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In the summer of 2024, that’s when…when the AI revolution began to become frightfully apparent, when this human, hearing about employment hardships in his own family…and stock-market concerns…seeing countless commercials for various AI providers, as if any of that is reassuring to anyone with a brain…started to tremble with panic for this world’s future, for the future of humankind.
[Yes, that was a horrible run-on sentence. But, it comes with the weight of something seriously souring the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics. Someone call Sarah Connors and/or her son John. The machines are coming. The machines are coming!]
I recall, not long ago, seeing ads for Salesforce and thinking Matt M. was a well-spoken cheerleader for world peace and unity, even if I was unaware of what Salesforce really was and unsure if I should be concerned. Now, I’m seeing even more ads with him and various characters, a lot of Western references, and I am starting to get a bigger picture that is frightful and growing at an alarming rate. All that talk about coming together and getting to work was balderdash to coax people into siding with a company working on AI. Matt’s the menace he played in that Dark Tower movie. A dark cloud is forming over the sky like a blanket of doom. If the world is being handed over to AI, and humans are being convinced they are as smart as Einstein for submitting, doom isn’t a strong enough word to explain our inevitable and quickly approaching demise.
I cannot scream it loud enough; my teachers would be boiling in their skins at the thought of turning over thought processes and “work” to some computerized brain. The real Albert Einstein would be both honored and disgusted to have an AI in his name, honored to be given added popularity but disgusted to see countless others think of themselves as being anything like him when they’re not using their brains for more than handing over a task and/or question to a computer designed by someone other than Albert Einstein.
Who’s the real Einstein behind the AI? Shouldn’t their name be on the computer brain? What does their hair and face look like? Make a filter for that and leave Albert Einstein to his relativity.
If only we could give up the conveniences and unhealthy fads thrust upon us, ignore the TV and other sources of media, kick those “feeds” to the cyber-curb and look at our world through organic eyes, really see life as it is and not how it’s sold or pitched as a number, a rating, a sales score. Maybe we’d salvage our health and not lose our hair or teeth in the chase for an economy which may very soon be sucked up one last drain pipe, leaving only the select few who orchestrated the AI takeover in a position to dole out or hoard resources. Your life, your legacy may very well be falling into the hands of an elite few. And, I wonder what we ever had a chance to do to stop this.
I feel like some ancient slave doomed to be grinded under the stones which are about to build the next pyramid; a big, sky-blue pyramid topped with the face of a phony pharaoh, a marketing master who seduced humankind into its own demise, who found a way to get rid of every possible threat to his emotional and mental well-being, who out-Nazi-ed Adolph Hitler, who took Darwin’s pitch on “survival of the fittest” and made it his own (expletive). Checkmate, humanity.
What motivates me to get up every morning and find any comfort, any purpose and value to my time, energy, heart and talents? Certainly not slaving away at some job that temporarily pretends to be helpful to a shipping monopoly, turning my tasks over to AI and wondering if I’ll have a job or the resources to afford my life once I do.
If all this AI spared every human the need to work to finance their lives and not pay taxes or health-care costs, that would be amazing. But, I highly doubt that’s where this is headed. If that were true, if everyone was going to be cared for as they should, companies wouldn’t be sending their staff home without more than a small sum and a cold hand while the company merges with another and turns into a monopoly so large that it seems impossible to topple. Someone, anyone, reassure me. Would you? Tell me the future is better than whatever version of Star Trek these tech moguls are trying to create.
Look at all of the advertising for the Paris Olympics. And, how much of that is NOT including AI? Not much.
Hey, guess what. I wrote all of the above with my own mind, my own heart and feelings. I may have used a computer to type, but I didn’t use a CoPilot or some phony Einstein to think for me or alter my abilities. I did my own proofreading and edits. I didn’t need a thesaurus or dictionary or calculator of any damned kind. I used my God-given assets and limitations. I embrace my old teachers, real people with hearts and minds of their own, who told me to use my brain. Deal with that, you cyber freaks. I will not submit to your machines. You want to live forever as a hard drive? Build your own damn cyber-coffin and live in a CPU. Don’t reduce the rest of humankind to dust in your pursuit. Key word search: humanity has more value than costly technology.
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But, I will make one small concession. I saw an ad for an AI translation feature on a dual-screen phone, allowing diners to converse with foreign restaurant staff without difficulty. I am not sure why AI is a factor when translation services have been on computers for some time, just not readily available, maybe, for dining at restaurants. I’d sure like to ease talks with foreigners (and skip the years of classes to master all of the other languages). But, do I trust the computer or AI to properly translate the spoken word? [I’ve been communicating with some foreigners online, and, when I translate emails, sometimes, the lines don’t make sense. I then have to wonder what was lost in translation. I think slang will forever be a problem for any AI, never knowing when someone is using an alternate meaning or sarcasm.]
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