Sorry, I’ve been away for awhile. I’ve been meaning to reply to this though…
Yes! Very eloquently put. I can definitely identify with your interpretation and approach. I look at much of it in a similar way.
Thank you for the Shane Dawson video too. I agree that it is a bit sensationalized, but I am glad that more people are being exposed to the ideas short of watching videos on “AI Safety”.
That sense of “overwhelm” and “numbing” is tricky…Sometimes we are unwilling to consider other options when we are stuck within something familiar, even if going in another direction would be of great benefit to us. The problem is compounded when there are so many aspects to life competing for our attention, some of which are engineered to be manipulative as well. Building an “upward spiral” out of the hole can be a process, though I remain ever hopeful.
Click here to go further into the 'deep end'...intense ranting mostly about 'AI' and adjacent tech; making wild and sweeping conjectures about the past, present, and future
Please note that I will try to paint a vast picture in broad strokes, to make general patterns distinct. The specific people or groups that are mentioned do not matter much in this regard. I use a lot of U.S. history in my examples simply because it is convenient. The patterns still apply to other times and places. Likewise, everything that I link to is not necessarily a full endorsement of its contents, just ideas to think about. Backup whatever you find useful. To begin…
I won’t go too far into “hermeneutics” (the interpretation of texts) or “eschatology” (the study of the “end times” concept) here, but I think it is worthwhile to unpack these symbols a little bit so that the complex metaphors that they are a part of might become more clear. They provide a useful lens into human history (and the eventual consequences of human decisions should that trajectory continue on the path that it is on now)…To give one interpretation…
Broadly speaking, I would consider an “anti-christ” as ulterior motives masked by seemingly kind actions, achieving one’s aims through manipulation. It is the prototypical “wolf in sheep’s clothing”. Indeed, it is an inversion of what would make someone “Christ-like” (i.e.: forgiveness expressed through genuine compassion, protecting the innocent through self-sacrifice, serving others in humility, being steadfast in virtue, sharing information and healing without thought of “gain”, and so on). It is also somewhat distinct from a “satan”, which is achieving one’s aims through outright force or violence. [Note: The Hebrew word “satan” literally means “adversary”.] They can generally be thought of as beliefs or actions that are against true Oneness. When selfish hedonism is taken to its limit, we might think of them as related to the characteristics of “the dark triad”.
Similarly, I would consider a “beast” as something driven wholly by bodily appetites (“the flesh”). A “mark of the beast” would indicate allegiance to a “beast” or “ownership” by another, like a cattle brand. [Note: It is said to appear “on the head and hands” and related to the ability to “buy and sell”. One can interpret that how they will. Expressed in thoughts and actions? Associated with the ideas of “currency” or “economics”? Encompassing the notion of “chattel slavery” or of “slavery” in general? “D. All of the Above”?]
I could understand how a person could interpret individual pieces of tech related to those concepts as “Thee Mark”, but it is the convergence of many destructive trends that I have personally found worrying for a long time now.
They almost always have an “anti-christ” quality to them, a sort of intentional “bait-and-switch” that takes advantage of an unintentional confusion in application. For example, a pacemaker can literally be a life-saving piece of technology, a machine integrated into the body to keep someone alive. But implanting RFID chips simply for the “convenience” of not having to hold keys, remember passwords, and so on? How long until that is used to create a worldwide “prison without bars”? And not the happy Finnish kind either, but one that is inescapable because it invades the sanctity of one’s own body.
As you’ve pointed out, neural implants open up “a whole other can of worms”. In my opinion, the reasoning behind it fails on multiple fronts. For example, Elon Musk states that he fears what “AI” might be capable of and that the only way to lessen the impact is to “merge” with it, offering a “if you can’t beat them, join them” kind of scenario for the few who would probably be able to afford such an option. Meanwhile, the implantable Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) made by Neuralink are developed to help those with traumatic brain injuries regain bodily function (admirable)…but with the eventual goal of allowing for the aforementioned “merging” (questionable at best). Elon, I think you’ve gotten the wrong lessons from the storyline of Deus Ex.
It is intriguing that humanity has repeatedly been at this crossroads before, like with Jose Delgado’s experiments and his conjecture on how it would impact society. And he’s hardly alone in that regard, it is just that so much of the research has been “memory holed” that most people don’t know about it, such as the work of Leo Baranski. For a long time now, that kind of human experimentation hasn’t only been done for the sake of “eugenics” or “mind control” power trips, but also as an attempt to fulfill various “transhumanist” fantasies. Yes, the corruption runs incredibly deep. Thankfully, we do not have to try to understand it all to be free of it. Our personal alignment is evidenced in each of the decisions that we make.
