The less time you spend on the internet and/or in digital spaces, the less affected you will be. No doubt you will still be affected, but the impact will be minimized. The analog life will survive. Why? Because it’s real.
We will have to deal with millions and millions of people who don't realize that. The guiding concepts of our society can altered by the forever-generated mass of AI garbage- what and how people think will likely change. I don't just exist in my living room with my books, and neither do you. That's like saying something isn't actually happening because you aren't looking straight at it. Vietnam affected everybody in American society, even if they didn't fight in Vietnam. (Alternate example: a certain politician makes up "reality" as he goes along, people believe him, and democracy tumbles. Rest assured, you'll be feeling that even if you're sitting there reading Howard Zinn when it happens.)
“The actual winners will be holistic thinkers and empathetic individuals with human skills.”
I’m thankful for your work, Ted! I consider myself pretty sensitive, so I try to change the world from the inside out in my small circle. I’ve been deep diving into Greek mythology thanks to your humanities course. I imagine the war of AI to be like the Titans. I will continue to get lost in mythology and philosophy…I joined a Plutarch’s Parallel Lives course through The Catherine Project you vouched for. Now I will learn about Roman leaders and thinkers, too. Perhaps all of this will help me cope with modern-day maniacs in power.
Human beings and finding purpose still matter. We are not irrelevant because of AI. Human souls are too precious.
We are all consuming garbage literally and figuratively. Fight back 🎶artists arm yourselves.
It has always seemed to me that the main issue with AI is Etymology, that it is forcing on all of us now what before was the domain of philosophers. So it seems that we are now facing a new BABEL, would you agree? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2Bf7fZq9gg
I’m a little confused, are you suggesting humans don’t produce garbage content? 🙂
Wondering when we look back at history, humans win the contest for garbage content production having produced many generations and lifetime of garbage writing thousands of years.
Isn’t it high-quality human writing is rarity? Surely that’s what makes it valuable.?
Couldn’t be the case that the reason AI is producing garbage content is it’s actually learning from human garbage content ?
It seems to me the reason AI is producing garbage content is it’s literally reflecting back what it’s learnt from most garbage content producing human beings .
I’m not quite sure how of high quality human rating to save us from AI garbage works given AI is simply reflecting the garbage back most of humanity has been producing ? 🤔
Ted, what a great set of predictions. A few years ago I warned my publishers that they might be facing heavy competition from AI novelists, or novelists using AI as a production tool. I imagined AI publishers setting up noms de plume for nonexistent authors, flooding the market with derivative stories that are every bit is good (or bad) as ninety-five percent of romance, fantasy , and science-fiction novels made by humans. They brushed if off, saying they'd thought about that already. It'll never happen. People can tell the difference. Well, can they? If they don't have the critical skills to tell art from junk right now, how would they be able to tell it in an AI future? I do believe that most people would turn away from art if they knew a machine had made it. But what if they couldn't tell the difference? Would they ever develop the necessary critical skills to discriminate between the two? Or would they simply lose interest in art? Please talk me down from the ledge.
You're in my power alley when you mention SF. Luckily I have around two hundred SF novels (to accompany seven or eight hundred reference, history, art, architecture, etc. books in my home. Since the aughts I've only read a couple of dozen SF novels that were either entertaining, or had illuminating new concepts, most are simply woke diatribes telling me I'm to blame for the end of the world. So I'll continue to re-read the great old stuff I still own.
Maybe you can step of the ledge and venture into the pre-digital world. Best of luck.
Have you got 'Couriers-Off Grid' by Jay Swanson. Published 2018 sadly not available right now. Definitely written by a person,not AI. In just two years w went from sci-fi dystopia to "our real life". The author may not even have intended it to be SO RELEVANT. Theme of book (in my interpretation) who runs Society,the tech elite or the 'non-tech' ordinary people. An Elite with Tech feel it is their hereditary right to "be in charge"....
Unfortunately, I haven't read it. I think I've only bought one SF book by a new author since the 1990s, Wesley Chu's "Time Salvager." I picked it up at Dollar Tree for a buck, best money I've spent on a book. I'd like to read the sequel, "Time Siege" if I can get a copy somewhere. The problem is that I'm currently trying to read and dispose of books. I don't want my boys to have to deal with so many when I kick the bucket. I will definitely see if I can find Swanson's book. Hopefully I'll have better luck.
