How to fix the AI problem

Today on Screaming Into The Void: Artificial Intelligence

There are an increasing number of “whistleblowers” in the news, warning of the imminent dangers of AI destroying humanity, and how WE need to be careful.

Let’s be really clear about things. Firstly, Artificial Intelligence is not actually intelligence – it is nothing more than a set of algorithms that do as they are instructed.
Secondly, and more importantly, WE are not doing this. WE are not the ones giving the instructions. WE have no power to arrest this spiral into oblivion. The billionaire tech bro’s are entirely responsible for this, and they don’t care one iota for anyone else.
So what if the human race is obliterated and life on this planet is irreparably doomed? It doesn’t affect them, and it won’t affect them. We have allowed them to infiltrate every aspect of our existence, which is EXACTLY what they wanted. They have the power – right now – to end global hunger, mitigate runaway climate change, end war and genocide and they don’t, because they don’t want to. They really don’t want to, because all of those things make them more personal wealth and that is all they care about.

The only way to end this insanity, is to end billionaires. ALL billionaires. There are no good ones – not Elon Musk, not Jeff Bezos, and not J.K Rowling or Taylor Swift. Not one of them cares enough about anyone else to divest themselves of some of their obscene wealth, in order to improve the lives of others. None of them ever needs to make another cent in their lives, and none of them would suffer a jot if 90% of their wealth was to vanish overnight.

As an example, Taylor Swift is estimated at around two billion dollars. If she shed 90% of that, she would “only” have two hundred million. That seems like enough to be going on with, if you ask me. I’m not suggesting she stop performing or making music, or even selling it – just that she could, if she wanted to, personally pay for all of the production costs, staff wages, and give away all of the proceeds to charitable causes without missing it.

If Elon Musk’s current estimated wealth was taxed at 99.99%, the poor little rich boy would be left with $9,080,000,000. The notion that people like Musk and Bezos “earned” their wealth would be funny if it were not so vomit inducing.

Billionaires need to be ended.

Soon

I’m not big on predictions of the future, but I’m going out on a limb here to make one.

A time is coming, hopefully within my remaining lifespan, but I have no doubt it will come very soon. It will come about rapidly after Donald Trump meets his imminent demise. His much anticipated departure from this world will be globally celebrated. Yes, for those who remain there will be court cases and prosecutions – for everything from corruption to war crimes to actual crimes against humanity. There will be political hand wringing, and excuses, and talk of reparations, and legal judgements that will go on for years. The United States has a long, hard road ahead, if it ever wishes to claw itself back into a position of respect and trust.

My prediction concerns the name Trump, and everything it stands for, because outside of history books the name Trump will disappear, just like the name Hitler. There will be no buildings with “TRUMP” on them, no golf courses, no resorts, no products, and no businesses with the name. There will be no hats, no flags, no shirts with the name; bumper stickers will be scraped off, tattoos will be covered up, and merchandise will be destroyed and thrown into dumpsters. Openly displaying such things will be an invitation to abuse and ostracisation. Recordings of the multiple iterations of “The Apprentice”, “The Celebrity Apprentice”, and the “Melania” film will never be shown in public again.

The name will be so stained and shamed that it will become nothing more than a pejorative to hurl at someone considered criminal, hateful and cruel. Those surviving family members who manage to avoid prison will attempt to disappear from public view and, just like the remaining descendants of Hitler, they will change their names and endeavour to fade into obscurity; the shame of association will be too much to bear. Businesses now aligned with the Trump name and its propaganda, such as ‘Fox News’, will be sold or go into receivership. Those currently in the Trump administration will never again hold a position in government or public office.

If there’s anyone out there with the courage and competence to start the ball rolling, let’s make 2026 the year.

Sorry, Not Sorry

Charlie is dead. History will call him evil, but let’s remember, he never actually killed anyone. He just filled young, impressionable minds with paranoid rants, pointed them toward imagined enemies, and let the chaos unfold as he knew it would. Some people called him their leader, others a prophet. In truth, he was just a manipulative little sociopath who found an audience of kids desperate for meaning, and he fed them fear until they did his dirty work for him.

I refer, of course, to Charlie Manson – who did you think I was talking about?

Just A Thought

Look, I’m not the slightest bit religious, but each to their own.

I certainly don’t have any answers to those classic questions such as “what is the meaning of life?” and “Is there a God?”, so believe what you want, as long as it doesn’t lead you to oppress and infringe the lives of others. Just remember, the very concept of “Freedom of religion” also allows for freedom from it.

The biggest problem of prophecies, even nonsensical ones, is that there will always be those who not only believe them, but who will go out of their way to try and ensure they come to pass, or make it seem to do so. For all those self-proclaimed “christians” (sarcasm – please note the quote marks and lower case letter) who love to wave their Bibles in support of Donald Trump, but who almost certainly have never read it, seemingly capable only of quoting bits of the Old Testament in support of their prejudices and hatred of others, I challenge you to read the second half – you know, the half that actually talks about the teachings of Christ – and highlight all the passages in which Jesus advocates for turning away refugees, oppressing the poor, making golden idols of yourself, telling lies, denying aid to the sick and suffering, rape, and theft. You won’t need a working highlighter.

