me, this is another fabricated story from CHATGPT, that clever machine mixing fact and fiction and without the least amount of guilt or regret.
“So what” you might conclude, just another shiny computer with a few more gadgets. But now imagine that we increasingly rely on these highly sophisticated systems, called generative A.I., for such things as health care information, even complex diagnostic interpretation, medical privacy, possibly nuclear codes, critical economic predictions and ever increasing daily activities.
What happens if we humans become increasingly comfortable and dependent on intelligent machine systems that are becoming more and more sophisticated and possibly capable of becoming in fact self-improving artificial general intelligence that can bypass humans and create its own personal code, its own future.
But wouldn’t that be nice and make life better for humans? C’mon you know it’s true. Leave those difficult decisions to something else. No more drudgery but more time with the ones you love.
As I recall we had Arnold Schwarzenegger, several years ago, creating a new movie franchise about some machine-man from some indefinite future, that didn’t have our best interest at heart. I know, it was only fiction.
Are you willing to accept the assurance of some of the big players in this field right now in the present like Google, Microsoft and Amazon or for that matter the numerous new companies in the U.S. as well as from overseas wanting to gain access to this potentially very, very lucrative field of generative A.I. The culmination of global capitalism is it not?
Most important, you will be reminded that if we Americans “don’t do it,” the Chinese will. Of course we “did do it” in the past and the commies couldn’t keep up. Keep that in mind when your child struggles with plane geometry and reading comprehension or maybe when the school decides these subjects are not important anymore. You know, what Ronny DeSantis calls “woke.”
But after all, what is the prime directive of pure capitalism, whether or not it emanates from Beijing or Washington or even New Delhi and Berlin. What do you think was the true motive for CNN putting on the Trump freak show and his clapping acolytes a few nights ago? To inform the citizenry?
Yeah, okay, but what about those assurances and promises from our elected political leaders? They want to do what’s right. Don’t they? They understand generative A.I. Don’t they? They have our best interests at heart. Don’t they?
Hm-m. Do you think we’ll raise the debt ceiling in time and avoid an unnecessary global explosion? Do you know the difference between debt, deficit and the budget process? It actually does matter whether or not you understand, even if you don’t think it does.
Be honest, do you have confidence in the mental and emotional acuity of Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy or the somber Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell? Just asking. See:
In the AI Race, Microsoft and Google Choose Speed Over Caution
Stepping Confidently Into Our Glorious New World Under These Circumstances
Warped hallucinations are indeed afoot in the world of AI, however—but it’s not the bots that are having them; it’s the tech CEOs who unleashed them, along with a phalanx of their fans, who are in the grips of wild hallucinations, both individually and collectively. (“AI machines aren’t ‘hallucinating.’ But their makers are,” Naomi Klein, May 8, 2023)
A recent survey came out not long ago indicting that American students at all levels are doing worse in their understanding of American history and civics (the factual kind), not terribly encouraging for a future democracy where a well-informed citizenry is vital for our, er, freedoms that we are fond of screaming about.
But it is encouraging to the assorted yahoos, authoritarians and snake charmers dwelling in the 19th century. This bunch may, however, discover that in an interdependent, diverse world, with ever increasing complexity and competition the U.S. citizen—without not only the necessary skill set—but the general ability to think critically, analyze information and work cooperatively will be left far behind. Won’t we be mad then. Watch those guns disappear off the shelves. We’ll show them, whoever “them” are.
If left untreated the “patient’s” life and the community in which he, she or they reside will become, as one pessimistic Englishman Thomas Hobbes said some 400 years ago, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
You do of course remember the defense offered up by some of the January 6 insurrectionists dressed in their GI Joe costumes, that claimed Trump misled them into thinking the 2020 election was “stolen” So many examples and so little time to improve our thinking skills. Oh, it does matter a great deal dear citizens in so many ways. How our species continues to plod ahead in mysterious or not so mysterious ways.
Waiting for machines to spit out a more palatable and/or profitable answer is not a cure for this crisis, it’s one more symptom of it. (Naomi Klein)
The first I heard of Naomi Klein was back in 2007 when I read her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. A movie soon followed. Her latest article in The Guardian is worth reading and then seriously thinking about.
The climate crisis is not, in fact, a mystery or a riddle we haven’t yet solved due to insufficiently robust data sets. (Naomi Klein)
So In Our Required Proverbial Summary
Are the majority of humans ready for some brave new AI world? Do we understand what may be happening? For that matter do we care? After all, there are so many necessary distractions in a day, a game seven tonight, a pickleball tournament next Saturday, Disneyland for the kids as we promised. I don’t know for certain whether or not, in the end, we shall grasp what’s going on or be able to conceive of something quite different.
Maybe we’re more like our chimp relatives than we think we are. After all, it’s familiar and comfortable … until the lumber companies cut the forests down and the large commercial factory farms turn the land into fields to grow soybeans or corn to feed animals in commercial slaughterhouses to feed us. It’s dreary but familiar.
In the end of course the chimpanzee community must go; yes, the chimp culture has been around for millions of years but it’s now a nuisance and serves no real, valuable or even a commercial purpose for our current “masters of the universe.” Don’t fret, the chimpanzee community is still around, for the time being. It’s only currently listed as “endangered.”
Klein by no means says AI technology couldn’t potentially make our lives better. But she does believe that all these technologies would need to be “deployed” in a completely different economic and social system, what she refers to as a paradigm shift.
She’s right. But it won’t be familiar to us … and all those vested interests … and those limited politicians we put in office desperate for those campaign contributions—no, not all of them but enough to crash the global economy in a few weeks … and of course us, who have libraries to close, books to burn, history to deny and make invisible, education to curtail and yes, a dollop of political correctness to maintain, along with that book we don’t have time to read or a new idea to consider or a cult we can’t seem to break away from and a fear that must be continually nurtured….
…not be able to know what is true anymore. (Geoffrey Hinton, known as the “godfather” of A.I., left Goggle in order to speak out about the possible threat of generative AI) See: AI Machines Aren't Hallucinating. But Their Makers Are
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It's official: billionaires aren't the brainboxes they like to believe
The Shock Doctrine (movie trailer)
The Broken Relationship Between Humans and Nature
Be warned: The video in this article is not comfortable to watch. It deals with human barbarism and cruelty to animals. It’s about industrialized slaughter. It’s an example about how and what we eat and how we treat other living creatures, who actually do feel pain, loss and loneliness—like us. See: Suffering of Gassed Pigs
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Next post likely on May 28