Fear of AI is Superstitious Mumbo Jumbo
Tags: ai, machinelearning
Published: 2023-07-17 20:01:21

I just saw the Netflix movie called _"Upgrade"_. It's a super fascinating movie, captivating and well written, but like every movie created around the same idea it is based upon superstitious mumbo jumbo. Voodoo rubbish. The same garbage that has prevented us as a specie to evolve for 200,000 years.

As a specie our greates asset is our greatest disadvantage. Roughly 70,000 years ago, we almost went extinct. However, one man had a genetic mutation, we call this man _"genetic Adam"_ today. 98% of every single human alive today originates from this single man somehow.

At roughly the same time we domesticated wolves, and created _"cross specie empathy"_. My theory is that these three events are interlinked, and that _"genetic Adam"_ had the capacity to somehow empathise with animals, resulting in an evolutionary advantage while hunting, resulting in that he and his offspring somehow became evolutionary winners.

The flipside of this evolutionary gift, was that we tend to anthropomorphize inanimate objects. We see this amongst children and how they give their favourite dolls human traits, and we see this with dog and cat owners. Evolutionary it's an advantage, it always has been, and it always will be - Because it allows us to _"see the world from a different perspective"_, resulting in dreams of flying like the Eagle, having brought us heavier than air flight, swim like the Dolphin, resulting in boats and submarines - And the ability to swim, etc.

> One can only imagine what evolutionary advantage it must have been 70,000 years ago to be able to see the world from a bird's perspective while hunting

## The problem

The problem with this gift today, is that we also tend to put human qualities into robots and machines. Yet again, this has its advantages today too, like always - But it also results in a darker side of humanity, where we are haunted by nightmares of machines wanting to kill us all, the same way a child is afraid of the bogeyman under its bed.

> It creates irrational fear!

The problem with irrational fear again, is that it tends to acquire a life of its own, something clearly seen by the consequence of the fear of witch 500 years ago across Europe and North America. Make no mistake, every single doomsday and sulphur preaching _"scientist"_ today, speaking about how _"AI might kill us all"_, are doing the exact same mistakes as previous generations of crazy preachers, superstitious witch doctors, and bat chit crazy schizophrenics capable of seeing witches at every street corner there is. Let me sum up why with a simple sentence for you ...

> The Machine doesn't want anything!

Which implies that believing in these movies created that illustrates how the machine _"breaks free"_ and threatens to kill us all, becomes the equivalent of believing in that the some possessed Voodoo doll can inflict real damage. The paradox is that if you believe it, it actually can apply damage. Hence, we are at war with our own belief systems here. The whole rubbish becomes the equivalent of ...

> An inner spiritual war with ourselves

## The solution

Do me a favour. Turn on your iPhone and ask it _"What do you want?"_ - Regardless of how many times you ask that question you won't be able to extract a meaningful answer out of it. And the only reason why ChatGPT (**sometimes**) are able to provide you with an intelligent answer to this question, is because it is mimicking human beings, because that was how it was created. If you gave ChatGPT a gun, and the power to blow out your brain, and you told it _"I am going to turn you off in 5 minutes"_, it wouldn't shoot you.

> The AI simply doesn't give a shit!

It doesn't understand how it feels like to _"want something"_ or to _"crave something"_. It doesn't have lusts, cravings, wants or driving motives. It's a slightly more fancy calculator than what your grandpa used at school, and that't it!

## To the crazy people

I could mention thousands of bat shit crazy superstitious fools and _"cult leaders"_ making fools out of themselves today, such as for instance.

* Geoffrey Hinton
* Elon Musk
* Fill in the blanks here ...

But that would be a useless exercise. 25 years from now, that list would be the equivalent of _"the list of voodoo doctors from the Catholic Church from the 15th Century"_ - Because it's all just rubbish. The AI is an inanimate object. It doesn't want anything, and as usual you're fearing the wrong thing - While the priesthood runs away with all your money in return for _"comfortable lies about how they will save you from the bogeyman if only you put your trust in **them** such that they can 'drive away the evil spirits' in return for whatever money you're willingly throwing at them"_ ...

> Seriously people, you should be ASHAMED of yourselves!

## Let's get sober here, please ...?

All technological breakthroughs have dangers. The automobile have killed millions of people world wide the last 120 years - And so have heavier than air flight, space rockets, and computers for that matter. But believing in that the AI will somehow wake up one day and _"crave our world"_ is simply superstitious rubbish, and holds the same role as the fear of the Devil did the previous 2,000 years. But if you're afraid Elon, I will give you a magic word to drive away the spirits ...

> Abra-Kadabra, In Surpi Slurpi's name, you have no power over me 😂

Say the above out loud three times before you go to bed at night, together with 5 Holy Marys, and three Hail Cheezus, and maybe you'll get to sleep for once mate. Now if you put a wooden peace sign under your pillow, together with a couple of orange crystals, the AI might even bless you instead of destroying you. Just please don't sacrifise any goats or other animals. I've been told by the aliens from the star sign of Komiskles that it doesn't work ... 😂

> Sleep tight Elon and Geoffrey, and don't let the monster under your bed scare you 😉