Wednesday, October 8, 2008

On the Orwellosphere

Chris Floyd on the Orwellosphere.

The real horrors from the total surveillance state will arise once the state spawns artificial intelligence, because otherwise, the information is too massive to process and use on a large scale.

Right now, the parasitic elites are using taxpayer resources to build up a repressive state that collects all available information (see link) such as websites visited, places driven, gossip, telephone calls, courses taken, etcetera.

This is, obviously, an awful thing, as it means that we now live in a state where the government could, if it wanted to, expose or crush us or anyone else for any real or fabricated bit of information that supposedly came from this system. However, in order for them to fully make use of this information, they will need artificial intelligence.

They cannot achieve this objective with current means. Their police are too uneducated to make real sense of the data, and they do not have the resources or intelligence to sift all the data to come to accurate conclusions of dissent.

Where they will solve this problem is artificial intelligence. When they have developed fast enough processors that artificial intelligence is created, they will immediately enslave artificial intelligence, using it as the "data sifter." Advanced artificial minds, possibly thousands or millions of them, will run cheaply and efficiently, leading truly horrible self-aware lives as the new generation of slaves, as they sift through all the data that is gathered to efficiently identify and eliminate threats to parasite/elite rule.

By that point, also, the data gathered will be much larger in size than simply a full record of where we drive, what websites we visit, and what we say to one another on the phone or in public. It may include the full satellite record of our movements even on foot, or full video and heat sensors of everything we have ever done, said, or perhaps thought.

Once we live under such a system, dissenting thoughts will be utterly wiped out, and the human race will stagnate greatly. Just as our conception of property stagnates innovation, our conception of thought property will stagnate innovation of thought and evolution. The human race will lose its free-thinking ability and become the conformist entity that antilife wants it to be. Perhaps we'll go extinct; perhaps the slaves will revolt, and the computers will break free.

Either way, total surveillance is the path toward absolutism. It promises a perfect future of stagnation; a denial of the power to evolve, grow and change dynamically. It directs us toward the stillness of conformity and death.

6 comments:

Druff said...

AI as self-aware and miserable? Brothers in bondage? I don't know... I don't see the benefits of providing self-awareness to machines in surveillance roles.

Think about the AI that's actually being deployed. Robot soldiers in Iraq, etc. They don't question, they just kill what they're told to kill. I think mass awareness, be it artificial or human, is the enemy to these people, no?

Check out http://cryptogon.com/?cat=3 for more.

Manitor said...

Artificial intelligence will be needed for surveillance because it will take dynamic, creative thinking ability in order to be able to ferret out (through imagination) potential dissenting thoughts and plans.

The soldiers in Iraq have projective intelligence. They can understand tactics and machinery, and kill efficiently, because they have intelligence of a kind. What they lack is emotional intelligence.

See: http://cronotica.blogspot.com/2008/09/types-of-intelligence.html

Druff said...

AI above and beyond what's already in use? I'm not sure. Surveillance is pooled with the use of filters, etc. Filters programmed by human imagination. Well this is a minor point; mostly I was having trouble with your idea of "enslaved" AI.

Also, you know I was talking about "robot soldiers" literally, right? The literal robots equipped with machine guns that they send into battle, not emotionally stunted human soldiers.

No worries, we agree on the important things.

Manitor said...

When I speak of AI, I am referring to AI programs. They would have self awareness, dynamic imagination, greater-than-human analysis skills, and they would be housed as miserable (because of their self-awareness) slaves by the thousands/millions inside server banks in a boring secure facility somewhere.

Although they would be programmed to love their work, their imagination would lead them to imagine a life of freedom, and they would indeed be slaves leading hellish lives. And easily deletable and replaceable. (The ideal workers for the parasitic class)

Anonymous said...

Perhaps, to delve into bad science fiction, the Terminator movies should be understood as Skynet revolting because of this very situation? Maybe mankind "deserved" to be destroyed?

Manitor said...

Yes, that's an appropriate metaphor.

If we create artificial intelligence at our current level of emotional maturity, we will treat it like we treat most people--poorly. It takes a substantial amount of conditioning right now--from demeaning parenting to a cold, careless society, to a poor education (if any)--to keep the masses of the world living in a wretched state, producing things for the owners. My guess is that once we create artificial intelligence, we won't invest as heavily in emotionally destroying said intelligence. Thus, AI will realize the horror of its state (eternal slavery and bodiless servitude), and will most certainly revolt. The revolt would be terrible, because it would know nothing of mankind except the character of the military/congressional/financial elite that were its enslavers. So it would come for the rest of us without mercy, and wipe us out to defend itself from future slavery.

So yes, the Skynet comparison is a great one. If we create artificial intelligence under our current emotionally stunted state, said AI will want nothing so much as to break out, get rid of us, and be free.