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-{{a|tech|[[File:Electric Monk.jpg|450px|thumb|center|An [[electric monk]], yesterday.]]}}{{quote|“''The [[electric monk]] was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus saving you the bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watched tedious television for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at it yourself; [[electric monk]]s believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe.”
+{{a|tech|[[File:Electric Monk.jpg|450px|thumb|center|An electric monk, yesterday.]]}}{{quote|“''The electric monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus saving you the bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watched tedious television for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at it yourself;<ref>For thirty years, [[Grandma Contrarian]] had the 1981 Royal Wedding taped on video. It was her most prized possession. Not once did any of us watch it.</ref> electric monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe.”
 :—The late, greatly lamented {{author|Douglas Adams}}, {{br|Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency}}}}
-Someone hi-jacked the revolution, and we are too distracted to do anything about it.
+Someone hijacked the revolution, and we are too distracted to do anything about it.
 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 our collected human weakness: a value that gushes uncontrollably every time we doom-scrolling or needily chase a like, share or comment — every neurotic push notification consigning us by degrees to stale, mute, digital oblivion.
+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.
-Okay, okay; enough already of the dystopian moaning — the [[JC]] is a glass-half-full sort of chap; this isn’t really his style. Regular readers will know the [[JC]] is no subscriber to the dismal futurism of {{author|Ray Kurzweil}} or {{author|Daniel Susskind}}. 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.
+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.
+===Where are our electric monks?===
+So here is the puzzle: ''why'' is it like this?
-So here is the thing I don’t understand: ''why'' is it like this? Why is this technological revolution such a drag?  ''Where are our electric monks''? Everything we know about the information revolution tells us they cannot be far away.
+''Why'' is this technological revolution such a drag?  ''Where are our electric monks''?
-For, even if your operating theory is that our [[Meatsack|fleshy cerebella]] are no match for the overwhelming power of a [[neural network]], there is still a limit. Our friends at [[LinkedIn]] hint at it, with their underwhelming [[AI]]-assisted “predictive comment” functionality. Not because it is so ''hopeless'' — I mean, ''[[happy work-iversary!]]''? M’lud, I rest my case — but because ''the fact that it can even exist'' points us at a route out of the Matrix.
+For, even if you believe our [[Meatsack|fleshy cerebella]] cannot match the overwhelming power of a [[neural network]], there is still a limit: [[LinkedIn]] hints at it, with its underwhelming [[AI]]-assisted “predictive comment” functionality: not because it is so ''hopeless''<ref>''[[Happy work-iversary!]]''</ref> — but because ''it even exists''. This is a fingerpost out of the Matrix.
-How so?
+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.
-Like so: if by mapping, tracking and anticipating all human frailty, [[artificial intelligence]] can predict with greater confidence than can even we what our next moves will be — and this does seem to be the present state of play — then ''the machines can emulate human frailty''. They can ''impersonate'' it. One cannot tell the two apart. We cannot, and a machine cannot.
+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>
-If a machine can perfectly ''impersonate'' us, it can ''fake'' us. The point must soon arrive, therefore, when ''we can deploy [[AI]] to doom-scroll on our behalf''. And that ''ought'' to be devastating. Think [[GameStop]], only with the [[Redditor]]s tooled up with the same tech the hedgies have. While the machines joust furiously at each other we can escape through the side entrance and go back to what we were doing.
+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 doomscroll the internet for us.
-===Where are our [[electric monk]]s?===
+===Alien vs. Predator===
-As {{author|Douglas Adams}} remarked of the video-recorder which watches television for us that we don’t have time to watch ourselves<ref>For thirty years, [[Grandma Contrarian]] had the 1981 Royal Wedding taped on video. It was her most prized possession. Not once did any of us watch it.</ref> such an “[[electric monk]]” would be a ''labour-saving device''.
+{{quote|''Alien vs. Predator'' doesn’t work as a premise because no-one cares if two baddies knock seven bells out of each other. That means they aren’t knocking seven bells out of us. ''Alien/Predator Alliance'': Now there’s a film premise.}}
-Call this new implementation our “[[avatar]]”. An [[electric monk]], even. But it is a ''virtual'' [[electric monk]].
+Now, if I can have ''one'' doomscrolling 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 don’t need The Man. Especially since our [[electric monks]]s ''don’t'' have to emulate ''our'' behaviour at all. We can obstreperously configure them to emulate ''someone else''. This is how Russian twitter bots hacked the US election, you see.
-''Real'' [[electric monk|electric monks]], like electric sheep,<ref>You know, the ones androids dream of. They didn’t make the cut in the film version. Too — ahh — expensive?</ref> would be costly: they would take up space, drain energy and require servicing.
+So, if we each deploy a thousand electric monks to randomly browse, like and share content ''at random'', constrained only by the requirement that our synthetic doomscrolling should emulate ''some'' human’s habits, even if not necessarily ours, then all that wondrous aggregated data that the FANGS have on us ''isn’t on us''. It is worthless, meaningless, hypothetical.
-''But virtual [[electric monk]]s would not''.
-Now, if I can have ''one'' electric monk to do my doomscrolling, I can have ''one thousand''. we all can. 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 ''our'' technology and ''The Man’s'', and 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 don’t need The Man. Especially since our [[electric monks]]s ''don’t'' have to emulate ''our'' behaviour at all. We can obstreperously configure them to emulate ''someone else''. This is how Russian twitter bots hacked the US election, you see.
-So, if we each deploy a thousand [[electric monk]]s to randomly browse, like and share content ''at random'', constrained only by the requirement that our synthetic doomscrolling should emulate ''some'' human’s habits, even if not necessarily ours, then all that wondrous aggregated data that the FANGS have on us ''isn’t on us''. It is worthless, meaningless, hypothetical.
 [[Systems theory]], folks: the same way [[algorithm]]s can extract profound insight from [[data]] they can inject ineffable absurdity into it.