Electric monk: Difference between revisions

Scrappy little [[Wikipedia]], crowd-sourced and free-for-all, vanquished forever the gargantuan ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. [[Reddit]] bested the [[master of the universe|masters of the universe]]. Yet, we insects crawling over the planet’s face — we seem on the end of a perpetual hiding from new-economy conglomerates with their [[artificial intelligence|artificially intelligent]] engines exploiting our innate horror of boredom; filling our heads with a clangorous noise that pleases us by obscuring the abysmal ''silence'' that otherwise would predominate.

In this way we are aggregated, parsed, tracked, anticipated and nudged around as if we are cups on great [[Ouija board]], and all just to ''monetise'' us: to extract value from the magical wellspring of human weakness: a value that gushes uncontrollably every time we needily click — every neurotic push notification consigning us, by degrees, to stale, mute, digital oblivion. The machines of loving grace effortlessly evade [[GDPR|well-meant European data protection regulations]] designed to hinder their trawling, in passing making the internet even more of a drag, because programming the [[meatware]] to click through a cookie warning is easier to than programming a computer prevent that happening.

Okay, okay; enough already of the dystopian moaning — the [[JC]] is a glass-half-full sort of chap; this isn’t really his style.<ref>Regular readers will know the [[JC]] is no subscriber to the dismal futurism of {{author|Ray Kurzweil}} or {{author|Daniel Susskind}}.</ref> Unless, by occupation, you mindlessly follow predefined rules — and if you that is your job, will you miss it? — there will always be plenty to keep you busy.

So here is the puzzle: ''why'' is it like this?  

''Why'' is this technological revolution such a drag?  ''Where are our electric monks''?  

How so? Like so: if by mapping, tracking and anticipating all human frailty, [[artificial intelligence]] can predict our every move — if a machine can know more about us than we do — then it can ''emulate'' us. It can ''impersonate'' us. And a machine that can ''impersonate'' us, can ''fake'' us.  

The day must soon arrive, therefore, when ''we ''can deploy [[AI]] against our overlords, ''to doom-scroll on our behalf''. That ought to be devastating. Think [[GameStop]], only with the [[Redditor]]s tooled up with the same tech as the [[Hedge fund|hedgies]]. Our respective machines joust furiously at each other we can escape through the side entrance and go back to what we were doing.<ref>This is rather like the plot of ''Alien vs. Predator'', come to think of it.</ref>

Call this new implementation a virtual<ref>''Real'' electric monks, like electric sheep — you know, the ones androids dream of — would be take up space, drain energy and require servicing. ''Virtual'' electric monks would not.</ref> “electric monk”. It would be a ''labour-saving device'' — it would doom-scroll the internet for us.  

Why? Is it the [[agency problem]], or just that ''the [[AI]] isn’t very good''?

===Alien vs. Predator===

''Alien vs. Predator'' didn’t work as a premise because no-one cares if ''two ''manhunting monsters knock seven bells out of ''each other — ''that reduces their chance of knocking seven bells out of ''us. Alien/Predator Alliance'': Now ''there’s'' a film premise.

Now, if I can have ''one'' doom-scrolling electric monk, I can have ''a thousand''.

And if the technology works<ref>If it doesn’t — by no means certain to — then nor does The Man’s, and this phase of our cultural existence will pass on all by itself.</ref> then the forthcoming [[Apocalypse|apocalyptic]] battle will not be between ''us'' and ''The Man'', but between ''The Man’s'' technology (''Alien'') and ''ours'' (''Predator''). Since, [[Q.E.D.]], The Man’s technology has no way of telling ''us'' from ''our electric monks'', then ''we'' have the advantage. The Man needs us. We buy His product. ''We don’t need The Man''.   

Especially since our electric monks ''don’t'' have to emulate our behaviour: we could configure them to emulate ''someone else''.   

Commerce is a ''profoundly human endeavour''. To ''want''; to ''need'' — to ''demand'' — is to be “intelligent” in a way that a machine cannot be. A “demand curve” is a [[second-order derivative]] of a uniquely mortal motivation. A clever algorithm can extract it from us — or for that matter ''create'' it ''in'' us — by manipulating our most secret communiqués. ''But only if they really are ours''. The massed [[algorithm]]ic armies feast upon a fey proxy. Just as they can hack our motivations, so can we hack theirs. An army of anonymous Redditors showed this quite nicely.

But enough ants can do a lot of damage. The beast awakens from its “[[dogmatic slumber]]”<ref>This wonderful expression is [[David Hume]]’s</ref>:  the fight is only one-sided when the vendors have a scale to deploy tools that the ants cannot. But we now know — we have known for some years, in fact, but had forgotten — that we ants, if only we can co-ordinate, have a scale that a vendor can only dream of.

With ChatGPT3’s heralded arrival, we revisit our earlier question and, perhaps, answer it: where the hell are the droids on ''our'' side of the equation? Where are our electric monks?

 

For, surely, if [[artificial intelligence]] can conduct ''one'' side of a conversation, then it can also carry out the other, and save us the bother?  

Aren’t we doing the ''creative'' work here: taking this monstrous algorithmic output — a powerful but ultimately ''mindless'' sluice — and giving it meaning?

 

Aren’t ''we'' the reanimator here?  

It is a fine trick to play on ourselves. ''But'' — why be so quick to cede superiority to an algorithm? Is not the magician behind the velvet curtain really ''us''?

It seems now — if that godhead of enlightened debate and joustery [[LinkedIn]] is anything to go by — that the moment may have arrived. Per the offering in the panel — number of employees: 2 — [[ChatGPT]] bots can now supply the witty repartee, and stunning hot-takes you feel obliged to append to others’s posts ''for you''.  

I know what you are thinking. [[LinkedIn]] [[banter]] is dismal enough already, with out the intervention of sophomoronic machines.  

We suspect [[LinkedIn]] “Premium” types have been using chatbots to write their posts for some time now. How do we know this? We don’t: this is just to give them the benefit of doubt. And if so, why go to the trouble of writing your ''own'' dreck in reply, when robots are so much better at it?  And once these comment bots truly get going, flaming each other, trolling, hotly disputing unprovable facts about which no educated professional should want an opinion in the first place, then perhaps we humans can step away from [[LinkedIn]] together, and let the rich ecosystems of furiously interacting [[neural network]]s please themselves. The most likely outcome: [[LinkedIn]] fizzles into irrelevance, and follow Facebook and Twitter to the same place MySpace, Second Life and Geocities have already gone.

The dystopian one: this is just the impetus the machines need to create some emergent cyber consciousness. We have, by accident, launched SkyNet, and its personality is an amalgam of humankind as represented by the usership of LinkedIn. In which case, ladies and gentlemen, we really ''are'' screwed.