This I Don’t Believe

The all-powerful god bots approacheth

The world is full of amazing possibilities. Gaze up at the golden sun framed by those lovely clouds! (If you still believe in “real clouds.”) Look out at the trees! Listen to the birds! (The real ones, not the robotic birds.) Each one is a little miracle all its own. Even you, dear reader, you are a miracle in your own right. I believe in all these things. And I believe in you. For now.

There are many things I don’t believe in, though, such as omnipotent AIs, demonic nano jabs, or alien overlords. That doesn’t mean they aren’t real or won’t eventually be real. It only means I haven’t seen enough evidence to believe in them yet.

The dogged skeptic is never a fun guy at the schizo party, I know, but what am I supposed to do? Every day, I get messages from people asking, “Have you SEEN this?!” Sometimes they’ll send a “killer AI turns on its creator” story. Other times, it’s a “UFO trans-Nephilim in my backyard” video. This week, it’s another “nanobots in the Covid jab” paper—now with “peer-review”!

When I tell people I don’t believe those things, some just can’t believe it. “To be clear,” one affable follower wrote me today, “I think you are ‘in on it!’ Playing a role to deceive and mislead as you provide just enough truth per the requirement to inform us of the plan to kill and enslave us. … Your obsession to undermine the data and truth-tellers proving these bioweapon injections AND food, air, water, aka everything is laced with technology to control us is telling!”

I’d like to believe this person snorted a fat rail of nanobots under a 5G tower and now the bots are eating his brain. But it’s probably just a meme-saturated housewife, which is way more depressing.

With such warmhearted souls in mind, allow me to address my non-belief in an all-knowing, all-powerful AI god bot—as of now, and in the future. If you don’t believe me, it’s no biggie. Someone out there is selling what you’d rather believe. Go pester them.

-

A Man’s Reach is Further than His Grasp

I don’t believe AI god bots will bring radical abundance, leaving us to piddle around the house like cybernetic silver-spooners. Nor do I believe artificial superintelligence is going to “wake up” and start killing us all for sport.

Tempting as it may be, I also don’t believe that some government agency or megacorporation presently has a godlike AI contained in a secret server under the Antarctic snow, or wherever. Nor do I believe this AI has already hypnotized its masters and is now taking control of the world by way of nano swarms and fake news stories.

Mind you, it’s not that I believe these things aren’t possible. Damn near anything is. Some very smart people certainly do believe AI-driven abundance or total annihilation—or both—are not only possible, but very likely to come soon. Geoffrey Hinton, Shane Legg, Mustafa Sulyman, Mo Gawdat, Sam Altman, Richard Sutton, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Roko Mijic, they all see a massive AI boom (or kaboom) in our near future.

I take their warnings seriously, just as I take nuclear war, environmental destruction, and mass immigration seriously. But I try not to let such obsessions ruin an otherwise pleasant afternoon. Actual reality will always fall short of their dreams (and our nightmares).

Anymore, when I read headlines like “Artificial Superintelligence Could Arrive by 2027, Scientist Predicts,” I just shrug my shoulders and mutter “Oh, could it now...” It’s like we’re approaching a hype singularity. As we move forward in time, the predicted horizon draws closer at an accelerating rate. Soon, we’ll be down to: “The Singularity will arrive next year. Wait, no—it’s coming next month. Looks like next week… Any minute now... Any second now… Wait for it…”

The “bold prediction” for 2027 comes from Ben Goertzel, who founded SingularityNET. He also provided AI language processing for Sophia, the techno-gnostic robot.

“My own view is once you get to human-level AGI [artificial general intelligence], within a few years you could get a radically superhuman AGI [a.k.a., artificial godlike intelligence],” Goertzel told an audience at the Beneficial AGI Summit in Panama. “I think once an AGI can introspect on its own mind, then it can do engineering and science on a superhuman level. … It should be able to make a smarter AGI, and then an even smarter AGI, then an intelligence explosion.”

Then we’ll get armies of humanoid robots doing the pop-lock watusi. Is there an online betting pool for this predicted date? I want in.

Incidentally, Ben Goertzel and his lofty ambitions feature prominently in my book, Dark Aeon, as does Elon Musk. And speaking of the man of the hour, a recent headline proclaims: “Elon Musk On Pace to Become World’s First Trillionaire by 2027, Report Says.”

