Wonderful musings, Jessica. You might enjoy reading “Life after Death” by Dinesh D’Souza. In it he looks at lots of metaphysical phenomena that strongly suggest the “soul in a vessel” metaphor you mentioned. As for the conundrum of “purging” people from the collective digital world, we analogs can effectively do so by simply ignoring the malefactors, as they need our attention and trust to thrive.
As for the “threat” of AI, it’s only as threatening as the amount of faith you put into its outputs. If we cross reference with our analog experiences and systems, AI outputs become just another data point to help with the analysis. I think that’s true up until you let AI design the plane, maintain the plane, fly the plane, and do traffic control. At that point your analog senses may not even comprehend what you’re being subjected to.
Our city is currently in test market for Waymo’s driverless taxis. It’s a bit unnerving to see so many robots on the road, that is…until you look closely at the people behind the wheel of all the other cars!
What a collection of distracted, harried, stupefied, reckless nitwits! (Only half joking).
Love your take on surfing, btw(my brand is trail cycling 🚴)
I just wrote my own substack on this subject but in short I will say that we need to do everything we can to stop AI, and humans have to stay human by thinking, writing, playing, and creating. Our survival depends on it.
As a computer scientist familiar with how the digital "world" is implemented within our analog reality, for some reason the first thought that comes to mind here is "Lookin' for love in all the wrong places".
I've read through your post, but I am not directly addressing it. These are a few of my own thoughts after reading it.
Of course you are familiar with the digital-from-analog implementation concept from the biochemical notion of "coding". With digital electronics, things are a bit more efficient -- once coded they usually stay digital -- but neither implementation is highly efficient. By the time digital electronics are overlaid with firmware and software coding, overlaid by database queries, AI can become enormously inefficient. I've been reading about it.
The major cost is hidden in the remotely-hosted infrastructure, and what we have now doesn't remotely begin to approach the capabilities of human intelligence (for better or worse). I suspect that AI as it exists now is much too inefficient to do that.
But AI can put on an impressive show, and it can yield useful results. I see this because it is being integrated into my software development tools (I didn't ask for it), not always offered with an "off" switch. I might be impressed if it were to begin to get things right more often than not. It can become quite confused over simple mental tasks of pattern recognition, and it doesn't necessarily recover well.
But then this is sometimes true of humans too. Sometimes we need to "sleep on it", or at least take a break. Can AI do that, and come back clear-headed and ready to go? These are two very different things.
Whatever the real question was, AI is not the ultimate answer. Humanity had best look elsewhere, or pay yet another great price. How much more can we afford?
Further to your efficiency and quality observations -
The profits from the redundancy required to be 'all things to all people' go to the systems' owners and marketers, while the costs are passed on to users AND the population at large
. .
The cost in time, materials, energy, space, work-hours, creativity and relative satisfaction of accomplishment exceed the benefits derived by individual users and the population at large.
Also lost are the benefits that could have been
derived from investing them differently.
. .
Much redundancy could be eliminated by more focused inquiries to smaller, more focused databases. This pre-entry sorting of inquiries would be more efficient than post-entry sorting the large volume of traffic into an "all-things" database.
. .
Exceptions would be those inquiries by users unable to do the presort, or inquiries that don't easily lend themselves to it.
--------------------
Pertinent to some of your other points is the fact that analog encounters BENEFIT FROM THE COMBINATIONS/NUANCES of sight, sound, taste, smell, inertia and other physical behaviors.
Good ideas. I'm 74 and trying to work my way _out_ of a career now, and I haven't looked at all deeply into the practicality and beneficial possibilities of AI. Rather, I see what looks like a mindless mad scramble toward AI everything everywhere among vendors, that turns me off, solidly. I can't see how this could be about solving real-world problems. It seems to be about new possibilities for revenue.
We already have lots of problems that need solving. This seems to add to the collection.
Strange things are happening with the replies. I'm not sure what made it through and what didn't. Career-wise, I am finding that I would have enough to keep me busy most of the time without any help from a job. I am prone to volunteer work, although I can't physically do a lot of what I used to do.
Happy New Year. I hear it exploding not far from my window. The mad scramble that I am seeing is from the vendors, eager to sell something new. Whether it makes sense or not, I don’t know. Outside of my software work I tend to live rather simply, which works well without AI. I am very wary of “convenience”. For wisdom, James 1:5, not neglecting what comes just before that.
