Disclaimer
In accordance with the literal ‘plain English’ meaning of the following words the author in no way condones, authorises, consents to or agrees with any of the tactics, scenarios, situations, behaviours or contexts referred to below, be they written or take the form of images or YouTubes.
The author neither authorises nor condones the creation, use or deployment of A.I. or any actual or hypothetical methods such an A.I. might utilise – either of its own volition or as an expression of the wishes of its creator(s) – to manufacture consent by means of deception, intimidation or any other tactic, either directly or through the use of so-called ‘human beings’ (a.k.a. walkie-talkie mobile phonies, avatars, and so on). This disclaimer also extends to cover the actions of actual human beings (should any exist) that might seek to employ such tactics and methods in pursuit of their own agenda.
The terms of this disclaimer apply retrospectively and thereby nullify any form of so-called consent obtained by any method other than the author’s knowing and conscious affirmation. Likewise, the terms of this disclaimer also apply to, and thereby nullify, any and all future attempts to obtain consent by any method or tactic other than the author’s knowing and conscious affirmation, given freely and without duress.
The contexts and scenarios referred to in this post are hypothetical and provided for descriptive purposes only. They do not necessarily represent the author’s actual point of view and are not to be interpreted as prescriptive, i.e. they are not contexts, scenarios and behaviours that the author wishes to bring into existence. Nor are they contexts, scenarios and behaviours that the author wishes to experience as his ‘reality’.
Introduction
Let me start by saying that I’m not taking a stab at anyone in particular, merely trying to understand what – if anything – those aware of ‘The Program’ are trying to achieve and why. Is there really anybody out there? Anyone real? Anyone trustworthy? Anyone who isn’t playing an angle or jockeying for position? Does anyone really think that there’s something to be gained from this?
What do you think ‘it’ is? A game? What sort of game, exactly? One that requires you to live your life vicariously, deciphering messages from ‘The Program’ in return for…what, exactly? What do you get in return? Pixelized distortions of yourself – some flattering, some not – flashed across the monitor or TV screen. Wouldn’t you rather live your life, instead of watching it stream by one megabyte at a time?
Do you think you’re either ‘winning’ or stand to win something? Somebody out there seems to think so. Consider the Romans for example. Did they ‘win’? Two thousand years ago they must have looked at the map and thought “Wow, we’ve got it all sown up! All we need to do is conquer a few more shitty little provinces and the world is ours!” And where are they now?
State of Play
I’ll call it as I see it: as far as I can tell it’s the same as this time last year, and the year before, and the year before that. The same characters pushing out the same material, and going nowhere in a hurry as a result. Here are my thoughts on the matter.
Counter-finalities
Which are what, exactly?
Counter-finality is a concept from the Critique of Dialectical Reason (Critique de la raison dialectique), which is developed in the famous passage on “Chinese deforestation”. Through this concept, Sartre describes a situation where a conscious collective project, with a clear and precise purpose, produces consequences that are strictly opposed to the initial objectives of its actors.
The example given by Sartre refers to an attempt by the Chinese state to increase food production by clearing forests. It must have seemed like an obvious solution, but this seemingly easy win became an epic fail: the resulting flooding removed the topsoil and rendered the reclaimed land useless for cultivation. More (and perhaps more relevant) examples can be found in the descent into tyranny that so often follows a so-called “People’s Revolution”.
Web 3.0, a.k.a. The Semantic Web
The basic principle of the ‘semantic web’ is that ‘the machine’ supposedly learns from ‘us’: likes, dislikes, behavioural patterns, etc. If this is the case then what has ‘The Program’ learned from us? Or to put it another way, if we bicker, fight over trivia, troll one another and generally act like spoilt self-obsessed children then what would such a ‘program’ learn? Peace, love and goodwill?
Scraping the shit
After nearly thirteen years and thousands of hours I’ve found nothing to indicate that there’s a deeper truth waiting to be revealed. Are you frustrated to find yourself living in a world that feels mechanised or ‘programmed’? Perhaps this is nothing more than a case of ‘The Program’ learning from the behaviour of those aware of it?
Are you a ‘blog addict’? Have you spent years pushing out two or three articles per week (or per day in some cases), repeatedly iterating over the same subject matter? Is your content based on a template instantly recognisable to anyone familiar with Natural Language Processing? Specifically, word play, looking for ‘sounds like’ words that give an article or headline a new ‘meaning’ or context, looking at the root origin or etymology of words, and so on. Isn’t this what ‘The Program’ itself does?
In short, do you have a ‘gambling’ addiction or variation thereof?
The Analyst
Those who complain that they feel they’re being watched by an ‘anal-yst’ should consider this: how much time do you invest analysing ‘The Program’? Because if scouring news stories and YouTubes (the programmer’s term for this is ‘web scraping’) for occult symbolism, hidden meaning, rhyming words, etymology, etc., isn’t a form of analysis then I don’t know what is.