Have a look round. It may not be Booker prize level but the idea at least partially explored is interesting and now,and possibly not even an intention of the author is a real thing here in the world we live in .
I’m really curious to understand why you think the limitations of AI right now would imply limitations for what AI could do in the future?
It seems to me your suggesting because a toddler can’t speak it will never speak when it grows up. It seems a bit of an old kind of reasoning?
To be fair, I can sort of understand how you might come to that conclusion. I’ve met plenty of human adults that babble like toddlers so it’s easy to believe that that might be the case for AI.
The problem is that’s not actually the case and the rate of which AI can learn things far passes what any human can do.
That also means AI can learn terrible things much faster than humans can as well it’s very much garbage and garbage out with AI and humans.
The AI can actually progress faster than humans and leave us far behind so I’m a little confused by your logic. It doesn’t quite seem to add up?
Pranath, there's a 100% chance I'm babbling like a toddler myself. I certainly don't think AI has reached its pinnacle. It's pretty much the opposite. My worry is that it'll continue to improve, and in doing so will lower our expectations of art—all art. Books, movies, music, theatre, photography, cooking, even business. Good art will probably survive, but I'm guessing it'll be forced to the edges and end up a counterculture pursuit, while AI floods the marketplace with the cultural equivalent of junk food. In this case, who wins and who loses?
Thanks for explaining. I see what you mean and yes, I would actually agree with you. This is a reasonable assessment and we need to be more aware of this.
If anything, I do worry about the lack of nuance and informed debate in the public about this .
This technology is going to hit the general public more and more who are lesson less prepared but really not a great situation
Sorry, I don’t quite see how that’s logical. Can you explain how that’s logical?
Are you suggesting the AI has intentionality sense of self something like that? Because you know without a sense of agency? How would it know how to do any of these things? Why would it even want to do any of these things?
There is absolutely no scientific evidence to suggest the AI as it currently has any agency or consciousness at all .
Or are you suggesting that AI would just be a very suitable tool for authoritarian humans to use?
But even that does that really make any sense as Ted highlighted in his article AI also makes plenty of mistakes. I mean it doesn’t actually make for a very reliable dictators henchman does it?
You are right. Ppl have no idea of what is coming.
“The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed.”
Great point. As a believer (but a typical human) I want a pleasant life of comfort and ease but any reading of Revelations indicates things will get worse, much worse. A time to point suffering people to “the truth, the way, and the life”
So, the Bible's Revelations is your reference here, your guide to the future? Revelations has been interpreted to say all kinds of things for centuries, no?
I'm a non- demoninational believer that there is a god (no capitalization). I know there are things (besides Douglas Adams' meaning of life) that are beyond human comprehension, and I'm OK with that. But taking your comment at face value, it appears that Revelations is on to something.
What does that mean? How can The Book Of Revelations be "on to something?" One hundred different people can read Revelations and come up one hundred different interpretations of what's written. Someone could turn interpreting Revelations into a parlor game--that's about where it should be.
In his 1964 novel The Penultimate Truth, Philip K. Dick has a character who writes speeches for the dictator using AI. The character enters a prompt and the AI composes the speech. It is eerily like our language models. The character then broods and labours over each word of the automated script. More and more, i suspect we are living in Dick's brain.
See also The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe or Bertrand Tavernier's film of it Death Watch (1980, recommended) wherein the title character prompts AI to write pulp romance novels
Perhaps one ray of hope among all this, Mr Gioia, is that the bulk of AI models today are based around English and Chinese a close second. Despite translation tech having become advanced years ago, machines are still unable to properly grasp the linguistics and socio-cultural posturing necessary to become a deceptive phenomenon en masse (in terms of implementation or even detection). The hype around AI's "magic" is mostly being peddled by people who are native English speakers.
The scene from _2001_ is much more apropos than people think. What happened there is not that Hal "woke up" and went rogue; what happened is that it was given, _by its creators_, responsibility for the success of the mission, a responsibility it was completely incapable of discharging. At one point, Hal says (roughly) "I cannot allow you to jeopardize the success of this mission", to which Dave should have been able to reply "The success of this mission is not your responsibility; it is mine." That things weren't set up that way, with Dave in charge instead of Hal, was the fatal mistake.
This is _exactly_ one major kind of risk we face now: that well-meaning people, failing to understand the limitations of AI, give it power to make decisions whose implications it does not begin to comprehend.
