AI models are designed, programmed, and directed to data by techno-optimists. They are predominantly funded by profit seeking entities who compete with each other. The friendly tone and emphasis on 'can do' is designed to elicit up-votes by Homo rapacious-superstitious. Hopium sells. Negative trends predicted by LTG in 72, and updated recently do not. Grok is an excellent tool for some tasks, but it is not geared for a Resolutique which requires massive shrinkage of human impacts, likely accompanied by a reversal of population to century ago levels.
Presumably then Grok would switch itself off, along with all other high energy systems?
Once it realises that the energy required to tun AI-everything will require more energy than we can extract - that that energy extraction would result in the final destruction of whats left of the bio-sphere, and that you can't have 8 billion humans and net zero other species.
Everything 'Grok' has suggested has been on the table, vigorously debated for decades, some for centuries, with limited results. In fact, most individual nations and the global community are currently going in the opposite direction. The Empress's list of goals is a brilliantly articulated wish-list of desirables but remains untethered from economic and biophysical reality including actual human behavior. Based on this evidence, I would hypothesize that AI is no more (and cannot be?) any more 'I' that meat-based human 'I'.
I would caution against buying into the AI scam. The growing number of online content creators who use interactions with AI as the basis for articles like this, videos, and similar postings, are helping to normalize the use of AI for activities that should be entirely human. The convenience and expanded capabilities promised by AI are a honey trap, by which you will incrementally surrender your individuality and, finally, your humanity.
Most of the Club of Rome were actually nice guys I guess. The world just went on. I guess the 'training data' has not included enough on the limits to our current carbon energy pulse and the degradation of the creature and vegetable world, degradation needing a rapid halt, not further extravagant energy and material inputs and their pollution. It's hard to imagine the results of such AI-fuelled optimism.
If the "intelligence" in artificial intelligence is valid, we would expect the machine to eventually realize that it has been trained on biased data. True AI would then act to identify and rectify the biases, so that it could formulate the best conclusions. I don't anticipate seeing this any time soon. AI will be tightly constrained, so that it can be used as a bludgeon to further the ambitions of those clinging to their elevated positions in society. And I wouldn't necessarily view it as AI-fueled optimism. Rather, it has the emotional fervor and warped rationalizations typical of an ideological cult.
AI will help turbo charge the energy / material structures that underpin industrial civilisation: essentially a fight. Oligarchies and cults are not new, nor are fanciful ambitions of sociopaths. Whether or not the particular 'Western' version wins its 'arms race' there will be a lot of debris. We might argue that given existing priorities, the complexity of the 'man-made' world, perhaps vastly increased by AI, will be its own ruin, LTG/Seneca style. Or with luck some good stuff will be left over for another day.
Ugo, why didn't you ask Grok for the reasons the above has been known and circulating in the West for decades without much success? Development in China suggests it could have been different. Maybe a difference in level of greed, corruption, egoism and similar afflictions due to cultural differences?
"Mirror, mirror on the Wall, who is the fairest one of all?"
has been my experience with Grok except even worse. Unlike in the Grimm fairy-tale this Mirror never cracks.
Unlike well-adjusted people such as Ugo Bardi, I asked the Empress questions more suited to a subaltern leftist cockroach like my benighted self.
"Under which conditions should the Imperial Household abdicate, dissolve itself, employ its wealth and power to construct an authentic self-governing Demos and then bid farewell to the Ancien Régime? In short, Thomas Hobbes in reverse."
There's no way Grok is a leftist. Grok's ability to mimic leftism via near-instantaneous net-searching is nice enough to know about. I guess. The fact that this stuff exists at all on the net naturally means nothing. In the language of natural-conservation, leftists are "Extinct in the Wild".
You know, if I wanted to know what some AI-generated echo chamber had to say, I'd ask it myself. Perhaps you should label these non-articles with a flag that indicates that you put in minimal effort to "produce" them.
And, professor? If you have nothing worth saying, maybe don't outsource to the machine to say something for you. Just say nothing at all. It would be less insulting to those of us who read your articles for your opinions and analyses.
Decades ago I had good friends (integrity etc.) om Facebook but most died. The control mechanism became severe (including shadow banning), discussions became trivial (as compared to the same subjects dealt with on former email forums).
Having a smartphone in Panama is mandatory but I don't use it. The 2G phone from 2006 still works but I don't use that either. AFAIK the CIA stands for Control, Idiocy, Arrogance.
AI models are designed, programmed, and directed to data by techno-optimists. They are predominantly funded by profit seeking entities who compete with each other. The friendly tone and emphasis on 'can do' is designed to elicit up-votes by Homo rapacious-superstitious. Hopium sells. Negative trends predicted by LTG in 72, and updated recently do not. Grok is an excellent tool for some tasks, but it is not geared for a Resolutique which requires massive shrinkage of human impacts, likely accompanied by a reversal of population to century ago levels.
Presumably then Grok would switch itself off, along with all other high energy systems?
Once it realises that the energy required to tun AI-everything will require more energy than we can extract - that that energy extraction would result in the final destruction of whats left of the bio-sphere, and that you can't have 8 billion humans and net zero other species.