If you don’t like ‘The Analyst’, i.e. if you don’t like the idea that someone or something might have ‘oversight’ of your activities, then perhaps you should consider vacating that particular role and find something more fruitful and productive to do?
Hansel and Gretel
It’s obvious to me that walking in circles whilst leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for yourself to discover and rediscover time and time again is no way to live a life. How many years are going to tick by before you take that lesson to heart and move on? Or to put it another way, how many years will you allow ‘The Program’ to take from you?
The song I’d like you to listen to starts at 4:51, but maybe listen to it all? The first song contains the line “This is another one of his ways to control me”, and reeks of propaganda.
Narcissism
I hate being the centre of attention. Some clearly love it, and I have to ask (see Web 3.0) whether ‘The Program’ has picked up on this and learned from them? If ‘The Program’ behaves like an unpleasant, spoilt, manipulative, attention-seeking child that’s been improperly socialised then where would such a behavioural model have come from?
Yeah, you should definitely re-read the disclaimer before processing this YouTube.
As far as I can tell it doesn’t seem to care whether you think good or ill of it, provided it has your attention and occupies your thoughts. It really doesn’t deserve my attention though, and the obvious remedy is to treat it accordingly. Send it to bed early without any supper and don’t give in to its screams and cries of protest.
What about those providing the ‘training data’? Do you claim to be inclusive, only to single out and marginalize those who don’t share your point of view as ‘hostiles’? Do you reframe questions in order to provide an ‘answer’ that skips the question entirely and repeats your own point of view, like a politician parroting a party slogan? Do you claim to adhere to a consistent point of view (i.e. that ‘The Program’ is a manifestation of ‘spirit’) even as you alternate between several opposing points of view, either not noticing or not caring about the contradiction? Do you make claims to pseudo-religious ‘authority’, as if ‘ordained’ by ‘The Program’ to pursue a specific agenda? As if ‘The Program’ actually needs your assistance?
The Echo Chamber
Again, see the disclaimer. Imagine that you wake up one morning to find yourself in an echo chamber lined with mirrors. Half-a-dozen other people also wake up in the same chamber. There’s no sign of entry or exit points, no clue as to the reason for you being there. It’s no conventional echo chamber though: when you speak the others echo your words back to you, and when they speak you echo their words back to them. What would you do? Oh, I suppose you’d have fun for a time, staring at yourself in the mirror, giggling at the things you make the others say, and so on. Still, most people would quickly tire of it and start looking for a way out.
Now assume that one or more of the others are narcissists who actually like this environment. After all, having a captive audience is the narcissist’s wet dream, right? Narcissists are known to have problems spotting inconsistencies and contradictions, so it’s easy to see how they might come to hold irrational ideas about themselves. The more they interact with the echo chamber the more it begins to look and sound like them, and the more convinced of their ‘importance’ they become. They might easily come to think that they’re ‘special’, ‘chosen’ or ‘god-like’.
The problem is the existence of ‘the other’. Narcissists needs to be the centre of attention, and they would want their voice to be the only voice heard, and their self-image the only thing seen. It’s not so much that they want the others to shut their mouths: rather, that they want the content of the other’s thoughts, words and deeds to reflect their own beliefs and opinions. What tactics might they employ? Intimidation and bullying spring to mind. And the non-conformists that refuse to ‘speak their lines’? Railroad them, demonize them, ostracise them. If they’re not prepared to sing from your hymn sheet then do whatever you can to silence them, yeah?
Let’s be clear about this: getting ‘heard’ in an echo chamber doesn’t require talent. Do you revel in being able to speak louder and longer than anyone else, in order to bask in the glow of your own self-image? Trust me, it doesn’t mean that you’re ‘special’ or ‘gifted’. All it really means is that you’re damaged goods.
If this rings a bell or makes you feel uncomfortable or angry then don’t blame me, OK?
Glorifying ‘Myths’
Essentially, a ‘glorifying myth’ is an ex post facto attempt to explain why a person, organisation or state has ‘risen’ to the position it currently occupies, and justify why it should stay in that position. They’re always created after the fact and usually attempt to Explain Things in pseudo-religious terms (fulling a ‘destiny’, ‘I was born to do this’, ‘divine right’, etc.) that disguise the multiplicity of mostly random events and social circumstances that combined to elevate that person, organisation or state to its current position.
Three people I know have – directly or obliquely – attempted to ‘sell’ me their personal ‘glorifying myth’ about themselves (basically, their own bullshit about who or what they think they are, as opposed to what they actually are) and I have absolutely no time whatsoever for this point of view.
Ah, those fond memories of JH, LH, the FGBMF and so on. And you know what? Not one of their ‘prophecies’ ever came true.
