Tag: The Matrix

Will AI Be Too Human?

W.J. Astore

Watch out if the robots and computers copy their human creators

Robot dogs as potential enforcers. AI chatbots that write scripts, craft songs, and compose legal briefs. Computers and cameras everywhere, all networked, all connected, all watching—and possibly learning?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is all the rage as science fiction increasingly becomes science fact. I grew up reading and watching Sci-Fi, and the lessons of the genre about AI are not always positive.

To choose three TV shows/movies that I’m very familiar with:

  1. Star Trek: The Ultimate Computer: In this episode of the classic 1960s TV series, a computer is put in charge of the ship, replacing its human crew. The computer, programmed to think for itself while also replicating the priorities and personality of its human creator, attempts to destroy four other human-crewed starships in its own quest for survival before Captain Kirk and crew are able to outwit and unplug it.
  2. The Terminator: In this 1980s movie, a robot-assassin is sent from the future to kill the mother of its human nemesis, thereby ensuring the survival of Skynet, a sophisticated AI network created by the U.S. military that gains consciousness and decides to eliminate its human creators. Many sequels!
  3. The Matrix: In this 1990s movie, the protagonist, Neo, discovers his world is an illusion, a computer simulation, and that humans are being used as batteries, as power sources, for a world-dominating AI computer matrix. Many sequels!

Sci-Fi books and movies have been warning us for decades that AI networks may be more than we humans can handle. Just think of HAL from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Computers and droids of the future may not be like R2-D2 and C-3PO from Star Wars, loyal servants to their human creators.

Nothing to worry about: It’s a cute “Digidog” featured by the New York Police Department. You may be the one begging and rolling over, however.

As they say, it’s only a movie, but I do worry about too much hype about AI. If AI becomes a reflection of its human creators, especially a distorted one, we could have much to worry about.

Assuming computers could truly learn from their human creators, it makes sense they would act like us, pursuing violence and issuing death sentences in the name of AI’s security and progress.

To AI networks of the future, linked to robotic enforcer dogs and armed aerial drones, humans just might be the “terrorists.”

Killer Robots

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My money is on the killer robots

W.J. Astore

Killer robots!  How many “Terminator” movies do we have to see before we conclude this is not a good idea?

You guessed it: the U.S. military is at it again.  Awash in cash, it’s investigating killer robots in earnest, striving for ever more “autonomy” for its robots, thereby reducing the need for humans in the loop.  Part of this drive for robotic warfare comes from the Covid-19 pandemic, notes Michael Klare at TomDispatch.com.  America’s tech-heavy approach to warfare puts lots of people in close proximity in confined spaces, whether on ships and submarines or in planes and tanks.  “Social distancing” really isn’t practical even on the largest ships, such as the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, briefly put out of commission by the pandemic.  So why not build ships that need few or no people?  Why not build autonomous killer robot ships?

Obviously, the Pentagon thinks that movies like “The Terminator” and “The Matrix,” among so many others that warn about humanity’s overreliance on machinery and the possibility the machines themselves might become conscious and turn on their creators, are just that: movies.  Fantasies.  Because technology never has unpredictable results, right?

So, killer robots are on the horizon, making it even easier for the U.S. military to wage war while risking as few troops as possible.  I’m sure once America invests billions and billions in high-tech semi-autonomous or fully autonomous killing machines, we’ll keep them in reserve and use them only as a last resort.  Just like we do with our big bombs.

To read Michael Klare’s piece on killer robots, follow this link.

Guns — Lots of Guns

neo
Keanu Reeves as Neo

W.J. Astore

In The Matrix, Neo (played memorably by Keanu Reeves) saves Morpheus by breaking into a heavily fortified facility guarded by special agents.  When asked what he’ll need to pull off this longshot rescue, Neo says, simply: “Guns — lots of guns.”  It could serve as America’s new national motto.  In God we trust?  No — guns.  And lots of them.  Somewhere north of 300 million guns are currently in private hands, enough to arm each and every American, the tall and the small, with at least one firearm.