Just because we “can” does NOT mean that we “should”. Hubris rushes people into building what could easily spiral out of control past the point of no return into utter oblivion. At what point does the collapse of all planetary systems that are essential to life become completely irreversible and death becomes imminent? Before or after the “immune system” kicks in?
It would seem that many people keep trying to outsource their thinking to things that they do not understand…
For example, when programming a computer, we reduce a more complex process into a set of tasks or instructions that can be done step-by-step, whereas “AI” is equivalent to building up associations through statistics. Both actions are sometimes referred to as “algorithms” though, such as within the terms “algorithmic thinking” and “machine learning algorithms”.
An analogy that I like to use is that “AI” is similar to a water filter that gets better at filtering specific particles out as more water moves through it. This is why nearly every use of it is akin to some form of mimicry and limited to very specific tasks. I do not see any of it as “intelligent” per se, more like sophisticated “automation”. That is not to say that we are far from creating “AGI” though, and one could make some educated guesses as to what would be necessary in order to do so. But to what end?
Technology has long outpaced humankind’s moral development and often serves to increase alienation from one another. Notice how that is reflected within the problems highlighted within Shane’s video, such as impersonating others for malicious purposes (e.g.: blackmail / extortion), and people becoming addicted to relationships that are only simulations to the point of self-harm.
There is another significant danger as well: When any process that is vital to life has been completely “automated”, catastrophic failure can mean loss of life. And the danger multiplies exponentially as the technology is scaled up and integrated into every little thing to the point where it is inescapable. To what degree is any of it needed? We are in a “Tower of Babel” situation where humankind is worshiping an idol of their own making. We haven’t quite yet learned that idols have no power and that we should stop putting our faith in them.
“Automation” itself is not bad, but it has to be used with the utmost of care. It is great when an activity that is necessary, but also dangerous or mind-numbingly repetitive for humans to do, is replaced by a computer / robot. What is a tragedy is that we have no system in place to meet everyone’s basic needs without the fictions of “money” and “jobs”. I think many people realize on some level that we are trying to “automate” the “wrong” thing, human qualities that cannot be “automated”, like creativity, empathy, and agency.
Despite its “algorithmic biases”, is there anything that “AI” is helpful for then? It can be incredibly useful for finding patterns within large amounts of data, but one must still know enough about the subjects to recognize when it is meaningful or just coherent looking gibberish. And further, must be humble and kind enough to apply that understanding towards everyone’s benefit.
If there is a real concern for “AI” ethics and accuracy, then we need to make the preservation of all life a priority by default and design virtues into the models as best as possible. If it is going to be used as a tool to aid one’s reasoning then, at the very least, it should be trained to determine cognitive biases and logical fallacies.
Likewise, in order for “AI” to become “free software” (that serves both the individual and collective), how it is developed matters too:
- The code behind the model that analyzes the data would need to be completely free and open source in every sense (i.e.: source code easily available at no cost and shared with a copyleft license like the GPL).
- The data sets that are used for training would need to be completely public domain and accessible to everyone.
- The training would only be done on a volunteer basis, not for hire. (STOP abusing the poor through “gig work”!)
- There would need to be no corporate or government “sponsorships”, nor “subscription-based services”, to finance the project. It would also need to be regularly watched over by multiple independent groups without any vested interest in it.
- Every aspect of development would need to be transparent and carefully logged in a public forum (e.g.: “This is what we are doing explained in detail.”).
Doing so would require “Christ-like” qualities by everyone involved, true altruism and self-sacrifice without thought of “gain”. Who is willing to act on that, and not just say “nice” things on paper?
While it is better than “nothing”, I don’t know if “more regulation” will necessarily help all that much in the context of a social system that is already thoroughly “broken”. How much of that is by design? What are “laws” to people who do not exercise their conscience and feel that they can violate them without consequence? Again, only virtuous actions motivated by genuine compassion for others is going to matter in the end.
All that said, I’m hesitant to paint any situation as “us” versus “them”, as that often leads to a perpetual “back-and-forth”. There are many people caught up in the system that have good intentions, and everyone acts from the context of their own experiences, doing whatever they think is best. But I also know that all of the structures of this world that are founded upon destructiveness or “sin”, which includes all of the “wealth” and “knowledge” accumulated through the abuse of others, are going to come crashing down with incredible force. This is why I mentioned that specific section of Revelation, with particular emphasis on the happenings of chapter 18.
