It's a common pastime in Silicon Valley to sit and wonder what kind of world the elite should create. Shift your thinking from a utilitarian philosophy concerned with maximizing charity through efficient greed and long-term philanthropy to a moral framework of benefiting as many people as possible. . That shift, championed by Oxford professor William McCaskill and embodied by disgraced FTX founder and CEO Sam-Banksman Freed, is having a positive impact on the tech industry because its products are not only valuable to society, but They are the most important ever created. .
Critics of techno-optimism and artificial intelligence Timnit Gebru and Emil Torres have attempted to formulate this kind of thinking in a collection of ideas called TSCERAL; And for a long time. At their core, these philosophies hold that the future is filled with exciting and unimaginable wonder, but only if we believe that powerful people face no obstacles in making the world their way. .
No wonder he insists that the glorious end, whether it be the birth of an artificial intelligence god or the eternal happiness of billions of people, is Silicon Valley's hallmark of its evil ways. Not content with controlling the progress of technology and who will benefit, they now want to create an artificial intelligence that can regulate human life at all levels. At the same time, they seek to build institutions and systems that strengthen them as they shape and guide how people experience politics, social life, the economy, and culture.
I am interested in two directions. transhumanists waiting for the next technological craze, amply represented by Google engineering director Ray Kurzweil; And the branch represented by Marc Andreessen and other venture capitalists who burn capital to develop and buy infrastructure, markets and regulations that may limit their innovation.
For Kurzweil and his team, the time comes when computing power eludes our ability to predict or control what they call the "singularity." Kurzweil believes that by 2045, our world will change dramatically as our bodies and souls transcend human borders. We will become immortal, bring back our loved ones, cure the physical and social ills that plague our bodies and communities, colonize the stars, and essentially merge with or replace the machine. We are about to enter the age of intelligent machines.
Some of the most interesting analyzes of this utopian, techno-enlightened mindset come from Megan O'Gibbin, a transhumanist-turned-Christian tech critic like myself. In his essay "The Ghost in the Cloud," Ogiblin connects Christian theology with the transcendental humanism of Kurzweil and influential Silicon Valley investors and entrepreneurs.
He suggests that the first mention of the description "transman" occurs after Dante's revival, in the first English translation of Dante's Paradiso in 1814; "Words cannot speak of that superhuman transformation." The resurrection and its passage have been at the center of many debates in Christianity for thousands of years; How is our body? Where does our soul go? What will our spiritual experience be like? O'Gibbin has some Christian ideas that believe that science and technology will allow humans to achieve immortality. Alchemists created the elixir of immortality. Russian cosmonauts hoped to raise all the dead and colonize space. A French Jesuit priest "believed that evolution leads to the Kingdom of God" as machines create a living global network that integrates with the human mind, reaches a level (Omega point) and emerges on the other side to meet God. Time and place."
Transhumanists can claim to be the first to think about the technology of what it means to be human, what kind of immortality is desirable or possible, and the philosophy of mind that comes with crossing or doubling your mind. However, according to O'Giblin, Christians have been asking these questions for a long time.
"Transhumanism offers a vision of salvation without the thorny issues of divine justice," he writes. It was an eschatological evolutionary process in which man reached the final glorification of the flesh, and where the path to salvation was confused or ineffective.
In the "Model" section of his book God, Man, Animal, Machine , he revised and expanded his n+1 essay, and there is a moment near the end where Kurzweil sends a letter to Ogiblin and the resulting "substantial equivalent". Among the metaphors for resurrection, consciousness and mind overload, and Christianity, Kurzweil notes that "answers to existential questions are necessarily metaphorical." A metaphorical choice to answer these questions.
For Ogiblin, this confirms a theory in his essay and book: "From early Christians to medieval alchemists to Silicon Valley scientists, every effort has undertaken unique historical quests informed by metaphors." in all ages." Whether alchemical transformation, divine resurrection, or inhuman digital ascension, the goal is the same; to illuminate, measure, and define consciousness and then liberate it from the mortal body.
Today's vision of human transformation may be tempting given the digital glitz and glamor of the future, but Ogiblin points out that for all the insights borrowed from Christian theology, it is deadly. He writes: “The most pessimistic evangelical message is that we will inevitably be replaced by machines, and that the only way to survive the Singularity is to become machines ourselves; things that long ago we granted to plants and animals".
Worse still, we have become a feeble calculating machine. For Kurzweil, becoming human is a step towards creating true mechanical souls. This can be seen in Kurzweil's works for his prescient vision, The Age of Spirit Machines in 1999, followed by The Monolith in 2005, How to Create a Mind in 2012, and The Singularity in 2022.
This second wave of transhumanist philosophy, with people like Andreessen, rejected Kurzweil's version of spirituality but ironically embraced the more Christian sensibility that transhumanism underpinned. Consider Andreessen's recent blog post titled "Why AI Will Save the World" for a critique of the God of AI. In the essay, she dismisses fears that AI poses an existential threat (I share her skepticism, but for opposite reasons, that she and her ilk are a real existential threat) and argues that AI will fundamentally improve everything we care about.