So it’s not surprising when Donald Trump references Second Amendment rights.  (It seems the only amendment he knows.)  He likes to assert these “rights” are in danger of being curtailed, but gun sales are still booming and there are no serious efforts at gun control.

As one of my friends whose barbed humor I enjoy put it: “There is only one amendment — the second amendment.”  Mull that conundrum for a moment.

Back in World War II, America was known as the arsenal of democracy for all the weapons we supplied to allies like Britain and the Soviet Union.  Now it’s just an arsenal.

The brutal truth is we’re stuck with all these guns.  There is no political will to buy them back, even military-style assault weapons, and indeed what will there is centers on selling more of them.  Back in 2017, several articles appeared noting how black women were buying guns in increasing numbers.  Last week, NBC Washington ran a report on women of color becoming licensed gun owners in increasing numbers, partly as a response to police violence.  “Peace of mind” is bought with a gun.  Talk about racial and gender progress!

Speaking of the police, small wonder that America’s cops are edgy.  When we talk about police violence, which is all-too-real and all-too-deadly, a factor we should consider is the reality that America is awash in guns, making every police call a potentially deadly one.

So, as much as Trump tweets about “LAW&ORDER,” what really rules America is money — the money to be made by selling lots of guns and ammo, as well as the cultural ammo you can always count on when hippy-dippy liberals like me start rattling rhetorical sabers about gun control.

The pen may be mightier than the sword, but an AR-15 trumps both in this man’s America.

I’ve owned guns myself and have shot everything from a pellet pistol to a .44 magnum, but I’ve defunded my modest gun collection, so to speak.  I decided happiness is not a warm gun and that there are amendments other than the 2nd one.

For once you start shooting bullets, there’s no way to recall them.  And, as far as I know, the only guy able to dodge bullets is Keanu Reeves as Neo.

Trump and the Media

He’s everywhere.  Trump as Agent Smith in “The Matrix” movies

W.J. Astore

Donald Trump is exploiting a weakness in our media — its quest for eyeballs at any cost. Trump is best at gluing eyeballs to the screen — he inflames his supporters and infuriates his detractors. Meanwhile, he oversees a train wreck of an administration that dominates headlines. “If it bleeds, it leads” — and our country is bleeding under his leadership.

Media owners seem to see synergy here: empower Trump with free and sweeping coverage and watch ratings and profits soar. But Trump is a parasite. He’s drawing strength from the media even as he sucks its power and influence dry. But the biggest loser is democracy, since the Trump-media nexus is degrading (and perhaps destroying) fact-based decision-making.

These thoughts came to mind as I read Tom Engelhardt’s latest article at TomDispatch.com. Trump, Engelhardt notes, has the unique and ultimately pernicious ability to drive — and often to dominate — discourse:

Never, not ever, has a single human being been so inescapable. You can’t turn on the TV news, read a newspaper, listen to the radio, wander on social media, or do much of anything else without almost instantly bumping into or tripping over… him, attacking them, praising himself, telling you how wonderful or terrible he feels and how much he loves or loathes… well, whatever happens to be ever so briefly on his mind that very moment.

Engelhardt highlights an important truth later in his piece: Trump’s true “base” is the very “fake news” media he’s so happy to attack.

Of course, Trump has always been a relentless, even ruthless, self-promoter.  Now that he’s president, the media can’t exactly ignore him (or can they?).  But what’s truly shocking is how the mainstream media is so  supinely subservient to him.  How unwilling they are to call him a liar when he lies; and how unwilling they are to critique their own obsequious coverage in a way that would lead to meaningful changes.

The media can’t get enough of Trump.  Knowing this dependency, Trump exploits it, relentlessly.  He reminds me of Agent Smith in “The Matrix” movies. He’s a rapidly-replicating virus that, if left unchecked, will destroy the matrix of American democracy . The question is: How is Trump to be neutralized, or at least contained, when the media keeps feeding him?

Breaking News: Jim Acosta got his press pass back.  Big deal.  Now Trump can score more points off of CNN and its “fake news” machine.