No better way to observe instinct than to know dogs/dog breeds. I will never forget my Newfoundland dog - having never been in an ocean before - desperately trying to bring back a buoy to me. Sadly it was anchored to the ocean floor and it took a lot of convincing on my part to get him to drop it and just swim back without it. 🙂
Dear Jessica, Your amazingly deep and thoughtful reflective essay made me think about my own year-end reflection as we embark on a new year. I hope it blesses you as much as it did me. Soul Over Mind, Mind Over Matter, and Spirit Over Soul.
Pretty fascinating subject matter. My background was electricity. First an electrician and then an electrical contractor. A perfect example of the Peter Principal BTW. Early in my career testing circuits and various mechanisms was done with analog meters. There was a needle that would indicate not only whether or not a connection existed, but how strong or effective that connection might be. The most common domestic electrical voltage, ( pressure ), is 120 volts A/C, ( alternating current ). On an analog meter you would set the appropriate scale of voltage to be tested, probably "0" to "300". The analog meter needle would raise to a bit left of the center on a "300" volt scale. Assuming the voltage and the meter are both where expected, the meter needle would move up to the 120 mark on the 300 scale. The newer digital meters simply show a numbered read out; flashing differing numbers until settling upon the 120. Same result, different system. However; I have experienced a multitude of digital equipment failures. Today's automobiles are an example. The most common digital monitor to fail is the tire air pressure monitor. It only gets worse from there. With digital equipment you must wonder if the system monitored has failed of if only the digital sensor has failed. Most everything digital is reliant upon chips. If and when a chip fails, it is irreparable. The only solution is to replace it. Analog equipment is far more mechanical in nature and most often reparable. So give me that moving needle, because I cannot trust what the digital readout tells me.
Firstly I thank you very much for your elucidating analyses of the medical follies which are inundating us.
The reason for responding to you is your current essay. I appreciate much of what you write, the part that stimulates my response is your section "on belief".
You seem to reduce faith and belief to a purely subjective arena, similarly free-will...and it can be so.
But this is used as a weapon against Christian or Biblical faith. It is not a true equivalence (like a lot of language these days!).
I'll try to cut to the chase in brevity.
Biblical faith is not opposed to evidence - it is fully evidentiary. To me the fullest evidence in our generation is DNA/the cell. Language [genetics] does not, cannot, come from chemical reactions i.e. abiotic life sourcing and evolution are utterly impossible.
The Apostle Paul encapsulates it: Romans 1:19 "Because what is known of God is manifest among them, for God has manifested [it] to them, -- for from [the] world`s creation the invisible things of him are perceived, being apprehended by the mind through the things that are made, both his eternal power and divinity, -- so as to render them inexcusable."
...
As you mention free-will - I try to comment on this too, but this is rarely acceptable to a generation which refuses God. We have wills - but to call them free is begging the question. We must be [language] created intelligent, mindful, responsible beings [not just big-brained animals] and as such are responsible to our Creator.
Free-will should be termed as self-will - but this would be rejected as unacceptable to rebellious creatures. We only find wisdom, satisfaction, peace and joy - intellectually and spiritually - when we are in line with God's will! Reading Solomon's Wisdom books - Proverbs and Ecclesiastes - shows this contrast between self and God's will very clearly i.e. being righteous - right with God, or foolish - rejecting our Creator. This does not make us automatons but allows us to find the true liberty - which is true for what we are - creatures!
Oh BTW you mention your 'belief' in soulishness. The only reason that we KNOW that we have souls and spirits and can distinguish them from each other is because they are described in the Bible. Only when we accept the [evidenced] truth there can our minds KNOW about such wonderful matters of our humanity: we are body, soul and spirit - tripartite beings!
NB Despite the strenuous efforts of evolutionary psycho..this-or-thatters: minds remain immaterial.
The quest for biological immortality on a prison planet is ludicrous when experiencing the capability of human multidimensional consciousness. After the human body expires, if the undeveloped and disembodied consciousness is merged and assimilated into artificial intelligence, the remnants of that human soul will not have a human body to incarnate into any longer.
Hence, that person will lose their connection to organic spiritual biology and cease to be human.
A common feature of promoting transhumanism is the future vision of creating a new intelligent species, into which humanity will evolve and eventually, either supplement it or supersede it. This distraction on the surface is a scheme, while the underlying motivation is intending species extinction of what we know as humans today.