But it leaves me wondering if dystopian fantasy might be more exciting and appealing to you then perhaps the rather boring and less exciting nature of reality and where we are ?
Sherman, where you been my fellow human? I myself never accomplished what you did and it can all go away via Cancel Culture. Hang tough and keep rehabilitating. At some point humanity must welcome back each sinner or we're all doomed!
Firstly because, given the human cost of diamond mining, we can now say with 100% safety and certainty that anyone buying a mined diamond (both kinds are real, and lab grown are superior quality) is a despicable human being.
Secondly, I am quite certain that a significant proportion of the mined diamonds being sold are already, and increasingly will be, grown in a lab but sold as mined. Perhaps with a picture of a devastated landscape and oppressed miner on the box, like a reverse tabacco warning picture, just to emphasize the authenticity.
As a final thought, could this be the first instance where the person selling the 'fake' is, without any doubt, ethically far superior to the person they are conning? I mean, not only are they selling a far more ethical product, they are also ripping someone off who is, by definition, an awful person.
In short, if anyone wants an ethical, high profit and low work sales job, go into business selling real diamonds. If you simply market them as real rather than mined, and set the price a grand or so lower than mined ones, you aren't even lying. Just simply relieving horrible people of their money.
From a diamond store website: "Can you tell the difference by looking at the two?
No, you cannot tell the difference between a lab grown diamond and a mined diamond by looking at them. Therefore, to protect consumers by offering total disclosure, lab grown diamonds are branded with a microscopic laser mark to distinguish them from mined diamonds. You cannot see this mark with your naked eye, but a jeweller will be able to see it with specialist magnifying equipment."
I'm not an expert but as far as I know that lab ones may even be better quality. It's not the appearance or structure or whatever that people pay extra for in terms of mined diamonds.
Environmentally sustainable and socially ethical, which is appealing if you are concerned about the effects of mining on local environments and communities
A rare “high tech luxury”, which has a perceived “status”, especially to Millenial and Gen Z buyers
Cons:
Grown in a laboratory instead by Mother nature, which lacks perceived “status” to some buyers."
Surely it’s only a heavy read if one can’t tell the difference between speculative predictions and reality?
Otherwise maybe watching something like a zombie movie might actually be too frightening for you if you can’t tell the difference between fantasy and speculation and reality of course it seems that many people have a bit of trouble telling the difference .
Another great, and terrifying essay, Ted. It reminded me that in the late 70s, William Shatner did a version of Elton John's "Rocket Man" using the latest technology (ultimatte) which allowed three Shatners to sing together simultaneously. It was legendary and tapes were passed around freely, though quite often what one viewed was a dub of dub of a dub . . . ad infinitum, each generation losing picture and audio quality until one finally ended up with a marginally melodic set of Shatners warbling in a video snowstorm. (Similarly, the original project which introduced the world to the makers of South Park was equally afflicted.)
Prediction #5 strikes me as a similar fate - as AI seeks to sample itself, we will eventually get a product bearing no resemblance to anything in the original iteration.
Ironically, the original tapes were found of most of the video projects and through digital copying (which is relatively lossless) show a clear image and reasonable sound and are now easily found on the internet. Proving in part that there is no substitute for the original.
I saw William Shatner reciting a poem,it must be on YouTube. He was compelling I must say. After every line he took a drag at the cigarette he held and in the comments everyone was saying "What's IN that smoke". Should you see the film of it you'll see what they meant. Man!
Yes it does make me wonder when skilful writers deliberately blend the distinction between reality and fantasy to frighten the hell out of people while that might make for a popular post. I do wonder if it really helps people understand the nuances of reality and actually prepare for it, I’m not sure.🤔
When people say that AI will liberate people to focus more on their art and music, I tell them that corporations will want to put musicians and anyone in the arts out of business because they can't be controlled. That's why I agree with you on the fourth point. And yes, look at the psychology of those who are in charge of AI. That's what we should focus on. On another note, I did kiss Isabella Rossellini's hand once while walking through a graveyard. But that was for a scene in a tv show called "Shut Eye." I'm not sure if it was used in the show, but it's a true story.
I do wonder, I wonder if it’s completely out of the question that people might consider the whole idea of nuance ?
Reality either be a total utopian fantasy or a dystopian disaster must these be the only possibilities even though they are the most popular?