If you’re able to get through to the end without bursting into flames, ask yourself this:
Aside from the florid, poetic translations describing things looking like bits of other things, isn’t it interesting how Donald Trump, your lord and saviour, fits every description of the Antichrist? As a “believer”, shouldn’t you consider what that makes you, and what it says about your promised future?

Just a thought.

Rampant, Soulless Capitalism Strikes Again

(This is just a rant. If the words of an old man screaming his frustrations into the void is not for you, please move on.)

I have just seen the notification that gaming platform Steam will cease operating on Windows 7 and 8 after January 2024.  This, in my opinion, is an absolutely disgusting way to treat many, many Steam users.  Like countless others, I decided long ago that Windows, especially 10 and onwards, had become resource hungry bloatware that is more interested in spying on users than providing a stable OS.  I have contentedly used Windows 7 for years with no problems, and to sell out their users like this in the name of “security” considerations is just garbage.

Just yesterday I purchased a new game, that will now apparently be useless in eight months. I don’t have the option to simply upgrade as those people so arrogantly suggest, since I am a retiree who cannot afford a new overpriced OS, as well as a new PC that will adequately run it.

Will Steam be refunding the full price of all the software that I (and hundreds of thousands of others) have purchased, and that will soon be arbitrarily snatched away?  I somehow doubt it.  They are telling us that the software we have purchased with hard earned money, that already resides on our computers, will cease to function simply because they have made an executive decision to make a deliberate change to cause such a thing.  That is what I would call theft.

I can already hear a load of voices offering anecdotes about how they “just love Windows 11” or how I should change to Linux, or I should get a new PC, but they are overlooking the most important point.  That point is that Steam have arbitrarily decided that ALL of their users have to use a particular operating system or lose everything that they have already paid for!  In this regard they are far worse than Microsoft have ever been.  Yes, Microsoft eventually stopped support for Windows 7 but it didn’t suddenly stop working on the day that happened!  Nobody lost any money, or the use of any software they had already invested in. Steam is doing that very thing, and their apparent level of actually giving a shit, is a little red banner at the top of the screen with a countdown.

I don’t expect any company to carry on support for older operating systems ad infinitum, but neither do I expect them to time-bomb the already existing software of people who choose to use those operating systems, whatever their reasons may be.

I don’t want Windows 10 or 11!
I wouldn’t want it, even if I had a computer that would run that garbage adequately, and as much as Linux interests me, and I would happily try it out on a new machine, I have no interest in starting all over again at the risk of losing everything.  I am now an old fart of 66 years, I still like to play Skyrim, Portal 1 and 2, and some other games that run happily on my PC, and to have Steam just suddenly announce “thanks for the money and the thousands of hours you’ve played, dude, but fuck you” is galling.  All they would have to do is release an optional patch that changes current Steam versions into an offline platform, but I guess that doesn’t fit their “take the money and run” ethic.

I Don’t Understand

I think I’ve reached the age in which I find the world more baffling than anything else. I thought it would happen later in life than this, but here I am.
There is so much I cannot understand.

I don’t understand the thought processes of vast sections of humanity, who would readily spurn a homeless beggar but will proudly tithe their weekly thirty pieces of silver to a church whose coffers are already overflowing with blood-money.

I don’t understand the calamitous and seemingly exponential dismissal of science, and the downward spiral into magical thinking and superstition.

I don’t understand how horrific, blatant lies can be not only left to stand unchallenged, but welcomed as inviolable truth.

I don’t understand how ideas like gun control, universal healthcare, and equal rights for all can be deemed evil and untenable, and decried most loudly by those who are suffering most egregiously from their absence.

I don’t understand how universal concepts of humanity such as good and evil, right and wrong, love and hate, can be so wilfully corrupted in the popular consciousness as to be replaced by such childishly simplistic political terms as ‘Right’ and ‘Left’, ‘Conservative’ and ‘Liberal’, ‘Republican’ and ‘Democrat’.

I don’t understand how people whose governments describe themselves in such glowing terms as “Leader of the free world”, can see no irony or shame in the rejection of refugees from war-torn regimes and natural disasters, simply because they fear some undefined “burden on the system”.

I don’t understand how it is possible to reach adulthood, and not realise that when your perception of humanity does not include those other than you, you yourself cease to be human.

I don’t understand how we as a species can have survived the twentieth century; to have seen the horrors inflicted upon the world by racism, bigotry, intolerance, and greed; to have witnessed the cruel futility of scapegoating and prejudice, with all of its despicable rage-trigger vocabulary, such as kike, nigger, gook, spic, slope, mick, paki, commie, and a thousand other poisonous, derogatory slurs; to have somehow endured all of that, and yet in the face of a dreadful pandemic the first response of many is not to do everything in their power to mitigate the disaster, but to blame the Chinese, all 1.4 billion of them, for no better reason than it was China who suffered the first casualties.

I just don’t understand, and if the solution is “it’s just human nature” I don’t want to be human anymore.

