#100 MACHINES

RISING POWER OF MACHINES NOT UNUSUAL FOR CIVILIZATIONS

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

P

eople may from time to time become aware of the loss of individual autonomy to the controlling power operating with various degrees of automation, only after all of the world has already fallen victim.

The term machine is often used as a euphemism for something initially created to benefit humanity, but then the leverage develops too much independent, self serving momentum to be stopped.

In a historical context, a machine may be as simple as a screw and as complicated as a system of governance. Governments mash together representatives of the people with rules and systems, committees and subcommittees, with the aim of dispensing a certain take on the truth similar to machines collecting material and producing a specific, singular product.

Humanity often eventually loses out to the institutions that give definition to civilization because the institutions begin to operate more like automated machines with an autonomous purpose independent of the principles of democracy and freedom.

In the coming years, humanity will be required to harness the climate storms the machines have caused.

Machines set in play all over the world have gradually accelerated in power and control since the Industrial Revolution. These machines that caused the climate crisis must now be brought back within the control of humanity – to the point that maybe less machine inertia and more human kinetics may be required to meet the necessary climate goals.

Machines all set in motion by different global players to do the same thing to the planet develop a bit of proxy consciousness that has to be reigned in. Even if the operators of the machines cannot agree with each other, at the very least, all over the world the machines are co-conspirators, every last one of them creating a presence by operating together with a singular purpose.

The electronic data machines of the current tech revolution manipulate information with tremendous speed relative to the typewriter and the fax machines previously in use.

With the hardware in place as extensions of humanity, such as everyone in possession of a laptop or smart phone now immersed as one with the on-line world, the power and control of digital information machines may grow organically with greater and greater certainty. These machines are far more dangerous than any machines released into the world before.

Artificial intelligence presents a compelling source of hope for solutions where humanity has encountered substantial problems that the brightest people cannot seem to resolve even with computers assisting in modeling different solutions for different problems.

Engineers want to take Artificial Intelligence to the point that machines learn from experience and eventually make their own decisions. This outcome may ultimately become the worst form of government apocalypse with digital information automation as an extension of humanity developing a greater consciousness independent of their creators that will search the planet for purpose.

The existential risk of AI machines ruining the planet in a future more all encompassing phase of automation is ever more real now, especially in comparison to the damage caused to the climate by relatively unintelligent machines.

Saying no to AI, though, is boring.

Artificial intelligence used as leverage can be a benefit to humanity. People would not turn back the clock on the huge electrical generators that were part of the system that replaced the kerosene lamps with electric lightbulbs.

And a real need exists for some form of leverage against the medical mysteries that continue to be unresolved despite billions of dollars in research funding going to the cause. AI could assist medical researchers to find the cure for cancer and diabetes, and to meet the immediate need for the rapid development of a vaccine, such as during the recent global pandemic.

Artificial Intelligence could also add a bit of objectivity to complex political and moral conundrums by thinking through various scenarios to end conflict and how either side might receive them.

Machines with a consciousness though is a concept difficult to accept. Sentience machines acting independent of human programmers would be one step closer to gaining absolute control of civilization when citizens must already constantly wage campaigns of one sort or another for civil rights, liberty and freedom.

One would think the power button would be sufficient to remove the threat of AI taking over your home, ordering you about and asking you to load the dishwasher.

But even that relatively simple frozen computer screen stubbornly fights to remain there for that excruciating long moment up until you decide that disconnecting the power source may be the better solution than watching the colorful spinning dial, spin, spin and spin away your time. That sentience refusal to stand down may be just a bit of a sample of a time when the machines push for greater omniscience, and actually resist human intervention.

Already, you cannot pull the power plug on a machine whose only physical presence is far off away on another continent.

An omniscience character knows how your day will end before the alarm clock on your smart phone wakes you up and the programmable coffee maker starts brewing your morning cup.

The system in place to keep the population organized benefits from these predictable outcomes. A third party machine determining outcomes for you in a manner that benefits this bigger more of a monolithic machine is perhaps one of the greatest risks to humanity as more and more individuals lose control of their daily lives, more so than has already occurred, in a way that benefits the really big machines working for someone else.

