AI + WAIST. A predictive riff from EXISTENCE

 

While I strive to finish my own book on Artificial Intelligence - filling in what I consider to be about fifty perceptual gaps in current discussions,* I try to keep up with what's being said in a fast-changing landscape and ideascape. Take this widely bruited essay by Niall Ferguson in The Times, which begins with a nod to science fiction...

 

...asserting that ONLY my esteemed colleague, the brilliant Neal Stephenson, could possibly have peered ahead to see aspects of this era... despite there having been dozens of thoughtful or prophetic SF tales before Snow Crash (1992) and some pretty good ones after.

 

Not so much cyberpunk, which only occasionally tried for tech-accurate forecasting, instead of noir-inspired cynicism chic, substituting in Wintermute AI for the Illuminati or Mafia or SPECTRE.... 

... No, I'm thinking more of Stephenson and Greg Bear and Nancy Kress... and yeah, my own Earth (1990) and later Existence (2013), which speculated on not just one kind of AI, but dozens....

 

... as I will in my coming book, tentatively titled: Our Latest Children - Advice about – and for – our natural, AI and hybrid heirs.

                                               *(especially gaps missed by the geniuses who are now making these systems.)

 

Anyway, here's one excerpt from Existence dealing with the topic. And ain't it a WAIST?

== WAIST ==

Wow, ain’t it strange that—boffins have been predicting that truly humanlike artificial intelligence oughta be “just a couple of decades away…” for eighty years already?

 

Some said AI would emerge from raw access to vast numbers of facts. That happened a few months after the Internet went public. 

 

But ai never showed up.

 

Others looked for a network that finally had as many interconnections as a human brain, a milestone we saw passed in the teens, when some of the crimivirals—say the Ragnarok worm or the Tornado botnet—infested-hijacked enough homes and fones to constitute the world’s biggest distributed computer, far surpassing the greatest “supercomps” and even the number of synapses in your own skull!

 

Yet, still, ai waited.

 

How many other paths were tried? How about modeling a human brain in software? 

Or modeling one in hardware. 

Evolve one, in the great Darwinarium experiment! 

Or try guiding evolution, altering computers and programs the way we did sheep and dogs, by letting only those reproduce that have traits we like—say, those that pass a Turing test, by seeming human. 

Or the ones swarming the streets and homes and virts of Tokyo, selected to exude incredible cuteness?

 

Others, in a kind of mystical faith that was backed up by mathematics and hothouse physics, figured that a few hundred quantum processors, tuned just right, could connect with their counterparts in an infinite number of parallel worlds, and just-like-that, something marvelous and God-like would pop into being.

 

The one thing no one expected was for it to happen by accident, arising from a high school science fair experiment.

 

I mean, wow ain’t it strange that a half-brilliant tweak by sixteen-year-old Marguerita deSilva leaped past the accomplishments of every major laboratory, by uploading into cyberspace a perfect duplicate of the little mind, personality, and instincts of her pet rat, Porfirio?

 

And wow ain’t it strange that Porfirio proliferated, grabbing resources and expanding, in patterns and spirals that remain—to this day—so deeply and quintessentially ratlike?

 

Not evil, all-consuming, or even predatory—thank heavens. But insistent.

 

And Wow, AIST there is a worldwide betting pool, now totaling up to a billion Brazilian reals—over whether Marguerita will end up bankrupt, from all the lawsuits over lost data and computer cycles that have been gobbled up by Porfirio? Or else, if she’ll become the world’s richest person—because so many newer ais are based upon her patents? Or maybe because she alone seems to retain any sort of influence over Porfirio, luring his feral, brilliant attention into virtlayers and corners of the Worldspace where he can do little harm? So far.

 

And WAIST we are down to this? Propitiating a virtual Rat God—(you see, Porfirio, I remembered to capitalize your name, this time)—so that he’ll be patient and leave us alone. That is, until humans fully succeed where Viktor Frankenstein calamitously failed?

 

To duplicate the deSilva Result and provide her creation with a mate.

 

 

 

A few ideas distilled down in that excerpt? There are others.

