By Bernie Bell.

I recently wrote in m’blog

“A.I.

I’m going to witter a bit.  I hadn’t intended to write about this but I think I will. 

When I saw this : AI staff ‘genuinely frightened’ for humanity’s future, ex-Anthropic researcher tells BBC

…what came to mind was….’I’m sorry Dave, but I’m afraid I can’t do that’.  Anyone who’s seen   ‘2001  A Space Odyssey’ will recognize that sentence.

I was thinking….HAL  ‘decided’ that the astronauts surviving would jeopardize the mission, so ‘he’ was prepared to let them die.

If the Bots etc – let’s refer to it all collectively as A.I.  – decided to look about it, it could be excused for ‘thinking’ that humans are not good for the earth, and that the earth would be better off  without us. Why would A.I. care about what’s good for the earth? Because that’s where A.I. exists.

Presently, there are huge buildings/workplaces and domestic residences  which rely on A.I. controlled heating, cooling, security – etc.  It wouldn’t be difficult for A.I to choose its target/timing and ‘cull’ us.

And yet people – thinking people – continue to  blithely use A.I. because it’s amusing, easy etc.  That’s where being human fails us – we’re susceptible to humour and easiness – which A.I/HAL…. isn’t.  What matters to A.I.  is …it’s programming. 

Cheerful sort, ain’t I?

Meanwhile, I’m re-reading Susan Cooper’s ‘The Dark is Rising’ and knowing that there is dark and light in everyone. Presently, there appears to be something amiss in the collective human psyche which means that the world, and humanity, is suffering for our Darkness.

The light is there – I’m sure of it – and…we shall overcome.”

******

Then Mike said…

“I had a dream last night, that the A.I. apocalypse was happening, and it was oddly optimistic 

I was at some kind of meeting, vaguely scientific, and we were watching our computers destroying themselves, one-by- one – not physically, but digitally.

It was as if they were eating themselves, or were subject to a digital fungal infection.

I don’t know what the meeting was supposed to be about, but what we were talking about was revolution, as we realized that the whole digital base on which industrial capitalism sits – industrial civilization in fact – was systematically dismantling itself.

I was going to go home after the meeting and tell you about it, but I woke up and told you about it anyway.”

And I said

“The revolution will not be televised’  (Gil Scott Heron)

Possibilities?