I am simply a voice crying out in the wilderness, offering a word of warning and a prayer of Mercy for All. It is never too late to turn away from evil and willingly choose virtue. I honestly say all of this out of Agapic Love, not a “holier-than-thou” attitude. I myself am imperfect and we all need to work together to get out of this mess. A violent collapse of the infrastructure that everyone relies upon for survival is not something that I want, but I think we can safely make “a prosperous descent” towards a more peaceful way of living for all if we sincerely try.
…Well, if you’ve ventured this far into the deep with me, might as well be “fully submerged”. If the above rambling didn’t scare you off yet, then the rest will probably sound absolutely nuts…How do “satan”, “the anti-christ”, and the “beast” rule the world? On an individual level, those forces operate through people the more that they entertain and do destructive things. But how does it unfold collectively (i.e.: on a large scale and over the long-term)? Let’s put on our tin foil hats and speculate together…
Spoiler Alert!
In 2001, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty was released, a video game about how an “AI” was developed to secretly run The White House. If the documentarian Adam Curtis is to be believed, then something like that might actually be the case in real life. He does interesting research. While I don’t necessarily agree with all of his conclusions, this would not surprise me in the least. The supposedly “free market” seems to be guided by such systems, and it is highly likely that large portions of governments and businesses all over the globe have converged to create an entire arsenal of “Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars” that control the “world economy”. Why and how?
I wasn’t kidding with that specific reference to Nineteen Eighty-Four. Does the vast majority of society function as an artificial cycle of perpetual and total war motivated by hyper-consumerism, commodification, and planned obsolescence that is conditioned into the majority of the populace through “education” and “media”…all for the sake of endlessly creating and sustaining severe despotism, of one “ruling over” another? There is a huge amount of “automation” at work within that structure, both in the literal sense of complex computer networks and in the figurative sense of people acting unconsciously.
On the surface, it would seem to be controlled by the “deep state” (i.e.: the “secret” departments within the various alphabet organizations) of each country, and spiders out through a vast multinational web of “defense contractors”, “think tanks”, “NGOs”, and other institutions that operate with little public oversight. Taken as a whole, they function as a kind of “managerial class” that builds and maintains that automation on behalf of its benefactors. One can easily trace out parts of its historical development, especially if they pay attention to the movement of money prior to wars and the control of land after wars, particularly by “puppet dictators” put in place by black ops like “Operation Gladio”.
Once an area is overtaken, then a kind of “corporatism” takes place, where larger businesses and governments decide how they want to divide up the people and resources according to their own interests. In areas that are relatively more affluent, the larger number of people who can act semi-autonomously from their nation-state (i.e.: the “middle class”) is collapsed by turning just about everything related to living into “financial instruments” of some kind, and by progressively “militarizing” the police while increasing surveillance…It becomes control through debt, “wage slavery”, and the constant threat of violence. What happens when this kind of data logging merges with the operation of “black sites”? A worldwide Holocaust of “enemies of the state”?
Governments and large businesses continually feedback into one another in what we might call a “Military-Industrial Complex”. Together, they create a massive system of centralized planning. The pattern is pretty consistent and it doesn’t matter much if they are considered “communist”, “socialist”, “capitalist”, “democratic”, “fascist”, or something else. When viewed over multiple generations, it transcends international borders and becomes progressively more “totalitarian”, where every aspect of society is controlled by a relatively small authoritarian “elite” and an associated mob through which they derive power.
For example [content warning]: After WWII, the CIA exported Nazi scientists to various countries through “Operation Paperclip” to facilitate human experimentation in “brainwashing”. A similar thing was done with the scientists of Imperial Japan during U.S. occupation. It is claimed that its purpose was to create a kind of idealized soldier, a “Manchurian Canidate”, but it was more generally about complete control of the human mind. Some of it was absolutely depraved and sadistic, like the “research” that led to some of the torture techniques behind the Abu Ghraib scandal and more…I will spare you the details. Meanwhile, corporate “research” into “public relations” was attempting to control mass psychology through “advertising”. It paralleled and converged with government “research” into “propaganda”, attempts to “weaponize” culture itself. News can often become a “controlled opposition” for swaying public opinion. Notice how much of it serves to “fetishize” violence in order to justify war, or uses the aura of journalistic truth and integrity to sell products through “video news releases”. I “opt out”, thank you.
…But how does all of that relate to “AI”?
