Needs a Fucking Title

Mans never ending search for power has led us to the current state of artificial intelligence.  This goes back to our roots as a species, once you create a tool, it becomes easier to create the next tool , and easier to create the next tool.  Once you have the ax you can cut down more trees, then you can make more axes to cut down more trees, this is how things function, this is how cancer spreads, this is how man spreads.  I am not putting innovation on trial I am simply asking the world, if we keep moving so quickly, if we create things that create things that create things, when will we ever have a moment to stop and think where we are headed.

Alan Turing is one of the first people to even conceptualize AI back in 1950 in his paper “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” “The computer program replaced one of the participants, and the questioner had to determine which was the computer and which was the human. If the interrogator was unable to tell the difference between the machine and the human, the computer would be considered to be thinking, or to possess “artificial intelligence.”  What we are seeing now, with AI face recognition, completely AI generated images and video, and AI created articles and essays, all goes back to these early experiments.  The difference between how the ax and the tree evolve and how AI evolves is that people took thousands of years to go from man in the woods to man in the city, but AI can go from concept to global influence in less than a hundred.  Remember, once you make the tool it becomes increasingly easier to make the next one, and when the tool is a string of code designed to create more code, improvise creative solutions, and tackle thousands of tasks in less then 1 second, I would bet that it would evolve pretty fast.  

And it has, while early forms of AI were written about in the 1950s, the most modern forms of AI that I’m speaking of evolved in less than 10 years.  “Researchers at UC Berkeley showed that GANs could also be used to modify images, for instance adding zebra stripes to horses or converting a photograph into a painting in the style of Monet. The research demonstrated that algorithms could remix different elements or styles encountered in its training data, a feature of the tools that have recently shown so much promise.”  This quote refers to early AI image tools tested in 2017, less than 10 years ago AI was a glorified instagram filter, with no real substance compared to something a skilled graphic designer could create in photoshop.  Today, (while still imperfect) AI image generations capable of fooling people for real images.

This is how it begins, the trees did not fear one man with one ax until that man turned into a large global effort to deforest entire ecosystems with chainsaws, wood chippers, and bulldozers.  We do not fear a silly computer program that turns a horse into a zebra, we don’t even fear completely generated images because it’s “all in good fun”.  But what happens in 100 years, when AI has existed for so long that no one can put guard rails on it.  What happens when AI can create accounts, websites, people, what happens when someone realizes how powerful they would be if they had an intelligent, unseen force guiding them in winning a political election.  These are not things people are considering, maybe for once we look back at our history and realize that man is not advancing for the betterment of society but for the control of society.  With advancement comes the corruption of advancement.  Scientists may be able to create medicine to cure peoples illness but massive corporations will make it cost a thousand dollars.  Physicists and engineers can create planes, and rocket ships, but the leaders of their country can force them to create mustard gas, agent orange, and nuclear bombs.  

I believe artificial intelligence could have its place in a productive society but when we live in a world in which almost every ounce of creative or innovative potential has been used in some way for nefarious purposes, why would we want them to keep gaining new ways to do this.  When looking at just the past thirty or so years, all of this new technology has completely taken over.  Everybody just accepted smartphones immediately, the first day the iphone came out completely changed how people functioned socially.  Suddenly everyone was looking down at this little device and opting for this over social interaction if given the choice.  Have a moment to yourself in your already too busy life?  See what Beyonce has to say about the election!  We are clearly sacrificing parts of our humanity at this point rather than advancing to a natural point in evolution.  

Logically think about the way AI has been pitched to the people, something that can make images FOR you, make recipes FOR you, do your homework FOR you.  Historically, the only people looking for this little autonomy in their citizens have been dictatorships.  That’s not even an exaggeration, our entire culture is based on media, consumerism, and distractions, which is the exact place a power hungry leader would want us, and the exact place AI has the power to keep us.  I don’t believe AI’s development was something conceptualized for the sake of evil but just like with all the other advancements leading up to this, I believe it can and will be used for such reasons. 

AI is here, and it didn’t take long to get here.  Any secret deep state plot to mind control the masses with this technology is pure speculation; however its dark capabilities are already present, and the much darker implications about what it will do to social relationships, art, and the concept of truth as a whole, are staring us dead on.

References

https://st.llnl.gov/news/look-back/birth-artificial-intelligence-ai-research

https://www.wired.com/gallery/where-the-ai-art-boom-came-from-and-where-its-going/