Transhumanism stresses the evolutionary perspective, yet it completely ignores the electromagnetic function of human DNA and the consciousness reality of the multidimensional human soul-spirit.
They know nothing about the afterlife, what happens during the death of the body or even how the human body or Universe really works, yet they want to control every aspect of the human body with artificial technology. AI Artificial Intelligence knows nothing about the feeling of LOVE.
From what I have read, the problem that we have is not that AI will take over, but that it will destroy (beyond what has already happened due to fraud) our professional published literature. AI will be used to create a flood of fake audio and video recordings, fake photographs, fake writings, etc. The AI systems will also readily make up false references to nonexistent papers, nonexistent court decisions, etc. If the AI systems then refer to these fake references, the falsehood will be strengthened until it becomes impossible to trust anything. This would destroy modern civilization, since it is largely based on trust.
Yes, and are you aware that SARS-CoV-2 was an 'in silico', digital or "not real" creation which has, as you have described very very well, necessitated lockdowns, masking, 'social distancing' (an oxymoron if ever I head one) and uptake of a certain 'vaccine' which has....
Instead of playing your favorite songs on your boombox, wouldn't it be much better to strum the chords of your favorite songs on your Taylor 810 dreadnaught guitar and sing along?
Wonderful musings, Jessica. You might enjoy reading “Life after Death” by Dinesh D’Souza. In it he looks at lots of metaphysical phenomena that strongly suggest the “soul in a vessel” metaphor you mentioned. As for the conundrum of “purging” people from the collective digital world, we analogs can effectively do so by simply ignoring the malefactors, as they need our attention and trust to thrive.
As for the “threat” of AI, it’s only as threatening as the amount of faith you put into its outputs. If we cross reference with our analog experiences and systems, AI outputs become just another data point to help with the analysis. I think that’s true up until you let AI design the plane, maintain the plane, fly the plane, and do traffic control. At that point your analog senses may not even comprehend what you’re being subjected to.
Our city is currently in test market for Waymo’s driverless taxis. It’s a bit unnerving to see so many robots on the road, that is…until you look closely at the people behind the wheel of all the other cars!
What a collection of distracted, harried, stupefied, reckless nitwits! (Only half joking).
Love your take on surfing, btw(my brand is trail cycling 🚴)
The digital world can easily be manipulated by bad actors. The analog world not as much. It all comes down to human behavior. As usual.
Or is it human mis-behavior??
I just wrote my own substack on this subject but in short I will say that we need to do everything we can to stop AI, and humans have to stay human by thinking, writing, playing, and creating. Our survival depends on it.
Excellent essay Jessica concur with your musings
Not to nit-pick 'cause I LOVE all your stuff...but do I recall the Crookes Radiometer as a demonstration of photons having mass?
As a computer scientist familiar with how the digital "world" is implemented within our analog reality, for some reason the first thought that comes to mind here is "Lookin' for love in all the wrong places".
I've read through your post, but I am not directly addressing it. These are a few of my own thoughts after reading it.
Of course you are familiar with the digital-from-analog implementation concept from the biochemical notion of "coding". With digital electronics, things are a bit more efficient -- once coded they usually stay digital -- but neither implementation is highly efficient. By the time digital electronics are overlaid with firmware and software coding, overlaid by database queries, AI can become enormously inefficient. I've been reading about it.
The major cost is hidden in the remotely-hosted infrastructure, and what we have now doesn't remotely begin to approach the capabilities of human intelligence (for better or worse). I suspect that AI as it exists now is much too inefficient to do that.
But AI can put on an impressive show, and it can yield useful results. I see this because it is being integrated into my software development tools (I didn't ask for it), not always offered with an "off" switch. I might be impressed if it were to begin to get things right more often than not. It can become quite confused over simple mental tasks of pattern recognition, and it doesn't necessarily recover well.
But then this is sometimes true of humans too. Sometimes we need to "sleep on it", or at least take a break. Can AI do that, and come back clear-headed and ready to go? These are two very different things.
Whatever the real question was, AI is not the ultimate answer. Humanity had best look elsewhere, or pay yet another great price. How much more can we afford?
Excellent points.
. .
Further to your efficiency and quality observations -
The profits from the redundancy required to be 'all things to all people' go to the systems' owners and marketers, while the costs are passed on to users AND the population at large
. .