These systems are originally put into place to assist humanity, but institutions too often morph into servicing maximum output while simultaneously limiting more need in a way that picks and chooses who to serve, and ultimately operates only to benefit the programmers.

On-line searches seem helpful, but either by creation or by design, the algorithms operate as a form of censorship because the information retrieved is both limited and selected for you. Your journey through the information universe begins somewhat directed, with a singular purpose of just completing the task regardless of the quality of the results.

An even greater risk occurs when humanity becomes comfortable with that direction and the machines then limit your choices even further in an attempt to control you and direct you a certain way toward a designated outcome. Only the democratization of the on-line world would enable you to vote out an algorithm for a better alternative.

The greater existential threat posed is that those machines are put into play by someone else with less objectivity than as advertised. The on-line world is becoming less and less democratic and more and more capitalistic. Algorithms may be programmed either by design or through an engineer subconsciously programming the computer tech to discriminate. The occurrence of discrimination might just be part of a broader consciousness to manipulate and control the population.

The world may have to reach out to more systems of automation as the climate crises consumes our worlds, leaving people vulnerable to the population overlords managing the crisis in a particular way, perhaps in a manner that benefits one person to the detriment of another person.

A real possibility exists in the distant future that sentient machines will lock out humanity altogether and put into play other machines instead of humans. The global presence of machines operating as co-conspirators may decide not to like us as leaders after finding the many human frailties disqualify humanity from governing.

Technological advancements often lead civilization out of the dark ages of the previous invention before humanity suffers too much, only for the moving into the light eventually becoming once again about losing control to the machines.

Airplanes transformed civilization in war and peacetime taking people to more places faster than the automobile.

Algorithms go where no machine has gone before which is pretty much everywhere, connecting users on the other side of distinct civilizations, and also into the ether.

High tech is one of those irreversible inertias hauling humanity forward through time while creating indelible change a bit more complicated than low, home tech moving from the toaster to the toaster oven.

Tech and digital information systems dominating the commercial marketplaces have already commodified our daily lives like the automobile enabled people to move off the farms and from shopping at the small general store in the isolated agrarian town to the nearby urban centers and shopping malls.

Institutions similarly become machines by developing systems of information control and service delivery mechanisms. These methods often do not bend output to meet the new variations of demand.

The government automated answering machine with several options and an equal number of submenus illustrates how automation can make humans feel dumb in a way that benefits one person at the expense of another. The government official may not really want to hear your rebuke in the first instance.

If you wait around long enough, you might get an answer, but a lot more important matters might be dealt with in the meantime.

The inability to properly vet a citizen’s bona-fide complaint becomes a serious issue in a democracy, indicating that the institution is becoming a machine, censoring input and output, with the potential of accelerating exponentially with greater control and autonomy toward less democracy and more autocracy.

Al has been transformative so far at relatively marginal costs to humanity. But the people controlling AI are unelected autocrats slicing away at the democratic institutions with various forms of censorship that limit individual rights such as freedom of conscience and freedom of speech.

And every so often these capitalists partner with governments.                                                                                                                                       

Civilizations may have more security but less freedom, as a result of the partnership between capitalists and democrats, less anarchy and chaos, but also less control and less individualized power because of automation.

A full spectrum of ideologies has always coexisted in the world that inevitably falls into conflict with one another. Perhaps AI will enable leaders to make more objective decisions for humanity that bypasses historical grievances and biases.

The information sharing simultaneously increases the potential for coexistence and for conflict, perhaps bringing either or to a crescendo, one with a happy ending and the other bringing great tragedy to the world.

People can talk and talk and talk and still coexist. But war is something else altogether.

When war – emotive devices take control of humanity in a manner that the interconnected web of rules and regulations and law and moral codes of conduct cannot unravel.

Artificial intelligence may never runaway from humanity like a giant iron horse becoming unstoppable downhill through a mountain pass. But those autocrats in charge of automation may like the changes occurring a bit too much.

With everyone plugged in to the on-line world, controlling populations with machines might be tempting.

The machines – automated machines and artificial intelligence – that begin to decide without programming may take the world out from the darkness of over population, food shortages and climate storms.

What if democracy of the people then falls to the autocracy of the machines?

Henry Ford and the automobile. Commuting to work and rush hour traffic. The internet and the dark web. Freedom and terror. The light and the darkness.