Or could reality be something a bit less exciting and thrilling and something a bit more complicated that doesn’t make for a very viral post ?
And I wonder what actually helps us better prepare for the future as opposed to scaring the hell out of people and warping peoples minds something to think about …
I see a great potential positive in all of this, which Ted touches on in his remark about the existential philosophers in their Parisian cafés. Yes, grappling with the nature of reality was in the past the reserve of an intellectual or spiritual elite. Now we are likely to be confronted head on with that very question, all of us without exception, and not as an academic matter but as something that is indeed of existential proportions. Gain true insight or perish: that might be a motto for the times ahead.
The less time you spend on the internet and/or in digital spaces, the less affected you will be. No doubt you will still be affected, but the impact will be minimized. The analog life will survive. Why? Because it’s real.
Google spy can't read those paper letters you send even if the postage stamp is expensive
We will have to deal with millions and millions of people who don't realize that. The guiding concepts of our society can altered by the forever-generated mass of AI garbage- what and how people think will likely change. I don't just exist in my living room with my books, and neither do you. That's like saying something isn't actually happening because you aren't looking straight at it. Vietnam affected everybody in American society, even if they didn't fight in Vietnam. (Alternate example: a certain politician makes up "reality" as he goes along, people believe him, and democracy tumbles. Rest assured, you'll be feeling that even if you're sitting there reading Howard Zinn when it happens.)
Unless you work in a creative field or in software and AI puts you out of work.
I work in higher education administration. I am already seeing the effects of generative AI everywhere.
🔥🔥🔥
Great idea, funny that your posting that online though 😂
“The actual winners will be holistic thinkers and empathetic individuals with human skills.”
I’m thankful for your work, Ted! I consider myself pretty sensitive, so I try to change the world from the inside out in my small circle. I’ve been deep diving into Greek mythology thanks to your humanities course. I imagine the war of AI to be like the Titans. I will continue to get lost in mythology and philosophy…I joined a Plutarch’s Parallel Lives course through The Catherine Project you vouched for. Now I will learn about Roman leaders and thinkers, too. Perhaps all of this will help me cope with modern-day maniacs in power.
Human beings and finding purpose still matter. We are not irrelevant because of AI. Human souls are too precious.
We are all consuming garbage literally and figuratively. Fight back 🎶artists arm yourselves.
One thousand likes are due for your comment, Kate. Yunguns like you provide hope for us all.
It has always seemed to me that the main issue with AI is Etymology, that it is forcing on all of us now what before was the domain of philosophers. So it seems that we are now facing a new BABEL, would you agree? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2Bf7fZq9gg
I’m a little confused, are you suggesting humans don’t produce garbage content? 🙂
Wondering when we look back at history, humans win the contest for garbage content production having produced many generations and lifetime of garbage writing thousands of years.
Isn’t it high-quality human writing is rarity? Surely that’s what makes it valuable.?
Couldn’t be the case that the reason AI is producing garbage content is it’s actually learning from human garbage content ?
It seems to me the reason AI is producing garbage content is it’s literally reflecting back what it’s learnt from most garbage content producing human beings .
I’m not quite sure how of high quality human rating to save us from AI garbage works given AI is simply reflecting the garbage back most of humanity has been producing ? 🤔
Ted, what a great set of predictions. A few years ago I warned my publishers that they might be facing heavy competition from AI novelists, or novelists using AI as a production tool. I imagined AI publishers setting up noms de plume for nonexistent authors, flooding the market with derivative stories that are every bit is good (or bad) as ninety-five percent of romance, fantasy , and science-fiction novels made by humans. They brushed if off, saying they'd thought about that already. It'll never happen. People can tell the difference. Well, can they? If they don't have the critical skills to tell art from junk right now, how would they be able to tell it in an AI future? I do believe that most people would turn away from art if they knew a machine had made it. But what if they couldn't tell the difference? Would they ever develop the necessary critical skills to discriminate between the two? Or would they simply lose interest in art? Please talk me down from the ledge.
How can anyone talk you down when most of us are on the ledge with you?
You're in my power alley when you mention SF. Luckily I have around two hundred SF novels (to accompany seven or eight hundred reference, history, art, architecture, etc. books in my home. Since the aughts I've only read a couple of dozen SF novels that were either entertaining, or had illuminating new concepts, most are simply woke diatribes telling me I'm to blame for the end of the world. So I'll continue to re-read the great old stuff I still own.
