Artificial Intelligence: The End Is Nigh

SCENE FROM A MOVIE

God (talking into a Nokia dumb-phone): I’ve been watching from my little perch here, and I’ve got news for you.

Man: Nice to meet you, maaan. You know, I pray to you all the time. No, like, really….

God: This is no time to be frivolous. I just wanted to tell you, personally, that you’re going to wipe out life on earth, if you keep going with this AI crap.

Man: Sorry, Mr. God. Can’t put the ‘wiping out life on earth’ genie back in the bottle, sir. Must find ways to adapt to the new reality. Can’t stop innovation. Can’t stop progress. But, hey, don’t worry, we’ll work something out. Now I gotta…

God (shouting): PROGRESS? What progress? How… is… wiping out life on earth progress?

Man: Wow, God, you’re so out of date. Get with the programme, dude. I know you’re worried about AI and all these other wonderful tech innovations of ours, but, hey, maan, you need to give some room to the innovators. We’ll show you what we’re capable of! Whoever thought one of the boys would be Mr. Trump’s boss, eh?

God: Man, what if I said you’re in the process of cutting off your own hand?

Man: God, please. We can’t put the knife back in the drawer. Besides, we can all get new hands nowadays.

God: Why can’t you put the knife back?

Man: Everyone else is cutting off their own hands, so we need to keep up, not get left behind, know what I mean? Besides there’ll be lots of money in artificial hands very soon.
(The line goes dead)

Man: Helllo, hello… Mr. God. I have to run.
(The phone rings)

Man: Ah, Mr. God, you’re back! Some kind of breakdown there, I guess! Listen, it’s been lovely but I gotta go. This AI stuff is great fun, but remember I gotta drill, baby, drill as well, like Mr. Trump said.

God (sighing): This won’t take much longer. I’ll use another analogy to make it easy for you. You’ve got a double-barrelled shotgun and you’re pointing it directly at your child’s head. Are you going to kill her?

Are you going to kill him?

Man: Ha ha! I like it. Putting the frighteners on me! Next time we get Clint Eastwood to play you!! Look, I hate to have to spell this out, but I – we, that is – can’t put the ‘killing my child point blank with a double-barrelled shotgun’ genie back in the bottle. Mr. God, being all-powerful and shit, you should know that by now.

God: So, you’re going to kill your child?

Man: How else can I afford that new cool 2-ton electric SUV I fancy? How else can I afford all those cheap flights for those short weekend breaks? How can I maintain the lifestyle I’m used to, if I don’t blow my

child’s future off with this double-barrelled shotgun?

God: Jesus fucking Christ!

Man: Ah please, Mr. God. You gotta have a sense of humour! Laugh a little bit. That was just me joking. Look I promise. We’ll work something out.

God: I don’t mean to be sentimental here, but I thought you said you were doing all this for your children? I thought you said you loved them?

Man: I love them to death, Mr. God. And I will blow the head off any man who says I don’t. I love them. I love them.

(There are tears in Man’s eyes)

God: Then why not do something to stop this madness while you can?

Man: I just love this max-convenience lifestyle I have more. It’s makes perfect sense to 99% of people out there. God, why are you so out of touch? You haven’t become a socialist or a commie, have you? Ha, ha.

Gotta go! See you later, alligator…

(There is an explosion. The screen goes black).

BACK ON PLANET EARTH

(Here we go, here we go, here we go)…

There’s nothing we can do. Nothing we can do. We must simply accept it all as inevitable. We’re all card-carrying super-enthusiastic members of the Growth Death Cult and we must be loyal and carry on carrying on.

If that means wiping out life on earth, then the least we can do is do it with great efficiency, innovation, and a sense of progress and development. All aboard the Growth Death Cult AI electric train! All aboard.
(Here we go, here we go, here we go)…

I hate to be a party-pooper, but there is something that needs to be said: AI is merely the latest craze in making money for a small number of already very wealthy and powerful people. The money is made by using up – and by wasting – vast amounts of energy and materials.

It would be wrong to suggest that there is no potential for good in AI. But one of the most fundamental questions we have to ask ourselves relates to risk and reward. If AI were to provide a universal cure for cancer, for example, would that be sufficient justification for putting the entire planet at imminent risk of catastrophic implosion?

Because that implosion is happening right now, before our very eyes.

The pursuit of AI is depraved on so many levels. This is very seldom acknowledged publicly and so most people simply do not know the truth. But I am telling you, readers – and I am trusting you to spread the word.

AI involves an extraordinary – and extraordinarily costly – waste of energy, water and materials. This is deeply criminal with a planet in crisis, because the waste of energy, water and material is the core driver of environmental collapse. To turn this around: Big Tech is pushing the most wasteful technology ever, at the moment of our greatest environmental danger. At a time when we desperately needs brakes, the tech bro pimps are pushing accelerators. And they expect you, and me, and ordinary citizens like us all around the world, to pick up the bill.

BIG TECH’S SLAVES

We should believe these greedy, psychopathic tech bros when they tell us they’re Nazis.

AI is the Great Big Lying Machine, and in this sense it is the perfect expression of our age: Donald Trump as King Kong crushing everything in front of him, alongside a speech bubble saying “Isn’t this just beautiful?”.

(Here we go, here we go, here we go)…

A technology that gouges energy, water and materials to produce lies and mediocrity says all we need to know about where global civilization is at right now, and where it is heading. They have our data down to the minutest detail. We are all Big Tech’s slaves.

“But AI will solve global warning,” the AI grifters shout.

AI is a gross, monstrous machine that’s drinking a UK’s worth water and eating a Germany’s worth of electricity, causing a Poland’s worth of mining, and crapping out a Denmark-size load of e-waste per annum. It is not ever going to solve global warming. It’s pouring Olympic-size swimming pools of gasoline on the wildfires!

(Here we go, here we go, here we go)…

Greed has overwhelmed us. The tech bros have drugged us with the mediocrity of convenience. For crappy AI content, music, films and lies. For stealing elections and stealing from artists with the aim of replacing those very same artists. For mediocrity broadcast at high volume. To make a few more gangster tech bro billionaires.

The only question worth asking is: what can I do to stop them?