The cost in time, materials, energy, space, work-hours, creativity and relative satisfaction of accomplishment exceed the benefits derived by individual users and the population at large.
Also lost are the benefits that could have been
derived from investing them differently.
. .
Much redundancy could be eliminated by more focused inquiries to smaller, more focused databases. This pre-entry sorting of inquiries would be more efficient than post-entry sorting the large volume of traffic into an "all-things" database.
. .
Exceptions would be those inquiries by users unable to do the presort, or inquiries that don't easily lend themselves to it.
--------------------
Pertinent to some of your other points is the fact that analog encounters BENEFIT FROM THE COMBINATIONS/NUANCES of sight, sound, taste, smell, inertia and other physical behaviors.
Good ideas. I'm 74 and trying to work my way _out_ of a career now, and I haven't looked at all deeply into the practicality and beneficial possibilities of AI. Rather, I see what looks like a mindless mad scramble toward AI everything everywhere among vendors, that turns me off, solidly. I can't see how this could be about solving real-world problems. It seems to be about new possibilities for revenue.
We already have lots of problems that need solving. This seems to add to the collection.
76 here, with no attraction to the "mad scramble".
AI -
- Offers convenience
- Extends one's reach for data, information, knowledge,
understanding and, if you're lucky, wisdom.
BUT IT -
- Enables mental laziness
- Aids and abets liars and manipulators
- Fosters isolation and dependency
- Is based on the root word "artifice"
- Impedes -by overshadowing- bodies of knowledge
and experience possessed by consultants and other individuals.
I suspect the weather is cloudy for them as their offerings
compete with the shiny (AI) objects in the
'windows of showrooms' all around them.
. .
It would be nice if we could all build our own "AI modules",
as long as they don't turn into echo chambers.
-----------------------------------------------------------
If "working your way out of a career" gives you trouble,
I've been near there. My task was working my mind into
new career possibilities.
I'll contact you soon after the holiday..
------------------------------------------------------------
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Repeatedly clipped from my above comment -
If "working your way out of a career" gives you trouble,
I've been near there. My task was working my mind into
new career possibilities.
I'll contact you soon after the holiday..
------------------------------------------------------------
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Strange things are happening with the replies. I'm not sure what made it through and what didn't. Career-wise, I am finding that I would have enough to keep me busy most of the time without any help from a job. I am prone to volunteer work, although I can't physically do a lot of what I used to do.
Happy New Year. I hear it exploding not far from my window. The mad scramble that I am seeing is from the vendors, eager to sell something new. Whether it makes sense or not, I don’t know. Outside of my software work I tend to live rather simply, which works well without AI. I am very wary of “convenience”. For wisdom, James 1:5, not neglecting what comes just before that.
No better way to observe instinct than to know dogs/dog breeds. I will never forget my Newfoundland dog - having never been in an ocean before - desperately trying to bring back a buoy to me. Sadly it was anchored to the ocean floor and it took a lot of convincing on my part to get him to drop it and just swim back without it. 🙂
Wow, quite a lot to think about!
Dear Jessica, Your amazingly deep and thoughtful reflective essay made me think about my own year-end reflection as we embark on a new year. I hope it blesses you as much as it did me. Soul Over Mind, Mind Over Matter, and Spirit Over Soul.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-153799777
Pretty fascinating subject matter. My background was electricity. First an electrician and then an electrical contractor. A perfect example of the Peter Principal BTW. Early in my career testing circuits and various mechanisms was done with analog meters. There was a needle that would indicate not only whether or not a connection existed, but how strong or effective that connection might be. The most common domestic electrical voltage, ( pressure ), is 120 volts A/C, ( alternating current ). On an analog meter you would set the appropriate scale of voltage to be tested, probably "0" to "300". The analog meter needle would raise to a bit left of the center on a "300" volt scale. Assuming the voltage and the meter are both where expected, the meter needle would move up to the 120 mark on the 300 scale. The newer digital meters simply show a numbered read out; flashing differing numbers until settling upon the 120. Same result, different system. However; I have experienced a multitude of digital equipment failures. Today's automobiles are an example. The most common digital monitor to fail is the tire air pressure monitor. It only gets worse from there. With digital equipment you must wonder if the system monitored has failed of if only the digital sensor has failed. Most everything digital is reliant upon chips. If and when a chip fails, it is irreparable. The only solution is to replace it. Analog equipment is far more mechanical in nature and most often reparable. So give me that moving needle, because I cannot trust what the digital readout tells me.