Maybe you can step of the ledge and venture into the pre-digital world. Best of luck.
Have you got 'Couriers-Off Grid' by Jay Swanson. Published 2018 sadly not available right now. Definitely written by a person,not AI. In just two years w went from sci-fi dystopia to "our real life". The author may not even have intended it to be SO RELEVANT. Theme of book (in my interpretation) who runs Society,the tech elite or the 'non-tech' ordinary people. An Elite with Tech feel it is their hereditary right to "be in charge"....
Unfortunately, I haven't read it. I think I've only bought one SF book by a new author since the 1990s, Wesley Chu's "Time Salvager." I picked it up at Dollar Tree for a buck, best money I've spent on a book. I'd like to read the sequel, "Time Siege" if I can get a copy somewhere. The problem is that I'm currently trying to read and dispose of books. I don't want my boys to have to deal with so many when I kick the bucket. I will definitely see if I can find Swanson's book. Hopefully I'll have better luck.
Have a look round. It may not be Booker prize level but the idea at least partially explored is interesting and now,and possibly not even an intention of the author is a real thing here in the world we live in .
What "Ledge" ?
You'll know it when you're on it.
Not exactly what I was getting at. 99% of this is total BS. Loosing your job ?Ya, bad.
98% of the rest - you have to participate in all the BS already
I’m really curious to understand why you think the limitations of AI right now would imply limitations for what AI could do in the future?
It seems to me your suggesting because a toddler can’t speak it will never speak when it grows up. It seems a bit of an old kind of reasoning?
To be fair, I can sort of understand how you might come to that conclusion. I’ve met plenty of human adults that babble like toddlers so it’s easy to believe that that might be the case for AI.
The problem is that’s not actually the case and the rate of which AI can learn things far passes what any human can do.
That also means AI can learn terrible things much faster than humans can as well it’s very much garbage and garbage out with AI and humans.
The AI can actually progress faster than humans and leave us far behind so I’m a little confused by your logic. It doesn’t quite seem to add up?
Pranath, there's a 100% chance I'm babbling like a toddler myself. I certainly don't think AI has reached its pinnacle. It's pretty much the opposite. My worry is that it'll continue to improve, and in doing so will lower our expectations of art—all art. Books, movies, music, theatre, photography, cooking, even business. Good art will probably survive, but I'm guessing it'll be forced to the edges and end up a counterculture pursuit, while AI floods the marketplace with the cultural equivalent of junk food. In this case, who wins and who loses?
Thanks for explaining. I see what you mean and yes, I would actually agree with you. This is a reasonable assessment and we need to be more aware of this.
If anything, I do worry about the lack of nuance and informed debate in the public about this .
This technology is going to hit the general public more and more who are lesson less prepared but really not a great situation
I agree with the above, particularly your eleventh prediction. The logical extrapolation is that AI will serve the aims of authoritarianism.
It's mostly paid for by the US military.
Of course it will.
Sorry, I don’t quite see how that’s logical. Can you explain how that’s logical?
Are you suggesting the AI has intentionality sense of self something like that? Because you know without a sense of agency? How would it know how to do any of these things? Why would it even want to do any of these things?
There is absolutely no scientific evidence to suggest the AI as it currently has any agency or consciousness at all .
Or are you suggesting that AI would just be a very suitable tool for authoritarian humans to use?
But even that does that really make any sense as Ted highlighted in his article AI also makes plenty of mistakes. I mean it doesn’t actually make for a very reliable dictators henchman does it?
You are right. Ppl have no idea of what is coming.
“The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed.”
Revelation 13:15
Great point. As a believer (but a typical human) I want a pleasant life of comfort and ease but any reading of Revelations indicates things will get worse, much worse. A time to point suffering people to “the truth, the way, and the life”
So, the Bible's Revelations is your reference here, your guide to the future? Revelations has been interpreted to say all kinds of things for centuries, no?
It’s a perpetual future that Revelations addresses, one that will never happen, but will always be about to happen.
Absolutely. Very confusing to me overall but the general drift is that things get bad
People have been using Revelations to say things "are going to get real bad" for centuries.