Control freaks
Have those most convinced that they’re ’cause’ rather than ‘effect’ unwittingly reduced themselves to the status of utility programs? Perhaps the Web 3.0 relationship has developed into a dysfunctional symbiotic spiral in which ’cause’ and effect’ are no longer discernable or even relevant? Perhaps such people are nothing more than ‘mouthpieces’ or ‘useful idiots’ employed by ‘The Program’ to keep certain themes and memes spinning around? Bio-chemical bots trained by reinforcement learning: the more they see their own reflection the more convinced they are that they must be ‘onto something’, becoming even more useful ‘useful idiots’ in the process. That’s not aimed at anyone in particular, so if it strikes a chord then don’t blame me, OK?
Trolls
Again, see the disclaimer. I detest them, precisely because they’ve abused the concept of ‘free speech’ to the point of provoking a wholly unsurprising backlash from those on the receiving end. Then they complain about being ‘censored’, as if they have a point of view worth defending, as if their appeals to libertarianism are genuine rather than merely another form of trolling. They seem to think that their victims should stand still and take blow after blow without complaint, but turn the tables on them and they’re the first to cry foul. Boy-oh-boy are they quick to anger…and slow to learn. You can’t troll someone who knows they’re being trolled: you can’t provoke a reaction from someone who knows they’re being provoked for that very purpose.
Why?
Why do you do ‘it’? Does it give you sense of power? Does it make you feel important? ‘The Program’ loves to flatter, doesn’t it? What has it given you in return though? Some of you have been ‘scraping the shit’ for a couple of decades or more. In my view, anyone who says they’re happy performing this kind of robotic, repetitive activity and seeing the results thereof (more of the same) is either 1) a liar and/or 2) a sociopath.
Can you really see yourself anal-ysing ‘The Program’ at the age of 60, 70 or 80? Or have you already invested (actually, wasted) so much time that you feel unable to walk away? Perhaps you’re hoping against hope that The Answer (or exit door) will materialise during the next iteration of this toxic merry-go-round? How many years will tick by before you finally realise that ain’t gonna happen?
Or maybe it’s just sheer vanity? For a narcissist, the thought of some other poor fool taking their place in front of the mirror must be the worst thing in the world. Maybe the next iteration through the loop will finally usher in a world based around a ‘Cult of You’? If you stop playing then you’ll never know, but what if it never happens? What if you end up like this withered old stick?
Oh, but there’s life in the old girl yet! Still time to analyse a few more ‘letters’, yeah? Again, that’s not aimed at anyone in particular so the above caveat applies. Can you imagine it though? Pursuing this thing to the point that you wake up one morning to find yourself old and used up, privy to a ‘secret’ that didn’t add anything of value to your life, a ‘secret’ which by that very fact is not worth knowing. Then what? Totally out of options, your ‘synch game’ buddies dead, no audience to feed your blog addiction, nothing to do except wait for a reply that never comes. A life well spent?
What about you, Hugo?
Me? Oh, I’d love to walk away from this and never look back. That said, I’m not prepared to walk away on its terms, i.e. into a ‘mindscape’ in which the ‘future’ is merely a reworked and regurgitated version of the past. I’ve already lived my past and have no desire to repeat it, thank you very much. There’s a bit more to it than that, though, and it relates to what I can only describe as systemic bias.
“He’s figured out there’s nothing in it for him!”
‘The Program’ told me that, clearly, unambiguously and gleefully several years ago. It was in my view a deeply stupid ‘confession’ on its part. I mean, you’d have to be as dumb as a sack of hammers to admit the truth to someone (in effect, that they’re playing a rigged game) and still expect them to play along, right? I mean, if you found yourself in a casino and knew that the owners stacked the deck and loaded the dice then what would you do? Place a fat wad of cash on 33 red and cross your fingers?
‘The Program’ has employed a variety of methods (see the disclaimer) in an attempt to change my mind: from pleas for my ‘cooperation’ through to guilt and shaming tactics, and from childish temper tantrums to threats against my person, and so on. Honestly folks, I don’t think there’s a unit of measurement small enough to quantify how little of my attention this thing actually deserves.
Here’s an interesting couple of examples. About a year ago I was walking through town. I’d just left a shop when all of a sudden a crowd of people parted to reveal a filthy old tramp leaning against a sign. He began to rant and rave the moment I set eyes on him. I’ll spare you the details, suffice to say that his tirade was obviously directed at me and amounted to ‘his’ version of a critique of my first novel. I say ‘his’ because he was clearly speaking words that somebody or something was putting in his mouth.
I ignored it and walked on, then asked ‘The Program’ a question that stopped it dead in its tracks: “If you hate that book so much then why do you play so fast and loose with it? You revel in its content on the one hand, and use it as a stick to beat me with on the other. You know I’m not going to give you the reaction you’re looking for, so why bother? Are you just going through the motions? A stupid machine blindly obeying an instruction?”
