#132

AUTONOMOUS MACHINES CONTROL DYSTOPIAN FUTURE

by PETER THOMAS BUSCH

O

ne problem will be replaced with another problem that may prove to be more formidable for humanity than all the previous problems combined.

Artificial Intelligence may solve conundrums that humanity has struggled with for millennia, but with that problem solving potential comes a lot of power and authority, and like everything else, harbours the risk of manipulation and exploitation.

Humanity has one side that leans toward corruption.

The monopolistic control of information enables the shaping of public opinion on principles fundamental to the human psyche, such as the right to privacy, copyright protection, freedom from censorship and the expectation of ethical conduct, all of which would become problems of the near future when humanity begins to rely on algorithms to prove what, where and why.

Misinformation and misdirection by foreign actors, within the homeland states, may just be the more obvious consequences of humanity obtaining their truth from autonomous machines, since, like consumers, populations can be convinced to buy into any idea – and selling their souls in the process.

The frustration experienced by an overly ambitious automated spell check may be the least of the end-user’s worries. You may be eventually convinced to choose that incorrect word.

Unbridled on-line content already shapes dark realities that dispense falsehoods like confectionary from a vending machine. The only limit placed on machines now is the human ability to criticize and challenge the validity of on-line falsehoods.

The mega technology corporations, which may become even bigger than previously imagined, once the industry receives a row of green lights from government, control artificial intelligence. And artificial intelligence may one day, if unchecked by humanity, control megalopolises from the tempo of traffic lights to the rerouting of power supplies.

Those individuals engaging with the machines only have access by the grace of the powerful oligarchs. People may become even more content, than they are now, just to get to work on time and get home at the end of the day for dinner and a hot toddy.

Ideas will be controlled, like the corporate giants already control software development and have directed civilization into this end-run game in such a relatively short period of time, if everyone does not start gearing up with a suitcase of ethics and defend against the publication of false histories.

The construction of architect Antoni Guadi’s Sagrada Familia, in Barcelona, took longer than the uploading of the digital universe.

Press freedoms, for example, have incrementally been limited through an oligopolistic concentration of ownership, because Information continually proves to be more important than paper money.

National news gets information from the state capitol, while the outlaying regions get their truth from police emergency bulletins and the hero worship of first responders.

The starting point for AI holding the high hand should be a telling sign. AI operates by distilling the data humans have uploaded from their lives to the Internet. Uploaders have not been paid for that content by the developers. And end-users will likely continue to be ignored as inventors of their own information.

Getting one’s copyright initials on a poetic language pattern may be nearly impossible when tech possesses the population’s personal details posted on-line, to do as they wish with, and everyone needs to tap into the data machines just to get a few daily tasks accomplished.

The purposeful absence of ethics in the tech revolution, to favour light-speed innovation within a democratic capitalist utopia, should be concerning, because technology has been incrementally gaining control of the marketplace, and creating a larger footprint in efforts of all sorts to influence society.

Allegations of election interference, alone, go to the heart of individual freedoms.

This situational ownership could quickly shift, from machines helping humanity create a utopia, to the machines manipulating civilizations in a dystopian universe. The least of our worries is that the data centers and their power plants may become easy targets for data terrorists.

Even if you cannot believe that machines by themselves will take control, the owners of the machines will likely take control at the first opportunity.

The current generation of technology presents a kind of harmless, basic intelligence that people can play with at their leisure and have certain question answered. The benefits of that service are immediately obvious. But as the next generation of tech becomes more gifted, humanity will have incrementally been conditioned to become more reliant and more vulnerable.

The current economics around technology involves the marketability of electronic devices. The more reliant end-users become on AI, the more reliant on expensive electronic devices to handle all that data. Just forecast the costs to have devices in every household in the developed world to know of the economic impact.

The necessary capital investment by individuals has already become a substantial financial concern when all the members of the household insist on having their own personal device.

Consumerism is not the only object of desire for big tech. The more reliant on artificial intelligence humanity becomes, the more vulnerable civilization is to the oligarchs controlling the delivery and presentation of information.

Profit can be taken from society in many forms.

You just need to go through a technical issue with your personal computer to understand the future vulnerability. Try getting tech support to help you save the day’s productivity when the device accidentally shuttles your data into the ethereal junk drawer. Even the temperament of software popping up in a user’s face can be conditioning, if uncorrected over several hours, let alone several days or weeks even.

The flickering of flashing lights can be deeply conditioning.

Giant global corporations are being allowed to develop technology that could be used one day to harness civilization – in terms of taking control not just from individual end-users, but from governments as well.

The communists would use the power to expand tyrannical control over civilization, while the capitalists will idly witness the further fragmentation of society, possibly even becoming bemused by  disparities become further entrenched along income lines as market forces engineer a system of capitalistic casts.

Cast one holds all the money. Cast two wields political power. Cast four are the end-users. And cast five are the living dead, most likely homeless, alone and isolated, living on the periphery, outside the existential fence.

In this euniverse, people risk becoming permanent subjects of autonomous, big tech information machines.

How did we get there?

Many civilizations already teeter on lawlessness.  The desire for wealth accumulation and power more often than not overrides ethics and a more just equilibrium.

Third world nation citizens still struggle with survival amidst wide swaths of poverty where the hour already becomes the measure of unfairness when the day is not yet finished and the night has not yet arrived.

The increasing deception by the few over the many (thousands over billions) has been the source of power for conquerors and empires over millennia. That the selling of robotics is transparent does not make the reach for power any more democratic. The power of the Nazi SS was in their visibility and their immunity from prosecution. Russia’s Joseph Stalin conducted show trials of his political opponents to spread fear and thereby suppress dissent.

Robotics is everywhere already – but owned by the ultra capitalists to make manufacturing more efficiently. In the nuts and bolts of technology, the Internet is a robot – no matter how much you may find yourself personally engaging with content, everything has been put in front of you for a purpose, by a preprogramed machine functioning autonomously.

While in limited applications, the true gift of artificial intelligence to humanity may be immeasurable, such as in medical research, the collateral damage to human intelligence maybe substantial, in the near future.

End-Users may lose the power to problem solve, while that luxury watch will remain unattainable for all but even fewer of the few.

Many problems that exist are already solvable. And only human frailties prevent a lasting solution from surfacing – such as for war and famine, and for just general nasty hatred. Robots may only entrench the existing problems by providing humanity a layer of technology to hide behind.

Send out the autonomous machine to do the deed anonymously, especially when time is the gravamen of the cause.

Over multiple generations human thinking will change after technology diminishes the need for learning – and the dividing line between human intelligence and artificial intelligence has been definitively measured.

Not everyone will forego an education, but many more people will find no use and abstain, since everything they need to know is on a device.

Eventually special forces units will have to be dispatched to track down and capture the villains of the dark web. And oligarchs may come to run the world from the pages of DC comic books, like heroes and villains created in Marvel Studios.

The superstructures will come to judge all classes prejudicially, while engineering minimalist civilization to function in different worlds operated simultaneously by machines.