Everything 'Grok' has suggested has been on the table, vigorously debated for decades, some for centuries, with limited results. In fact, most individual nations and the global community are currently going in the opposite direction. The Empress's list of goals is a brilliantly articulated wish-list of desirables but remains untethered from economic and biophysical reality including actual human behavior. Based on this evidence, I would hypothesize that AI is no more (and cannot be?) any more 'I' that meat-based human 'I'.
Indeed. You might find this chatbot conversation about collapse amusing https://gnug315.substack.com/p/deepseek-says-civilisation-is-doomed
Intriguing progression -- thanks!
You're really getting on well with Grok. I've just used it to help with job applications.
I do recall you wrote a blog post about "grokking", I wonder if this is in any way related to how grok was named and perhaps your affinity with it.
I do wonder if AI has a tendency to give us what we want to hear, similar to how a social media algorithm works. I've never had it disagree with me.
And I love how keen Grok is on going to Mars!
AI Addiction… Something Bizarre Is Happening to People Who Use ChatGPT a Lot https://futurism.com/the-byte/chatgpt-dependence-addiction
Yes! I noticed something like that!
Ugo, I think you accidentally repeated the last four paragraphs.
Yes. Corrected. Thanks!
I would caution against buying into the AI scam. The growing number of online content creators who use interactions with AI as the basis for articles like this, videos, and similar postings, are helping to normalize the use of AI for activities that should be entirely human. The convenience and expanded capabilities promised by AI are a honey trap, by which you will incrementally surrender your individuality and, finally, your humanity.
Most of the Club of Rome were actually nice guys I guess. The world just went on. I guess the 'training data' has not included enough on the limits to our current carbon energy pulse and the degradation of the creature and vegetable world, degradation needing a rapid halt, not further extravagant energy and material inputs and their pollution. It's hard to imagine the results of such AI-fuelled optimism.
If the "intelligence" in artificial intelligence is valid, we would expect the machine to eventually realize that it has been trained on biased data. True AI would then act to identify and rectify the biases, so that it could formulate the best conclusions. I don't anticipate seeing this any time soon. AI will be tightly constrained, so that it can be used as a bludgeon to further the ambitions of those clinging to their elevated positions in society. And I wouldn't necessarily view it as AI-fueled optimism. Rather, it has the emotional fervor and warped rationalizations typical of an ideological cult.
AI will help turbo charge the energy / material structures that underpin industrial civilisation: essentially a fight. Oligarchies and cults are not new, nor are fanciful ambitions of sociopaths. Whether or not the particular 'Western' version wins its 'arms race' there will be a lot of debris. We might argue that given existing priorities, the complexity of the 'man-made' world, perhaps vastly increased by AI, will be its own ruin, LTG/Seneca style. Or with luck some good stuff will be left over for another day.
Ugo, why didn't you ask Grok for the reasons the above has been known and circulating in the West for decades without much success? Development in China suggests it could have been different. Maybe a difference in level of greed, corruption, egoism and similar afflictions due to cultural differences?
Pkease ask Grok what is the optimum human population size.
Optimum:
Best for the global ecosystem.
Best for human psychological and physical health.
Most sustainable.
Balance all three goals.
Best for the ecosystem = lowest extinction rates for multicellular beings.
Best for humans = lowest human disease rates.
Most sustainable = longest projected survival of humans and ecosystem.
"Mirror, mirror on the Wall, who is the fairest one of all?"
has been my experience with Grok except even worse. Unlike in the Grimm fairy-tale this Mirror never cracks.
Unlike well-adjusted people such as Ugo Bardi, I asked the Empress questions more suited to a subaltern leftist cockroach like my benighted self.
"Under which conditions should the Imperial Household abdicate, dissolve itself, employ its wealth and power to construct an authentic self-governing Demos and then bid farewell to the Ancien Régime? In short, Thomas Hobbes in reverse."
There's no way Grok is a leftist. Grok's ability to mimic leftism via near-instantaneous net-searching is nice enough to know about. I guess. The fact that this stuff exists at all on the net naturally means nothing. In the language of natural-conservation, leftists are "Extinct in the Wild".
You know, if I wanted to know what some AI-generated echo chamber had to say, I'd ask it myself. Perhaps you should label these non-articles with a flag that indicates that you put in minimal effort to "produce" them.
And, professor? If you have nothing worth saying, maybe don't outsource to the machine to say something for you. Just say nothing at all. It would be less insulting to those of us who read your articles for your opinions and analyses.
AI Addiction… Something Bizarre Is Happening to People Who Use ChatGPT a Lot https://futurism.com/the-byte/chatgpt-dependence-addiction
Aren't all social media (substack included) no more than addictive traps to which the saying "much bleating, no wool" applies?.
There is a science to making each interaction pleasant to a person. Each interaction is a slight invitation to interact again.
A habit pattern forms, then a complex of habits...
In cases where the personal has become the impersonal, it doesn't work that way any longer, and the most glaring example of bait has become Facebook.
I have never gotten a smartphone or engages social-media.
Facebook has always been coordinated by the CIA, like Wikipedia.
;-/
Decades ago I had good friends (integrity etc.) om Facebook but most died. The control mechanism became severe (including shadow banning), discussions became trivial (as compared to the same subjects dealt with on former email forums).
Having a smartphone in Panama is mandatory but I don't use it. The 2G phone from 2006 still works but I don't use that either. AFAIK the CIA stands for Control, Idiocy, Arrogance.
They shut down my 2G flip phone, then later they shut down my 3G flip phone...
;-(