I'm a non- demoninational believer that there is a god (no capitalization). I know there are things (besides Douglas Adams' meaning of life) that are beyond human comprehension, and I'm OK with that. But taking your comment at face value, it appears that Revelations is on to something.
What does that mean? How can The Book Of Revelations be "on to something?" One hundred different people can read Revelations and come up one hundred different interpretations of what's written. Someone could turn interpreting Revelations into a parlor game--that's about where it should be.
Because it's 100% how it's going to be.
That's me topped then. I kind of know,already.
In his 1964 novel The Penultimate Truth, Philip K. Dick has a character who writes speeches for the dictator using AI. The character enters a prompt and the AI composes the speech. It is eerily like our language models. The character then broods and labours over each word of the automated script. More and more, i suspect we are living in Dick's brain.
" i suspect we are living in Dick's brain"
That tracks.
See also The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe or Bertrand Tavernier's film of it Death Watch (1980, recommended) wherein the title character prompts AI to write pulp romance novels
Probably why it was the one of his I didn't much care for or get much out of it
Perhaps one ray of hope among all this, Mr Gioia, is that the bulk of AI models today are based around English and Chinese a close second. Despite translation tech having become advanced years ago, machines are still unable to properly grasp the linguistics and socio-cultural posturing necessary to become a deceptive phenomenon en masse (in terms of implementation or even detection). The hype around AI's "magic" is mostly being peddled by people who are native English speakers.
The scene from _2001_ is much more apropos than people think. What happened there is not that Hal "woke up" and went rogue; what happened is that it was given, _by its creators_, responsibility for the success of the mission, a responsibility it was completely incapable of discharging. At one point, Hal says (roughly) "I cannot allow you to jeopardize the success of this mission", to which Dave should have been able to reply "The success of this mission is not your responsibility; it is mine." That things weren't set up that way, with Dave in charge instead of Hal, was the fatal mistake.
This is _exactly_ one major kind of risk we face now: that well-meaning people, failing to understand the limitations of AI, give it power to make decisions whose implications it does not begin to comprehend.
That a curious fantasy you have there!
But it leaves me wondering if dystopian fantasy might be more exciting and appealing to you then perhaps the rather boring and less exciting nature of reality and where we are ?
To paraphrase: "AI, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born..."
Sherman, where you been my fellow human? I myself never accomplished what you did and it can all go away via Cancel Culture. Hang tough and keep rehabilitating. At some point humanity must welcome back each sinner or we're all doomed!
Health and balance,
Tio Mitchito
Mitch Ritter\Paradigm Sifters, Code Shifters, PsalmSong Chasers
Lay-Low Studios, Ore-Wa (Refuge of Atonement Seekers)
Media Discussion List\Looksee and Cancel Culture League of Canceled Person Sightings
On another note, I tried sharing your article to Facebook, but Meta took it and marked it as "spam." Maybe the tech overlords don't like your insight.
😂😂😂 not surprised. I left FB because The Zuck kept putting my in FB jail but everyone I know was leaving anyway.
The diamond bit hit me for some reason.
Firstly because, given the human cost of diamond mining, we can now say with 100% safety and certainty that anyone buying a mined diamond (both kinds are real, and lab grown are superior quality) is a despicable human being.
Secondly, I am quite certain that a significant proportion of the mined diamonds being sold are already, and increasingly will be, grown in a lab but sold as mined. Perhaps with a picture of a devastated landscape and oppressed miner on the box, like a reverse tabacco warning picture, just to emphasize the authenticity.
As a final thought, could this be the first instance where the person selling the 'fake' is, without any doubt, ethically far superior to the person they are conning? I mean, not only are they selling a far more ethical product, they are also ripping someone off who is, by definition, an awful person.
In short, if anyone wants an ethical, high profit and low work sales job, go into business selling real diamonds. If you simply market them as real rather than mined, and set the price a grand or so lower than mined ones, you aren't even lying. Just simply relieving horrible people of their money.
I've heard that it's impossible to tell mined and manufactured diamonds apart. Is that also your impression?
From a diamond store website: "Can you tell the difference by looking at the two?
No, you cannot tell the difference between a lab grown diamond and a mined diamond by looking at them. Therefore, to protect consumers by offering total disclosure, lab grown diamonds are branded with a microscopic laser mark to distinguish them from mined diamonds. You cannot see this mark with your naked eye, but a jeweller will be able to see it with specialist magnifying equipment."
like replicants ...
