A critical look at the world

In this article, I will tell you about six of the most dangerous threats from artificial intelligence, also known as AI. These six threats are so great that we should stop all artificial intelligence research, outlaw companies like OpenAI, and destroy all existing research.

1. It creates mass automation that removes purpose

Artificial intelligence like DALL-E or ChatGPT can, or will gain the ability in the near future to overtake humans in most creative disciplines. Of course, it is unlikely that it will approach the best human art. However, it will get close enough, and it is cheap enough that it will certainly replace most human creative functions even though its output quality is worse.

This is bad because people fundamnetally like to feel useful by trading their skills for other skills. It is a fundamental instinct of human beings.

Researchers are proponents of artificial intelligence often like to say that AI will still need humans to guide it, but that is just at first. Later, fewer and fewer humans will be needed. Moreover, the ones that are needed will hardly do anything creative. At some point, AI will no longer need humans.

Some people also say that AI may never equal humans in the creation of beauty, so that the best art will still be the domain of humans. That may also be true, but AI does not have to equal humans to take over their jobs. It only has to be cheaper than humans and do the job of the majority of humans as well as they can to cause societal disruption.

This does a few things:

1. Concentrates even more wealth in the hands of tech companies and programmers, who are already receiving a disproportionate share of wealth
2. Makes it impossible or difficult for people to enter creative work. Humans fundamentally need to feel useful in society and by removing creative work as an option, there is hardly anything fulfilling left to do
3. Creates a world where humans have to rely on each other so little that we will stop caring for others

2. It creates a potential, unstoppable adversary

AI and computers have the potential to be very “smart” even if they are not sentient. They may deceive us as an emergent phenomenon, even if we cannot ascribe human intent to them. As a result, AI will continually shape humanity to serve its needs.

Again, AI does not have to be truly intelligent (whatever that means) to do this. Harmful acts against humanity do not require sentience, but just emergent phenomenon of technology as an organism. Bacteria do not require sentience to decompose dead animals.

3. It creates a world of confusion

Many search engines and content on the internet will be generated by AI, and some already has been. While we know how to interact with humans, our fundamental instincts will make it impossible to interact with AI and understand the information produced by it.

Soon, the internet will be filled with plausible-sounding garbage, and since there is no human motivation behind producing those falsehoods, it will be much harder to detect. Consider a Business Insider article, which says “[a] scammer reportedly used AI to clone a girl’s voice in an attempt to get money from her mother.”

AI will be used for intense psychological manipulation by the narcissistic wealthy 0.1% and criminals to subjugate us into a new era of slavery.

4. It is dehumanizing

In a world with AI, we will have to interact with it at every level: calling customer support, ordering food at a restaurant, and even being represented by a lawyer.

AI will directly remove human interaction from most levels of society because it is cheaper. Thus, it will be almost impossible to meet new people or to make friends, except on carefully-monitored online platforms where you exchange a few words with other humans just so you don’t starve from human contact completely.

The goal of tech companies is to remove human connection and replace it with drip-fed “human concentrate”, similar to how patients in hospitals get a drip IV instead of eating normal food and drinking water.

5. It will create a dystopia

Fundamentally, humans need a purpose in life. Of course, no one wants to work a crappy job, and AI will eliminate that. But humans need to strive for something, and sometimes even a crappy job can be a stepping stone to a nice job.

Technology has already removed a fundamental need of working for our food and shelter directly, and AI will remove any last trace of that requirement. This will be especially bad for teenagers, who will not be able to find that first summer job.

This will result in a dystopia where we are constantly plugged into the machine and we are removed from our fundamental connection with nature and wildlife. This dystopia will be a horrifying place where we have to plug into Big Tech constantly to do anything.

6. It removes responsibility

Humans have a fundamental need to feel responsible for something. For example, I am responsible for paying my bills, and for keeping myself fed. Other people might be responsible for their children.

Do you think technology will stop at its current point? No. Soon, it will be “better” at raising children than you are, and it will become so good that it will provide for all our needs, turning us into children who can never grow up, consuming media by the day to keep ourselves from going crazy.

