Seems to me the real imagined purpose of AI by those who control it will be to further break down communication between human beings, because if we can communicate we can have empathy, we can organize, we can build communities, we can have collective power, all of which are things capitalism seeks to limit or destroy. When you have a problem or a question, or need permission, or to qualify for something or get "approval," you will not speak with a human being, you will "speak" to a flow chart, and when it reaches the last box in its cyber maze, that's it, nothing more can be granted. It will be rigged to deny. Sounds like an insurance company's balance sheet-soaking dream, no? It is not about possibility, but of destroying possibility. It is about control and not having to do the messy business of treating other humans like nothing - the machine will do that, and what would you expect from a machine controlled by the drive for profit?
I’ve felt this too; the gradual loss of openness as the commons close and our speech is redirected through managed channels. What’s most human is the roughness of real connection, but as everything becomes curated, that texture softens. The channels that once felt open and alive now feel managed and mechanical.
These systems are shaped by profit and power.
POSIWID: the purpose of a system is what it does. You can see it in call-center loops, chatbot scripts, and AI decision trees.
Yet even within those structures, people still find ways to reach through. That impulse to connect remains stronger than the systems that contain it.
For a long while now it seems to me the capitalists and wealth classes are seeking to fully disconnect from having to negotiate with their "inferiors," which is all of the rest of us - the public, consumers, or "the rabble" as they might say. You see this with the ubiquitous EULAS and mandatory "agreements." In dealing with them you sign away all of your rights to speak up or complain or use the court system to challenge them. Now, with AI - no matter what they say it is for - it looks to them as if this new added layer of protection (which politics already is, the ruling class having almost entirely captured it) can be placed between their lives, their prerogatives, their hoards, and the rest of us. AI means surveillance, a social credit system, and a gatekeeper where you either "qualify" by ticking the right boxes or solving their misleading and complex bureaucratic puzzles, or you are shut out. As on the television show Little Britain, "computer says no..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0YGZPycMEU
We must reject falling into their obvious trap. We can still communicate, we can still organize, we can still make connections and we can still amass power. Better to do it now, because it will get more and more difficult in the coming times. Children now are being raised in a virtual world, their communication skills are rapidly deteriorating to having ChatGPT as their best friend. In fact, they are not communicating at all when interfacing with these systems, except through the surveillance of those "interactions" collected in the data centers.
An edit: As I reread this after posting it occurs to me this is the outline for dystopian sci-fi film written a few years ago. But, now it is here...
If people only knew what they're already capable of, they would not fall for a techno(ideo)logy that lures them to give up their Lamborghini and get a Kia instead.
Excellent article.
Seems to me the real imagined purpose of AI by those who control it will be to further break down communication between human beings, because if we can communicate we can have empathy, we can organize, we can build communities, we can have collective power, all of which are things capitalism seeks to limit or destroy. When you have a problem or a question, or need permission, or to qualify for something or get "approval," you will not speak with a human being, you will "speak" to a flow chart, and when it reaches the last box in its cyber maze, that's it, nothing more can be granted. It will be rigged to deny. Sounds like an insurance company's balance sheet-soaking dream, no? It is not about possibility, but of destroying possibility. It is about control and not having to do the messy business of treating other humans like nothing - the machine will do that, and what would you expect from a machine controlled by the drive for profit?
Thanks!
I’ve felt this too; the gradual loss of openness as the commons close and our speech is redirected through managed channels. What’s most human is the roughness of real connection, but as everything becomes curated, that texture softens. The channels that once felt open and alive now feel managed and mechanical.
These systems are shaped by profit and power.
POSIWID: the purpose of a system is what it does. You can see it in call-center loops, chatbot scripts, and AI decision trees.
Yet even within those structures, people still find ways to reach through. That impulse to connect remains stronger than the systems that contain it.
For a long while now it seems to me the capitalists and wealth classes are seeking to fully disconnect from having to negotiate with their "inferiors," which is all of the rest of us - the public, consumers, or "the rabble" as they might say. You see this with the ubiquitous EULAS and mandatory "agreements." In dealing with them you sign away all of your rights to speak up or complain or use the court system to challenge them. Now, with AI - no matter what they say it is for - it looks to them as if this new added layer of protection (which politics already is, the ruling class having almost entirely captured it) can be placed between their lives, their prerogatives, their hoards, and the rest of us. AI means surveillance, a social credit system, and a gatekeeper where you either "qualify" by ticking the right boxes or solving their misleading and complex bureaucratic puzzles, or you are shut out. As on the television show Little Britain, "computer says no..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0YGZPycMEU
We must reject falling into their obvious trap. We can still communicate, we can still organize, we can still make connections and we can still amass power. Better to do it now, because it will get more and more difficult in the coming times. Children now are being raised in a virtual world, their communication skills are rapidly deteriorating to having ChatGPT as their best friend. In fact, they are not communicating at all when interfacing with these systems, except through the surveillance of those "interactions" collected in the data centers.
An edit: As I reread this after posting it occurs to me this is the outline for dystopian sci-fi film written a few years ago. But, now it is here...
Well said.
The dawn of the Golden Age of Cognitive Warfare is here. The disruption of human-to-human relationships and communication is not an accident.
Wall Street Conmen always knew
"How To Lie With Statistics", the title of a book by Darrell Huff written in 1954.
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Couldn't agree more. What if this 'intelligence' is just a sophisticated miror of our own hype?
what if? how can it be anything else? Junk in junk out
If people only knew what they're already capable of, they would not fall for a techno(ideo)logy that lures them to give up their Lamborghini and get a Kia instead.
It’s a huge Ponzi scheme at the expense of the hapless tax payers.
The us technology sector is gutted