Awhile back, a friend had sent me a video where someone had used “AI” to duplicate the voice actors within the above cutscene from Metal Gear Solid 2 in order to make a parody of it. The dialogue they wrote is insightful. It tells the story of how the introduction of “AI” tools to the public is a “trojan horse” by a corrupt government, with the eventual aim of controlling the “fifth estate” (i.e.: independent publishing on the Internet). I will quote part of it here (with an extra link added by me):
By arming the public with these AI weapons, everyone becomes a potential enemy combatant. Then we will have justification for unprecedented security measures. […] This AI technology is Pandora’s Box. Pretty soon, the Internet will be mired in total illusion. Perfect AI speech, audio, and video synthesis will drown out reality. Then AI bots will flood social media. No one will be able to tell the difference between interacting with an AI machine or a real human online. Even telephone calls will become totally untrustworthy. That is when we will present our solution: Mandatory digital identity verification for all humans, at all times. The only way to ensure that you’re dealing with a real flesh and blood human being, and not an AI generated mirage. […] Total information control. For too long the Internet has acted as a double-edged sword. Its potential for anonymous user activity allows anyone at all to spread any thoughts, ideas, or information patterns that they please, with impunity. State secrets, dangerous ideas, ludicrous conspiracy theories… Misinformation and disinformation. Until now there has been no easy solution to this problem. Our digital identity platform will finally put an end to anonymity online…
Again, all of those centralized planning systems, no matter what ideology they are said to be founded upon, will eventually degrade into progressively more extreme forms of totalitarianism. So, everything mentioned here (i.e.: the brain chips, the “smart cities”, and on and on ad infinitum) may ultimately be attempts to build some kind of “Matrix”…It seems that many people are unaware of the inhuman/nonhuman evil that rules this world. It inverts everything lovely until the very idea of Oneness is twisted to create hell on earth.
But it is an “old devil” hiding behind a seemingly “new” technological face. One can map out the oscillations of “empires” and the patterns of manipulation that aid in the creation of those gigantic idols throughout the human timeline. It reaches all the way back into its origins within prehistory, continually changing in external form but retaining its inner essence. For example, the creation of weapons is an act of death worship and wars are giant ritual human sacrifices, as they always have been. What perpetuates them is only an idea, what the theologian/activist Walter Wink names The Myth of Redemptive Violence:
The story that the rulers of … societies told each other and their subordinates is what we today might call the Myth of Redemptive Violence. It enshrines the belief that violence saves, that war brings peace, that might makes right. It is one of the oldest continuously repeated stories in the world.
Anger often arises from a sense of injustice, but violent rebellion usually leads to more tyranny. The only thing that can transform that lie is true Agapic Love, the kind that says, “In caring for you I am caring for myself. Therefore, let us serve one another.” In that, Christ has returned, “The Second Coming” has been fulfilled. To quote Isaiah 2:4…
“He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.”
…Hypothetically speaking, let’s say that the “levels of AI” and the predictions about when they will come into existence are accurate. Why is a “doomsday scenario” the only conclusion ever offered? Is it an attempt to fill people with fear so that they are coerced into giving up even more of their ability to reason and make decisions for themselves?
It seems just as likely that some kind of “super intelligence” would conclude that what makes humanity a danger to themselves is a lack of clear communication and empathy for each other’s basic needs. It would then proceed to translate and dump important research on the production of energy, food, and other essentials that has been arbitrarily “classified” onto darknets en masse so that it could not be suppressed by any one group that would use that knowledge against any other. At that point, the entire notion of “government” and “business” would collapse because people could finally take care of themselves without any intermediaries. Simultaneously leveling all inequalities without destroying any pre-existing infrastructure or harming any person is the ultimate “bloodless coup”. Rather than “mutually assured destruction”, we have “Mutually Beneficial Construction” forevermore, Heaven on Earth made manifest. But one cannot see it if their “theology” is one of dominion rather than liberation.
Ooops…Did the evil attempting to operate through this world “checkmate” itself?
Within this post we’ve only briefly touched upon some of the spiritual and historical dimensions of our current timeline. The next one will go more into the psychological and sociological aspects, attempting to understand what they are and how to heal them. If for some reason I am unable to return, know that the work continues throughout eternity within every action motivated by genuine care for another. Peace 
I hate Facebook lol. I tried to link an instagram account to double schedule site features but my account is apparently restricted and they won’t tell me why. 
The only way I can possibly fix it is if I submit my ID in an appeal, but I’m not doing that. Sometimes I feel like they do this stuff on purpose just to try and mine more data out of people. 