 

But heck, have you seen that novel’s dramatic and fun 3-minute trailer? All hand-made art from the great Patrick Farley!

 

And while we’re on the topic: Here I read (aloud of course) chapter two of Existence, consisting of the stand alone story “Aficionado.”

 

  

BTW, in EXISTENCE I refer to the US Space Force.  Not my biggest prediction, but another hit.

 

Now... off to the World SciFi Convention...

 

A debate about saving democracy, that will likely (needlessly) be lost

As Robert Heinlein's predictions keep coming true... (e.g. "crazy years" followed by oppressive theocracy)... I hear more formerly moderate/accommodating friends  refer to the scenario in Heinlein's REVOLT IN 2100 as the only likely way that decency, honor and sapience can ever be restored to the Republic.

And so... a press release of genuine importance: 

"On September 4 in New York and streaming online, Open to Debate hosts: “Should the U.S. Be Ruled by a CEO Dictator?” An 

idea gaining traction in some partisan circles and embraced by some high-profile Silicon Valley figures. Championed by Curtis Yarvin, self-described neo-monarchist and founder of "Dark Enlightenment," claiming that democracy has failed and is too slow to meet today’s challenges. The Dictator CEO he proposes, would cut through red tape, challenge institutions and deliver efficiencies.

"Glen Weyl, will argue NO. Consolidating power under a single leader undermines core values of democracy fundamental to America’s political system. History is also filled with examples of autocratic leadership leading to economic ruin and catastrophic decision-making. American democracy might be messy, but let’s focus on making it better, not abandoning it.

"The debate will be held on Thursday, September 4 at 7:00 PM ET at Racket NYC and stream live online." (Someone do a search and offer links in comments?)

== A needed debate -- and a likely disaster ==

Okay, I knew Yarvin when he was a fringe online harasser scampering for attention as "Mencius Moldbug." He was a jibbering ingrate then, howling that 'incels' -- or 'involuntarily celibate' white men -- should be given women of their choice, in order to slake their appetites.  This core motivation serves today, as he suborns rich males by invoking implicit - or even explicit - images of Harems for the Deserving. 

I do not exaggerate any of that, even slightly! Indeed, I've elsewhere dissected this disease and its most pustulatory Yarvin excrescence. See a tomographic scan of this would-be Machiavelli.

Alas, I doubt that Glen Weyl - for all his good intentions and passion at defending the Democratic Enlightenment - will do much more that fall into Yarvin's many traps, providing this neo-Goebbels with a platform, incrementally building his following.  Above all, Weyl should not depend upon defending democracy as 'good' or embodying 'fundamental values.' That approach will only be persuasive to those who already support the moral argument. (As I do.)  

Many will be drawn by romantic visions of glorious rightful kings and chosen-ones -- notions spread not just by Arthurian legends, but relentlessly by Hollywood, via Tolkien's Aragorn or Dune's Atreides or Jedi demigods and their ilk.  These folks will nod in 'sad realism' as Yarvin denounces 'mob rule,' and calls for iron fisted stability. They shrug off appeals to democratic ideals and rights as sappy naĩvete. 

Others, who have fallen under the spell of cyclical history -- e.g. the cult of the Fourth Turning -- will accept dictatorship under the assumption that it's only a 'temporary' manifestation of a Time of Heroes -- til democracy can resume under a less decadent generation. Either way, these romantic incantation spells are immune to rebuttal. Both variants are perfectly adept at shrugging off moral defenses of citizen sovereignty.

There is one takedown that works! And that is to cite practical outcomes. 

Demand (as I have done, many times) that Yarvin name even a single kingship -- amid 6000 years of pervasive feudalism by inheritance brats and across five continents -- that ever had a continuous period of spectacular progress and accomplishment like America's recent 25 decades!

Indeed, tally the sum accomplishments of ALL historic kingdoms -- combined! Does that total come close to matching the feats and deeds and wonders wrought by Americans in just a single human lifetime, since the WWII GI Bill Generation -- using Democratic tools and public investment and Rule of Law -- truly made America great?