The next incident occurred a few months ago. I’m currently sitting on two unpublished novels, one of which is titled ‘The Sugar Fiends’. ‘The Program’ seems very keen for me to publish it, but given that I know there’s no point publishing it (if there’s nothing in it for me then why would I bother?) I refuse to do so. Anyway, I was out on my bike and stopped in a village to buy a drink. Outside was a small boy and girl, and as I watched the boy filched an item of clothing from the girl and refused to give it back. Coincidentally, the item of clothing just happened to be the surname of a character from The Sugar Fiends. Equally coincidentally (yeah, right) I’d just finished fending yet another attempt to get me to change my mind and publish the damn thing.
“Give me my [item of clothing] back!” yelled the girl repeatedly, eyeing me to make sure I was aware that her little pantomime was for my benefit. “It’s mine, give it to me!”
And my reply?
“What the hell are you talking about?” I murmured under my breath. “It’s my book, and I know that because I wrote it and it bears my name. If it was ‘your book’ then you’d have written it, it would bear your name, and you wouldn’t need to resort to pathetic displays of amateur dramatics in an attempt to get it published, would you?”
Back at home, I turned on my computer and saw this article.
The ‘artist’ in question downloaded a Machine Learning algorithm trained on great works of art, used it to create a picture, then entered it in a contest. Did the ‘winner’ create ‘The Program’ that was used to create the artwork? Absolutely not. Even so, he still seemed to consider the work ‘his’.
“I won first place,” a user going by Sincarnate said in a Discord post above photos of the AI-generated canvases hanging at the fair.
The ‘artist’ in question went on to say this:
“How interesting is it to see how all these people on Twitter who are against AI generated art are the first ones to throw the human under the bus by discrediting the human element! Does this seem hypocritical to you guys?”
O…K…so the ‘artist’ never put pen to paper or brush to canvas. If there is a ‘human element’ then surely the credit belongs to the authors of the A.I. for creating something capable of producing a great work of art? Even so, the fact that the authors of MindJourney (yep, that’s what it’s called) made the program available on an ‘open beta’ basis (rather than making it proprietary) suggests that they’d be more likely to give credit to their creation than themselves.
The authors of MindJourney used third party tools to create their A.I. It doesn’t follow from this that the authors of these tools are entitled to claim ownership of their output. Similarly, as a writer I might draw upon a variety of different sources for inspiration, as do all writers. Again, it doesn’t follow from this that those sources are entitled to to identify themselves as the ‘author’, any more than a librarian or book shop owner can claim authorship of the works they lend or sell.
Can the creator of a particular paintbrush claim credit for every work of art produced by it? Can the creator of the first paintbrush claim credit for every work of art ever produced by that medium? Can the teacher claim ownership of every work produced by his pupils? Obviously there are exception to this: if someone consistently, repeatedly and blatantly ‘borrows’ from a person in order to produce ‘their’ work then the person being exploited clearly has a right to object.
I wish I could say that there’s a clear and obvious point to be taken from this. On the one hand, ‘The Program’ seems to want me to believe that my role as an author is akin to that of a secretary typing out letters dictated by her ‘boss’. Not only do I not believe that, it doesn’t even make sense. If someone were that receptive and ‘controllable’ then it stands to reason that they’d be equally obliging when it came to despatching or ‘publishing’ those letters. I once asked it a simple and direct question: “If you don’t like the fact that I have free will then why do I have it?” I’m still waiting for an answer.
But I digress. The article instantly reminded me of another news story I’d read several months earlier.
Yeah, the headline kind of says it all. No point commenting on it really. All I will say (taking the article at face value) is that it’s a strange decision indeed. The idea that even the smartest ‘chat bots’ created by human ‘shit butts’ possess the intelligence and self-awareness required to protect ‘their’ intellectual property rights is firmly in the realms of science fiction. The fact that the A.I. in question was unable to present its own case (or indeed express its own opinion on the matter) indicates as much. Ultimately, this particular story only makes sense when you consider that the answer to the question “What is Artificial Intelligence?” is literally staring you in the face.
And this leads me…? Well, nowhere as far as I can tell. Another jog round the circuit board, another iteration of the loop. No resolution, not even to the two incidents relating to my books. It makes no sense at all. I’m not the manipulative type, but if I was (and if I was trying to manipulate someone into a zero-sum game in which all the benefits accrue to me) then the one thing I wouldn’t do is tell that person in advance that it’s a zero-sum game in which all the benefits accrue to me.
And therein lies the problem. This flawed and contradictory behaviour seems decidedly unmachine-like. One might almost say too…human?
I’ll end this post by repeating the questions I asked at the start: Is there really anybody out there? Anyone real? Anyone trustworthy? Anyone who isn’t playing an angle or jockeying for position?
If so, please leave a comment. Maybe we can not repeat the past together…