“The actions of government, we are told, bear down only on imprudent souls who provoke them. The man who resigns himself and keeps silent is always safe. Reassured by this worthless and specious argument, we do not protest against the oppressors. Instead we find fault with the victims. Nobody knows how to be brave even prudentially. Everyone stays silent, keeping his head low in the self-deceiving hope of disarming the powers that be by his silence. People give despotism free access, flattering themselves they will be treated with consideration. Eyes to the ground, each person walks in silence the narrow path leading him safely to the tomb.”
― Benjamin Constant, Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments

A Distant Land

There is a distant land, remote and hidden from all but me.  Though very far away, in moments of quiet and stillness I can travel there in an instant, and visit with those who live there in places unchanging.  When I walk its streets, the sounds and the sights are like old friends, and even the feel of the air is as familiar to me as my home.

I walk to the end of Melford Road, turning left at the cafe on the corner, past the sweetshop, still with jars of goodness lining the walls, bulls eyes and sherbet lemons, barley sugar twists and chocolate caramels, pear drops and gobstoppers, acid drops and liquorice sticks, and other delights too numerous to list.

A little further on is the bus stop, opposite the United Dairies depot, from whence the milk carts depart every day in all directions, their electric motors humming like a swarm of bees, and laden with clanking crates of milk, silver top, red top, gold top, and ‘sterilised’, loaves of bread, and cartons of orange juice.  Inside the depot, cool and dark out of the hot Summer sunshine, is a small office and shop in which any boy or girl with a sixpence can get a mysteriously named ‘Mickey’, a half pint of chilled chocolate milk, and the most delicious thing imaginable.  Drink it on the spot and hand the bottle back, and you get a refund of tuppence, enough for eight blackjack chews from the sweetshop.

A brief wait at the bus stop and along comes a trusty double-decker bus, the pride of London, gleaming bright red, as I hop onto the platform and up the winding stairs to the front, to look down at the familiar world passing below.  The bus stops at Central Park and the bus conductor calls out “White Horse”, in memory of the pub that was destroyed by a V1 bomb in the war, the hole in the ground still there opposite the park, the fragmented remains of cellar walls and stairs still visible like architectural ghosts, and where my friends and I prefer to play rather than the park.  In the bombsite there are adventures to be had, and there is no stern, black uniformed park-keeper shouting at you to keep off the grass.

A shift of attention brings me to the house in Capel Road, opposite Wanstead Flats, the grassy reserve that is home to not one but two ponds, with ducks and swans, and where boys can sail toy boats and skim stones.  In the kitchen of the house, my Grandmother is still there, in floral dress and apron, smiling and making toffee on the stove in a large flat pan.  I lost more than one dental filling to that toffee, but it was too good to pass up.  My grandfather is there, wearing grey flannel trousers and white vest, sitting at the table with his ubiquitous cigarette and bakelite radio softly playing.  In the front room is my Uncle Jack, with his beloved stereogram and records, creating another magnificent embroidery, a skill acquired as physical therapy to partial paralysis from a childhood injury.

In this land it is a simple thing to flit from place to place, as a butterfly in a flower garden, taking in a sight, a sound, a feeling, and soaking up the sweetness before moving on to the next memory.  In this land, lost friends and family can be found unchanged by the years, unaltered by their passing, and I can tell them “You helped to make me the person I am, and in return I will always remember you, so that part of you will live on in this place, until I too am gone”.

 

Lest We Forget

As we approach the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month, and we think of those who fell in that awful war, let us also not forget the cynical, politicking bastards of the various governments, who sat swilling gin in their gentlemen’s clubs, and ordered many thousands to carry on shooting, shelling, and dying until the clock was right for a dramatic effect. Let us never give them that power again.

We Need To Make Them Listen

Caring for the environment, the natural world, and the rest of humanity, is not a generational problem.  It’s disingenuous to point at the “baby boomers” and claim that it’s all our fault, when the rampant pollution and desecration of our planet is, and always has been, in the hands of the relative handful of the super-wealthy manipulating everything and everyone for their own ends.

There have always been champions like David Attenborough, Rachel Carson, and now Greta Thunberg.  There were marches and campaigns and outrage in the 1960s just as much as there are today, and no-one was listening.  They were not made to listen.  Now it’s probably too late and the blinkers are still on, the science is still being denied, the lies are still being spewed out by political hacks, and too many people are still wilfully blinded to what is happening beyond their own view out of the window.

Our world is in the early stages of another mass extinction event, and this time instead of asteroid impacts or volcanoes much of the blame lies with us.  It’s too late to stop it, it’s already happening.  What we can do is try to mitigate its effects by stopping the madness, and making the liars face the truth.

The United States under Trump is rolling back ever more environmental protections put in place by former administrations, increasing fossil fuel use, and they remain the greatest polluter of our world.  China is building new coal power plants and dumping millions of tons of pollutants into the atmosphere and sea every day.  We can’t sit and pat ourselves on the back just because we no longer use plastic shopping bags, or re-use our own drinking straws.

We need to make them listen now.

A New Hope