Andreessen envisions an artificial intelligence that complements human intelligence. Children, he writes, will have teachers who are "patiently patient, compassionate, infinitely knowing, infinitely helpful" as they grow to "maximize their potential in a mechanical version of infinite love."
This Bible lesson takes me through my days. God's love, the love of those around us, may not be visible, but a closer look (and faith) reveals its presence. By accepting the presence of God's love, we can grow and develop to realize our true potential, our destiny, our ability to be a better child/brother/sister/friend/neighbor/lover/person. Andreessen's hypothetical AI love is actually different from God's love, because with AI you get a change from God's personal intervention, and you also affirm something that connects you.
How do you bring that infinite patience, compassion, knowledge and help to each person? Andreessen believes the AI will make it everyone's personal "assistant/coach/consultant/coach/mentor/counselor/therapist" that will accompany them throughout their lives. Every person has an angel on their shoulder that speeds up productivity and leads to greater wealth and prosperity. AI can help us develop amazing technologies, provide scientific knowledge, and better understand ourselves. This, Andreessen argues, will usher in a new golden age as AI-enhanced creators work faster, harder, and better. At the same time, AI is improving our ability to create wars. There is no more collateral damage as the mortality rate is lowered, allowing for greater strategic and strategic decisions that reduce “accidents, mistakes and unnecessary bloodshed”.
Andreessen divides opponents of artificial intelligence into two categories often used by economists: "Baptists" and "smugglers." Baptists believe in social reform. In this case, they believe that AI represents an existential threat. Rather, "openings" are "opportunities for your own benefit by introducing new barriers, regulations, and laws that exclude competitors." In the case of AI risk, this applies to CEOs seeking regulatory hurdles, such as government licensing, as well as any critic who is paid a salary by a university, think tank, activist group, or news outlet. . Andreessen does not have a class for those subject to the pursuit of an improved AI, such as workers who have to train it, moderate its activities, or exploit it.
The only cost to Andreessen is not to pursue AI, because if the US doesn't, China will. As Andresen writes, unlike the US, China sees AI as a "tyrannical means of population control." So the only solution is to invest more money in AI and let big companies "build AI as fast and powerful as possible". The private sector must lead the way in artificial intelligence, applying it to solve as many problems as possible without government restrictions. Any regulation the US pursues is meant to limit China's ability to develop AI, not ours.
Andreessen's Manichean worldview is clearly interested. Ultimately, Andreessen wants to invest in startups that support massive AI as products and services. And despite his claim, there are real costs associated with AI.
Like China, the United States is using AI for both domestic and foreign purposes. Much of the digital technology we create is a construct of surveillance and social control. Global efforts to replicate our technological advances have helped preserve the very regimes that Andresse believes need to be challenged. From the government tyranny of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states to the apartheid regime of Israel and the dictatorship of China, Silicon Valley tends to look the other way when there is money to be made. Andreessen's investment firm is apparently turning to Saudi Arabia for financing. There are many calls to march to stop the proliferation of regime technology.
Of course Andreessen is a hypocrite. People like him earn billions while our technological advances struggle to suppress labor, control powerless populations, intimidate competing forces, and turn much of our daily lives into profit. For the others, releasing Andrés would be a disaster. The world is on the brink of destruction. our ecosystem is collapsing. As tech companies gain unchallenged power over our computing infrastructure, the political space we occupy shrinks. And the social sphere will continue to crumble as speculators and rentiers rule us with an ever more degrading algorithmic life. We are left with the hope of Silicon Valley, this time it will be different, the AI, unlike the Internet, will not disappoint.
So what can Silicon Valley offer us? John Ganz, a writer who focuses on right-wing politics, recently wrote in a Neustak post that he provides insight into the origins of reactionary thinking in Silicon Valley today: a high-tech, industrial-productivity modernity without freedom, democracy, and equality.
This desire for authoritarianism is a crusade against the negative aspects of eugenics and capitalism. In particular, Ganz sees the rise of anti-Semitism among tech capitalists, for whom the "abstract, financial, Jew-dependent aspect" of inventor vs. banker, engineer v. Trader, Thiel & Mack v. Soros. Racial science, social control, and the revival of certain aspects of capitalism have long been integral to Silicon Valley ideologies, as well as other reactionary positions.
Whether AI angels can save the world or not, the main reason we shouldn't be looking for it is that our technological advances are largely orchestrated for immoral purposes, serving people with a repulsive view of society.
The world we live in is ugly enough, but the tech capitalists want an uglier world. A society run by techno-capitalists interested in elite management, eugenics and social control is the logical end of ecological destruction and a world dominated by surveillance and apartheid. A world where our technological capabilities are tuned to perpetuate the exploitation, oppression, division and even extermination of people in the service of a strict hierarchy.
At best, it will be a world that resembles the old racist, sexist and imperialist hegemony against which we fought. But the zealots who enjoy controlling our tech ecosystem see an opportunity to use new tools and arguments about the old regime to further suppress the old regime and its ridiculous recent ideas about human equality and democracy to defeat. Resist the temptation to limit the discussion and distract them from their political projects. The question is not whether it will destroy or save the world. If we want to live in a world where we have a chance, it will raise its head.
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