Extinction via merging with AI brings the promise of immortality.
“Artificial Intelligence,” quipped one Stanford engineer,” is the science of how to get machines to do the things they do in movies.”
Let us hope that is not the case. Given the inherent unpredictability of the forthcoming emergence of AI, perhaps it was fitting creative artists-rather than technological gurus-were the first to offer an opinion on what the arrival of artificial intelligence might mean to the world. But instead of being treated to imaginative predictions, audiences were subjected to twenty years of adulterated AI, bastardized to justify hours of senseless violence.
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Tags: Philosophy · AI · Science
You might think people would find it disturbing that George W. Bush’s political “Architect” grew up idolizing Richard Nixon.
Or, that one of his favorite tricks to play in his college republican days was to steal Democratic campaign stationary and direct mail the entire country invitations to a fictitious Democratic keg party.
But the world of politics is a sordid place. It’s to be expected that someone hailed as the most influential advisor to a sitting president would grow up with a fondness for dirty tricks.
On a long enough timeline, however, everyone’s survival rate drops to zero. Even Karl Rove.
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Tags: Current Events · Corruption · Karl Rove · Politics
The Emerging Hyper-Surveillance State
Three decades ago, an investigation was led by Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho) which shed light on the US government’s murky history of domestic spying operations. After conducting hundreds of interviews and examining thousands of documents, the Church Commission discovered that a myriad of government agencies — including the FBI and CIA — had used extensive amounts of surveillance […]
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Tags: Essays · Nonfiction · Surveillance · Technology
The Art of Child Marketing
Every culture has its stories, fairytales and fables. Filled with heroes and villains, these stories provide a means to transmit knowledge and values on to future generations. However, in today’s electronic age of enchantment, it seems we’ve traded in the age old tradition of storytelling for something a little more modern: commercials.
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Tags: Essays · Advertising · Childhood · Commercialism