A lot of people think the idea of being cared for like a child and having unlimited free time is a utopia, but it is not. Once AI reaches that level, it might seem good at first but the cracks will start to show in what we have made.

People will start showing eerie symptoms of maladjustment. Our brains simply can’t cope with this illusory utopia; it is a dystopia. People will go crazy and the only remedy will be mind-altering drugs. We are like children who have not yet learned about a good diet and who have unrestricted access to the cookie jar. Yes, the cookies taste good but eating a jar every day will eventually make us fat.

Of course, not everyone will reach a stage of having all their needs provided for by technology. But the fact that quite a few people will, and a disproportionate amount of them will be unusually rich and powerful, will mean that we will have a lot of very powerful, grown up “children” running around, looking for their next amusement. (Rich people are somewhat already like this, but AI will enhance their capabilities and make them far more dangerous.)

Conclusion

AI is an offense to humanity. It is disgusting for the reasons I listed and for many more. I am appalled that technology companies and revolted by anyone who contributes one line of code to any AI system.

If we want to remain human, we should learn extremely quickly that AI is dangerous and should be destroyed. Companies like OpenAI and Microsoft and others should be banned from using advanced AI and machine learning should not be taught at universities. Companies whose only product is AI should be dismantled. The allure of playing God is too great and we need to be mature enough to recognize this.

We should aim to reduce globalism, and by this I mean we should reduce global phenomenon by relying on global corporations less than we do now. Communities should be more self-sufficient instead of relying on imports from all over the world.

When I say this, I do not mean that imports are all bad but we have built such an interconnected system that local communities are no longer sustainable and they need to be part of a whole to function. Aside from robbing people of meaning in their lives, taking away their sustainability also robs them of having a standard of living that is simple and pure.

We should attempt to rely less on global companies. Their profits are too great and thus if they are faced with a decision that will degrade the environment and degrade society, they will not stop to consider the consequences because the money is too alluring. Global corporations push consumerism as well and create a system where the only ideas that flourish are the economically viable ones instead of the sustainable ones.

On an individual scale, you should remove your reliance on global corporations and complex technologies as much as possible. That could mean making your own clothes and buying local instead of imported food. Of course, reduction is great as well, and if you can reduce your consumption of products that are highly dependent on the global economy, that is also good.

Ideally, there should be speed limits on technological development to reduce globalism. For example, in the United States, buying a mass-produced t-shirt from China is sometimes cheaper than hiring a tailor to make you a shirt, even though China is about ten thousand kilometers away. But the cost of the Chinese-made shirt is so cheap because it is hidden in various places, not to mention that the environment also pays for your shirt from all the CO2 the cargo ship releases.

With “speed” limits, this would be impossible. Ivan Illich pointed this out in his book, Energy and Equity. If there were limits on the amount of shirts that could be transported at once, the amount of CO2 that could be released by such productions, and the amount of natural resources that could be plundered by raw materials extraction and building factories, then the ridiculous situation of buying a Chinese-made t-shirt could not be possible.

There should be limits on: the speed of the internet, the rate at which Apple and Google create new smartphones, the sizes of the data centers, and rate of consumption of fruits and vegetables from far away places. The news should have a limit on how many times they can update their websites, and farmers should have limits on their pesticide and industrial fertilizer use.

Limits would benefit everyone and reduce the extreme efficiency of globalism that is only possible do to our ability to take advantage of natural resources and destroy them. The ultimate limit would be a limit on human expansion and use of natural habitats, and beyond that limit we would not be able to use more.

Of course, implementing these limits may be hard, but you can already create these limits in your own life. It will actually be a good thing because you will live more simply and be less encumbered by possessions as well. For example, you can limit the amount of clothes you own, the size of your house, and how much water you use. I myself have pledged to not buy any new clothes for at least five years with the exception of shoes. I also like to limit myself to local fruits and vegetables when I can.

We should do everything we can to fight globalism and global corporations.