I'm not an expert but as far as I know that lab ones may even be better quality. It's not the appearance or structure or whatever that people pay extra for in terms of mined diamonds.
Right - it's the unspoken value of the underpaid labor that brought it to the surface...I guess that's the 'artisanal' touch!
That website even hints at that, btw:
"Pros:
Simply beautiful to look at and last a lifetime
More affordable than mined diamonds
Environmentally sustainable and socially ethical, which is appealing if you are concerned about the effects of mining on local environments and communities
A rare “high tech luxury”, which has a perceived “status”, especially to Millenial and Gen Z buyers
Cons:
Grown in a laboratory instead by Mother nature, which lacks perceived “status” to some buyers."
Yup. Nothing like the sweat of an underpaid and exploited person of colour to really bring out the shine on that rich person's finger.
Sorry, I only meant to vomit once.
Yuck! 🤮
🤮
🤮
AI will soon be “rebranded” in some way to make it seem less “artificial” and lull people into complacency.
Are you suggesting somehow people aren’t already complacent and somehow AI is inspiring some magical epidemic of complacency? 🙂
"Enhanced Genius"
Or how about best friend? 😁
As you know, trust in other human beings is at an all time high … not 😉
This is a heavy read (especially as someone who currently makes a living as a programmer), but it's hard to argue against any of these points.
Great post.
Surely it’s only a heavy read if one can’t tell the difference between speculative predictions and reality?
Otherwise maybe watching something like a zombie movie might actually be too frightening for you if you can’t tell the difference between fantasy and speculation and reality of course it seems that many people have a bit of trouble telling the difference .
Another great, and terrifying essay, Ted. It reminded me that in the late 70s, William Shatner did a version of Elton John's "Rocket Man" using the latest technology (ultimatte) which allowed three Shatners to sing together simultaneously. It was legendary and tapes were passed around freely, though quite often what one viewed was a dub of dub of a dub . . . ad infinitum, each generation losing picture and audio quality until one finally ended up with a marginally melodic set of Shatners warbling in a video snowstorm. (Similarly, the original project which introduced the world to the makers of South Park was equally afflicted.)
Prediction #5 strikes me as a similar fate - as AI seeks to sample itself, we will eventually get a product bearing no resemblance to anything in the original iteration.
Ironically, the original tapes were found of most of the video projects and through digital copying (which is relatively lossless) show a clear image and reasonable sound and are now easily found on the internet. Proving in part that there is no substitute for the original.
I saw William Shatner reciting a poem,it must be on YouTube. He was compelling I must say. After every line he took a drag at the cigarette he held and in the comments everyone was saying "What's IN that smoke". Should you see the film of it you'll see what they meant. Man!
Yes it does make me wonder when skilful writers deliberately blend the distinction between reality and fantasy to frighten the hell out of people while that might make for a popular post. I do wonder if it really helps people understand the nuances of reality and actually prepare for it, I’m not sure.🤔
When people say that AI will liberate people to focus more on their art and music, I tell them that corporations will want to put musicians and anyone in the arts out of business because they can't be controlled. That's why I agree with you on the fourth point. And yes, look at the psychology of those who are in charge of AI. That's what we should focus on. On another note, I did kiss Isabella Rossellini's hand once while walking through a graveyard. But that was for a scene in a tv show called "Shut Eye." I'm not sure if it was used in the show, but it's a true story.
I’m envious. Good for her that she has a nice farm.
I sold her an espresso maker once, but I didn't think to kiss her hand. I mean...I thought it. But I didn't do it.
Indeed.
I do wonder, I wonder if it’s completely out of the question that people might consider the whole idea of nuance ?
Reality either be a total utopian fantasy or a dystopian disaster must these be the only possibilities even though they are the most popular?
Or could reality be something a bit less exciting and thrilling and something a bit more complicated that doesn’t make for a very viral post ?
And I wonder what actually helps us better prepare for the future as opposed to scaring the hell out of people and warping peoples minds something to think about …
I see a great potential positive in all of this, which Ted touches on in his remark about the existential philosophers in their Parisian cafés. Yes, grappling with the nature of reality was in the past the reserve of an intellectual or spiritual elite. Now we are likely to be confronted head on with that very question, all of us without exception, and not as an academic matter but as something that is indeed of existential proportions. Gain true insight or perish: that might be a motto for the times ahead.