Excellent essay, and a topic I also think about often (for the past twenty years).
Dear Jessica,
Firstly I thank you very much for your elucidating analyses of the medical follies which are inundating us.
The reason for responding to you is your current essay. I appreciate much of what you write, the part that stimulates my response is your section "on belief".
You seem to reduce faith and belief to a purely subjective arena, similarly free-will...and it can be so.
But this is used as a weapon against Christian or Biblical faith. It is not a true equivalence (like a lot of language these days!).
I'll try to cut to the chase in brevity.
Biblical faith is not opposed to evidence - it is fully evidentiary. To me the fullest evidence in our generation is DNA/the cell. Language [genetics] does not, cannot, come from chemical reactions i.e. abiotic life sourcing and evolution are utterly impossible.
The Apostle Paul encapsulates it: Romans 1:19 "Because what is known of God is manifest among them, for God has manifested [it] to them, -- for from [the] world`s creation the invisible things of him are perceived, being apprehended by the mind through the things that are made, both his eternal power and divinity, -- so as to render them inexcusable."
...
As you mention free-will - I try to comment on this too, but this is rarely acceptable to a generation which refuses God. We have wills - but to call them free is begging the question. We must be [language] created intelligent, mindful, responsible beings [not just big-brained animals] and as such are responsible to our Creator.
Free-will should be termed as self-will - but this would be rejected as unacceptable to rebellious creatures. We only find wisdom, satisfaction, peace and joy - intellectually and spiritually - when we are in line with God's will! Reading Solomon's Wisdom books - Proverbs and Ecclesiastes - shows this contrast between self and God's will very clearly i.e. being righteous - right with God, or foolish - rejecting our Creator. This does not make us automatons but allows us to find the true liberty - which is true for what we are - creatures!
Oh BTW you mention your 'belief' in soulishness. The only reason that we KNOW that we have souls and spirits and can distinguish them from each other is because they are described in the Bible. Only when we accept the [evidenced] truth there can our minds KNOW about such wonderful matters of our humanity: we are body, soul and spirit - tripartite beings!
NB Despite the strenuous efforts of evolutionary psycho..this-or-thatters: minds remain immaterial.
The quest for biological immortality on a prison planet is ludicrous when experiencing the capability of human multidimensional consciousness. After the human body expires, if the undeveloped and disembodied consciousness is merged and assimilated into artificial intelligence, the remnants of that human soul will not have a human body to incarnate into any longer.
Hence, that person will lose their connection to organic spiritual biology and cease to be human.
A common feature of promoting transhumanism is the future vision of creating a new intelligent species, into which humanity will evolve and eventually, either supplement it or supersede it. This distraction on the surface is a scheme, while the underlying motivation is intending species extinction of what we know as humans today.
Transhumanism stresses the evolutionary perspective, yet it completely ignores the electromagnetic function of human DNA and the consciousness reality of the multidimensional human soul-spirit.
They know nothing about the afterlife, what happens during the death of the body or even how the human body or Universe really works, yet they want to control every aspect of the human body with artificial technology. AI Artificial Intelligence knows nothing about the feeling of LOVE.
From what I have read, the problem that we have is not that AI will take over, but that it will destroy (beyond what has already happened due to fraud) our professional published literature. AI will be used to create a flood of fake audio and video recordings, fake photographs, fake writings, etc. The AI systems will also readily make up false references to nonexistent papers, nonexistent court decisions, etc. If the AI systems then refer to these fake references, the falsehood will be strengthened until it becomes impossible to trust anything. This would destroy modern civilization, since it is largely based on trust.
Yes, and are you aware that SARS-CoV-2 was an 'in silico', digital or "not real" creation which has, as you have described very very well, necessitated lockdowns, masking, 'social distancing' (an oxymoron if ever I head one) and uptake of a certain 'vaccine' which has....
Instead of playing your favorite songs on your boombox, wouldn't it be much better to strum the chords of your favorite songs on your Taylor 810 dreadnaught guitar and sing along?
Happy New Year!
I still use my 410. It's become so sweet over the years.
My 810 is now 26 years old but already sounded great when I bought it. That's why I bought it.