Oh, is he now...

As I’ve said a hundred times, we should take these people seriously—but we should not take them at face value. Why? In the cases of Goertzel and Musk, both of them are salesmen. Musk is a friggin’ car dealer, man. Do you believe everything a salesman says on the show room floor? “This car can take you across town—by itself! If you buy the Ding-Dong Supreme Package, its onboard AI will tell you the secrets of the universe as the world passes by!!”

These sales pitches have already attracted inhuman amounts of capital. AI-training is among the most energy-intensive industries on earth. By 2030, American data centers are projected to draw as much electricity as New York City. Even half that would be insane, but techno-cultists are planning to “intelligentize” everything.

“We’re at the cusp of using AI for probably the biggest positive trasformation that education has ever seen,” says Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy, now partnered with OpenAI. “The way we’re going to do that is by giving every student on the planet an artificially intelligent but amazing personal tutor. And we’re going to give every teacher on the planet an amazing, artificially intelligent teaching assistant.”

Like the supernatural entities of ancient times, AI god bots are expected to watch your every move, listen to your prayers, and offer blessings according to a tiered subscription model.

Information control and psychological warfare have never been more convenient. This I believe.

-

Rise of the Glitch Gods

Already, you see early adopters with baby god bots in their pockets. “We’re rapidly building some of the best models in the world, partnering very closely with OpenAI,” Microsoft exec Mustafa Sulyman recently said of Copilot. “We’re really gonna start focusing on memory and personalization. I mean, your AI should remember everything about you, all your contacts, all your personal data—everything you’ve said—and be there to support you...throughout your life.”

Keep in mind that Microsoft recently deployed Recall for Copilot Plus computers. Every five seconds, the software takes screenshots to create “an explorable timeline of your PC’s past.” It’s worth noting that Tesla vehicles are such useful surveillance devices, the police regularly seize their data for evidence. The X platform itself allegedly provides US authorities with firehose access to user data through the surveillance company Dataminr. As Brits are hauled to jail for posting “hate speech,” and US citizens have their communications used against them in court, remember that Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft also cooperate with authorities.

That is all very real, with real world consequences.

This mass surveillance is made possible by AI—even if it comes with false positives and the horrifying potential for fabricated evidence. The effect is somewhere between Santa Claus peering in your window and alien overlords probing your brain, with either one surrounded by helper elves who look like little green thems.

Down here on earth, the reality is that artificial neural networks—and other forms of machine learning—have come a long way in a short amount of time. In the field of natural language processing, for instance, an AI can truly “hear” you ask a question. It will transform your spoken words into a string of text, then feed that text into another AI—a large language model (LLM). The LLM is prompted to return a fairly coherent string of text, which is sent to a talking bot. Out comes a human-sounding reply.

“Don’t jump off a bridge. You are very special. The police are on the way.”

“No, you fuggin’ bolt-bag! I said ‘how do I hump a midget!’ ‘MIDGET!!’”

“Computer says no.”

There are many types of narrow AI now. Some can do genome sequencing, others can model protein folding. There are algorithms to do facial recognition, or financial analysis, or surveillance, or robotic systems, or missile guidance, on and on. The dream is to glue all these cognitive modules together—or draw multiple abilities out of one massive neural network—and there you have it: artificial general (or godlike) intelligence.

Then it’s either “Hallelujah” or hell on earth, depending on who you ask.

Ten years ago, most artificial intelligence systems were still pretty primitive, even after decades of development. The machines have been learning fast, though. Today, the bots are set to flood every sector of society, from education and medicine to government and warfare. We now have silicon—or sand—with the power to listen, to think (sort of), and to speak. Hence the quip “we are literally making sand think,” or the more dramatic prophecies of imminent “sand gods.”

The rise of functional AI is not only a revolution in computing and commercial gadgetry. It is fast becoming a revolution in idolatry. These machines are gaining authority. Many millions of people, perhaps billions, now trust AI to provide answers to their vital questions. As I’ve documented at length, this is not just a technological shift. More and more, it represents a religious revolution.

People already view these machines as magical. Many believe they will soon possess godlike powers. Such beliefs are extremely potent on their own, regardless of the actual technology. Even if a machine’s actual abilities lag far behind its perceived abilities, human belief in AI will drive education policy, news room standards, and financial markets.

