AI will kill us all! But is actually also somehow integral to the progress of humanity?
CEO of Open AI and loathsome nerd, Sam Altman, has often repeated that AI might destroy humanity, so then it might stand to reason that humanity should destroy Sam Altman. But the fact is that the all encompassing apocalypse machine like that in Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream are not possible with the "AI" methods Sam Altman's company is working with, and he knows this. The devastating power of AI is often overstated by it's proponents for two reasons
1) Something that is an existential threat to the human race must surely be an impressive piece of tech we all have to work around
2) If its so powerful we have to create it before some lesser ra- I mean, adversarial nation develops it
The reality is is more banal. The actual threat of singularity and technological take over of the earth is not going to happen through the mediums of Large Language Models, but this doesn't mean they can't do serious damage in the meantime. Right now a pressing concern is AI generated Slop (the technical term for AI dogshit) clogging up the internet. While in most instances it's simply annoying, it presents serious concerns if you value things like a public grip on reality. With developments in Open AI's new video generation model Sora, Slop has become far more convincing, and while most people use this to make irritating videos, some may have grander plans. With the ability to create a completely manufactured reality almost automatically the Mind War will be shifted into a intensity hitherto never seen. A potential deluge of fantasy rubbish can pollute the public square at a rate never before seen. While psyops and basic bots are nothing new, a device that can fabricate evidence of theoretically anything extremely quickly is theoretically a psychological weapon of mass destruction. A casus belli could be pulled completely from the ass of a computer, and with Facebook already aiding in genocide without AI, the destructive potential is unimaginable. What could states possibly do?
ARSENAL GEAR
In Hideo Kojima's seminal Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of... NO SIT DOWN THIS IS IMPORTANT! In Metal Gear Solid 2, the US Navy develops a massive underwater fortress-submarine, look what it is doesn't matter, it's what it does. This Arsenal Gear is capable of sifting through all data online and blocking, suppressing, or altering it, to further the goal of a shadowy organisation, The Patriots. While the ability to filter the entire internet is not within reach, I see a future where every platform has it's own little Arsenal Gear, itself an AI, to regulate the flow of information to "fight misinformation". These Arsenal Gears will obviously be used to further the aims of the organisation and any forces they may beholden to such as internal security agencies. Already, institutions like the NSA have access to Arsenal Gear like programs that trawl for data and retain it for use by the Fourth Reich, there's nothing theoretically preventing them and their corporate lackeys from supercharging surveillance and control with AI tools we already have. The result of a fabricated reality ushered in on the promise of destroying fabricated realities. The Mind War goes nuclear, a digital psychic apocalypse brought to you by Mark Zuccerberg. Even pre-AI the internet managed to deep fry the brain of many people over 40 to the point they wandered into the capitol building in Washington, many on the orders of some fictitious anonymous insider known as Q, to try an overthrow an election by... standing around? The destructive potential of social media is bad enough without the added madness of video generation. Indeed Israel is already using AI to fabricate propaganda. This was indicated to us with the recent hack of former PM Neftali Bennet's Telegram account by Iranian group Handala. Among the messages were those with Nuseir Yassin aka 'Nas Daily', who now makes Zionist propaganda with liberal use of AI to fabricate an image of Israel as anything other than a rabid dog state run by Jewish Supremecist lunatics. Thankfully the reputation of Israel is rightfully so radioactive it doesn't seem to be working, but its a clear indication that government agents are already testing the waters of AI generated post-realities.