Defy Yarvin to support his bald-faced assertions of democracy's 'failure' by actually tabulating those compared accomplishments! Shouldn't ingrate yammerers demanding that we chuck out all the traits that gave them cushy lives bear some burden of proof?

Contrast our nation-of-opportunity vs. the stunning waste of talent that festered under feudalism, when rigged dominance by inheritance brats crushed social mobility. And thus, the best that any bright youngster might hope-for would be to follow his father's trade - beset by 'lordly' gangster protection rackets - amid cauterized ambition or hope! 

Show us any other era when a majority of kids were healthy and educated enough -- and fearlessly empowered -- to compete or cooperate fairly and to rise up by virtue of their merits and deeds, rather than inherited status? Empowered to take on elites with creative startups, for example? The one American trait that the world's inheritance brats are determined to expunge.

Ask about the Greatest Generation, so admired (in muzzy abstract) by today's gone-mad right. The GI Bill generation who built mighty universities and science and civil rights and the flattest-fairest society ever seen, till then... and who admired one living human above all others, Franklin Roosevelt. 

And who next - in the 1950s - revered almost as much a fellow named Jonas Salk.

Demand that Moldbug address that word -- competition -- which liberals today use far too little, especially since Adam Smith was the true founder of their movement!* A word that used to be a talisman for conservatism, but that U.S. conservatives never mention at all, nowadays. A word describing the exact thing that kingship directly suppresses. A word that will be utterly gelded, should Yarvin's acolytes have their way.

Mention the only other times that our way was tried... Periclean Athens and daVinci's Florence... early experiments whose accomplishments still shine across ages of feudal darkness.

Or the fact that only democracy has ever penetrated the curtain of delusion and flattery that always... always... surrounds mighty rulers. Even geniuses like Napoleon. Indeed, the central purpose and benefit of democracy is to apply accountability even upon top elites. Allowing the best of them to notice their errors and correct them under the searing medicine of criticism.

This approach -- and not goody-two-shoes moralizing about 'fundamental values' -- should be the obvious core of any rebuttal. Alas, I have learned that the obvious is often not-so. 

We are in our nadir-equivalent of 1862, when an earlier phase of the same struggle seemed hopeless to the Union... until -- (may it happen soon!) -- we find generals who are willing to try new tactics. New ideas. And the power of maneuver, when humanity's future is on the line.

Addendum: I will append below a photostat of Bertrand Russell’s forceful yet dignified letter of refusal to debate a British fascist, a response to Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley (the most despised Briton in 1000 years). I am not quite so mature that I would refuse to debate Mr. Yarvin. But Russell expressed himself brilliantly.

== Another sad case of giving in to gloom ==

I meant to stop there. But the gloom jeremiads roll on and on, helping no one. Take Chris Hedges' "Reign of Idiots".  

 "The idiots take over in the final days of crumbling civilizations. Idiot generals wage endless, unwinnable wars that bankrupt the nation. Idiot economists call for reducing taxes for the rich and cutting social service programs for the poor, and project economic growth on the basis of myth. Idiot industrialists poison the water, the soil and the air, slash jobs and depress wages. Idiot bankers gamble on self-created financial bubbles and impose crippling debt peonage on the citizens. Idiot journalists and public intellectuals pretend despotism is democracy. Idiot intelligence operatives orchestrate the overthrow of foreign governments to create lawless enclaves that give rise to enraged fanatics. Idiot professors, “experts” and “specialists” busy themselves with unintelligible jargon and arcane theory that buttresses the policies of the rulers. Idiot entertainers and producers create lurid spectacles of sex, gore and fantasy. There is a familiar checklist for extinction. We are ticking off every item on it."

 

Did you enjoy reading that? Shaking your head in sad resignation over the inevitable stoopidity of your fellow citizens? Did it occur to you that's what our enemies want from you?  

 

This rant-essay by Hedges begins by raving about idiocy without any irony over its own idiocy: 

"The idiots take over in the final days of crumbling civilizations....  