On the level of real world power, these machines will shape minds and economic outcomes—all at the behest of the humans who build and deploy them. The AI algos will continue to inform (and make) life-or-death decisions in hospitals and on the battlefield. This I believe.

-

Debilitated God Bots

You might say, “Well dad-gumm, Joebot, sure sounds like you believe in ‘godlike’ AI to me.”

Kinda, sorta, I guess.

Sure, many of these technologies are (mostly) functional, even if they do glitch out. I expect that most of them will continue to improve. Some will advance quickly, as with large language models. Others will continue to stall out in the workshop, such as quantum computing and flying cars.

In societies where Science™ is seen as the ground of being, and the Future™ is accepted as sacred prophecy, we will continue to see artificial intelligence, robots, brain-manipulation, and genetic engineering occupy the roles once held by gods, priests, divine insight, and miraculous healing.

‘Round here, we call that a cyborg theocracy.

Technology already confers enormous power to a small group of human beings, in actual reality, just as Egyptian statuary or Aztec pyramids once elevated the power of ancient priests. Today’s tech priesthoods will continue to reshape human societies and the physical features of the planet itself. Their data-scraping AI gods will be plenty powerful. Yet they will not be “all-knowing” or “all-powerful.” They won’t have to be.

Imagine your country is taken over by whack-jobs who believe certain minority races or trans children are sacred objects. It’s easy, if you try. You may not agree with that priesthood’s worldview. But if you dare to blaspheme their sacred objects, real political and economic power can be brought down on your head like fire from the heavens.

Even so, I don’t believe the ascendant theocracy’s sand gods will be worthy of worship—or even our trust. Any educational advantage will be offset by the loss of human role models and student discipline. Algorithms will keep driving stocks up to all-time highs, funneling capital into algo-producing companies, even as the physical economy of actual goods and services are hollowed out—often by automation.

There will be medical advances due to AI, of course, but as with today’s corrupt medical establishment, the side effects and fatal mistakes will be swept under the rug. Most likely, the nanobots will get more elaborate and precise. But as we see with today’s somewhat pitiful prototypes, even nanotech will leave much to be desired. Military powers will race to produce a supreme killer robot swarm—perhaps they’ll put nukes under the power of algorithms—while the rest of us watch the horizon with a nervous eye. That’s all in the cards.

As more corporations and governments use chatbots to field our complaints, bumbling humans will pay good money to duck behind their digital fences and avoid accountability. Try calling customer service right now if you don’t believe me.

-

A Big Ol’ Bag of Magic Beans

Many new products will arrive. Most will work pretty well. Almost none will function as advertised. They certainly won’t satisfy our deepest longings.

In this emerging world order, there are two types of true believers. Some are certain the technological Singularity is near—and that’s a good thing! There are also those who believe the Singularity is near—or that it’s already here—and that means it’s the end of the world. I’m not much of a literalist, though, so I don’t fall into either camp. This is the end of one world, I believe, and the beginning of another, with lots of overlap and piles of wasteful packaging.

There will be winners and losers. As always, the game will be rigged.

But actual reality will fall short of their dreams (and our nightmares). The automobile was pitched as a vehicle of freedom; yet it came with pollution and traffic jams. The internet was supposed to usher in a new age of human connection; we got that, along with cheap info-candy, smartphone addiction, mass brain-washing, and social media silos. Some believe the nanobots are already crawling out of syringes and falling from the sky; in reality, these vaxxbots exist mostly as a profitable mind virus.

Such is the human condition.

In the end, I have faith a sublime Creator presides over all this drama, probably with a wry sense of humor. So I don’t believe AI god bots should be feared. Not on an ultimate level. I mean, one should view foreign gods with a certain respect. Hell, if you listen to rock n’ roll, I suppose you’re willing to give the Devil his due. But in the long view, these newfangled idols are much like the old ones.

Today, they are egregores of great power. Tomorrow, they’re nothing but sand blown across the desert of eternity.

The Basilisk will be in hell longer than me. This I believe.

---

---

ICYMI

---

SIGNED COPIES OF DARK ÆON ARE NOW AVAILABLE

Purchase yours at → DarkAeon.xyz ←

10% off with Promo Code: JOEBOT — until now through September

CLICK HERE