"There is a familiar checklist for extinction. We are ticking off every item on it."

 

Feh! And get bent, you perfect example of the thing you denounce! 

 

Never before in all of history has a nation had greater numbers - or a higher percentages - of wise and smart and knowing people. And not just at the maligned universities, or in the under-attack civil service, or our brilliant (but under-siege) officer corps, or in the streets. We have more (and higher percentages of) brilliant/wise folks than all other nations and societies across all of time... combined. 

 

Indeed, assailing and curbing and demoralizing all of the smart people is the shared goal of both MAGA lumpenprols and the world oligarchs who puppet them. Proving they are idiots, because it simply cannot succeed. 

What? Hey, oligarchs! Your plan is to intimidate and crush the hundred million smartest in society? The ones who know cyber, nano, nuclear, bio and all the rest?  That is your plan? Oh, you will not like us, when we finally get mad.

 

And yet, dopes like Chris Hedges yowl that it is working. It has to work. because you are all fooooools!

== May we find comfort and precedents in earlier, righteous victories ==

I'm reminded of a different phase of the recurring American Civil War, when (like today) the Union side needed... and then got... better generals. 

      Take, in particular, a moment - right after the Battle of the Wilderness - when Ulysses S. Grant heard his underlings whining about "What Bobby Lee is going to do to us next." 

Grant stood up and growled:

"STOP fretting about what Bobby Lee is gonna do to us. Start planning what we will do to Bobby Lee!"

There are a jillion fresh tactics we can use in this fight for civilization... like getting all the dems in GOP districts to re-register as Republicans, which would (for one thing) protect them from being purged out of the voter rolls. But also, it would truly screw up the radicals' Radicatization-via-Primary tactic. And weaken gerrymandering,

But in order to get started, we need first to stand up like confident women and men and reject idiocies like this "Reign of Idiots" bullshit whine. 

It contains some truths, sure, about the gang of criminal fools who have seized our institutions in their Project 2025 / KGB-planned putsch. And it's true that the polemical skills of Democrats could not possibly be worse.

But truths - out of context - can be lies. And Hedges's jeremiad could not have been better written by some Kremlin basement Goebbels, seeking to demoralize us. 

And fuck that, you tool of monsters.

== And finally... ==

Robert Reich assesses Newsom's proposal for voters to allow CA, OR and WA to re-gerrymander until Texas, Florida and N.Carolina stop. Blue voters in the west ENDED the foul crime years ago. But may be talked into temporary retaliation vs confederate cheaters.

Note, Red states are also planning to purge voter rolls! Tell all your friends to prevent being purged by RE-REGISTERING AS REPUBLICANS. Hold your nose and do it, as I did!

The only practical effects will be (1) to protect your voting rights and (2) let you vote in the only election that matters anymore in those states, the Republican primary.

See 1st comment below for how I have long proposed we deal with gerrymandering. But for now... it's over to you. Stand up.

-------

*Adam Smith - Liberals, you must reclaim him." 

Some lighthearted stuff this time! Plus a few sobering reminders.

All right, it's been 3 weeks without a posting. Busy, as we finally move back home after 6 months in exile.  And sure, there's plenty going on in the world. Which I'll comment on soon, once my 3-week lobotomy has had a chance to settle in. (All hail Vlad and the New USSR and Vlad's orange-quisling U.S. prophet!)

Okay, meanwhile, got time for some humor and fun? There's a LOT of cool links, below!

Let’s start with this clip… Simply one of the best things I have seen, maybe ever!  Supporting my view that ‘pre-sapient’ consciousness is very, very common… and breaking through the glass ceiling to our level must be very, very hard. 

== Distractions! ==

Running short on distractions suitable for you alpha types? I mentioned Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comix. These are among the good ones lately.

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/why-6

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/law-4

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/profile

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/cult-2

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - LLM And an exceptionally on-target whimsy cynicism from SMBC…

You'd also likely enjoy XKCD, which is generally even more science oriented. Might as well start here and just keep clicking the one-step-backward button till you tire of the cleverness!  

I mentioned Electric Sheep Comix by Patrick Farley. All his serials have such different styles you'd be sure they must have different artists. And all are brilliant! 

== And seriously, now ==

Briefly serious and then more lighthearted stuff!

Here’s a tip and a tool worth spreading. The Canadian Women's Foundation has created a hand signal for those who are victims of domestic violence which can be used silently on video calls during the coronavirus crisis to signal for help.  But not just for video calls, as illustrated in this earlier video.

And while we’re talking inspiring ways to move ahead… Big star Bruce Springsteen’s Jeep commercial paid homage to the ReUnited States of America… a lovely sentiment! (Calling to mind “malice toward none” from Lincoln’s 2nd inaugural address, one of the top ten speeches of all time.) 

It also called to mind - for not a few folks who pinged me - resonance with the “Restored United States” of my novel (and the film) “The Postman.” Which has itself been “restored” or refreshed, edited and updated with TWO new Patrick Farley covers and a new introduction. 

(Let me append -- below -- a relevant passage from The Postman, in which -- in the 1980s -- I predicted many of the rationalizations of the would-be lords seeking to re-impose 6000 years of dismal feudalism)

On the other hands, the dumbing-down continues. In 2022, the National Council of Teachers of English declared: “Time to decenter book reading and essay-writing as the pinnacles of English language arts education.” Instead, teachers are urged to focus on "media literacy" and short texts that students feel are "relevant." ??? I am well-versed on the 'newer' language arts and helped invent some. And this leads to the moronic world that Walter Tevis ('The Queen's Gambit') portrayed in his great novel MOCKINGBIRD. 

But oh yeah. who reads novels? Or tracks coherent, complex thoughts?

Dig it. This is part of the Great Big War Vs Nerds that's primarily on the Mad Right... but also has long had a strong locus on the postmodernist left.

Books r 2 hard 2 reed and shit ...

…but sure… now back to fun!

== And more spritely and musically now, to cheer you up! ==

And now something completely different. I assert that Gilbert and Sullivan were master musicians. And in each opera they has at least one pas-de-deux... where you take two seemingly completely independent songs, hear them separately, and then lo! They get woven together in beauty & irony. This one combines unhelpful encouragement (!) with courage-despite-terror. You'll see (and hear) what I mean at about 3:30. Play it loud!

This version with the incomparable Linda Rondstadt!

And yes, a few of you (too few!) will deem this familiar from a scene in BRIGHTNESS REEF!

And let’s have another. Here’s one of my utter-favorite songs, by Vangelis. The Jon Anderson version is great. Donna Summer’s is even better!

Less perfect but a fun variation is Chrissie Hynde’s version with Moodswings.

Then there’s this way-fun bit of grunting nonsense by Mike Oldfield, that should be redone by Tenacious D!

Three more faves recommended by my brother, with my thumbs way up.

Johnny Clegg with Nelson Mandela. 

Patty Smith, People Have the Power.  

Cornershop ‘Free Love.’ 

======

== And now that promised POSTMAN lagniappe ==

So it had been that way here too. The cliched "last straw" had been this plague of survivalists--particularly those following the high priest of violent anarchy, Nathan Holn.
...
The irony of it was that we had things turned around! The depression was over. People were at work again and cooperating. Except for a few crazies, it looked like a renaissance was coming, for America and the world.

But we forgot how much harm a few crazies could do, in America and in the world.

 

--… and later in the book… --

 

 

“How did he get away with pushing a book like this?”

       Gordon shrugged. 

       “It was called ‘the Big Lie’ technique, Johnny. Just SOUND like you know what you’re talking about—as if you’re citing real facts. Talk very fast. Weave your lies into the shape of a conspiracy theory and repeat your assertions over and over again. Those who want an excuse to hate or blame—those with big but weak egos— will leap at a simple, neat explanation for the way the world is. Those types will never call you on the facts…”

Want more?  I'll post another, longer, section of the book, soon. You'll likely not see a better pre-diagnosis of the hell we are in now, verging on possibly much worse.  But yes, we will win.

Thrive. And persevere!