The Artificial Intelligence Conspiracy: How the World's Elites Plan to Replace EverybodyElse with Intelligent Machines by Shakarian Arthur

Author:Shakarian, Arthur [Shakarian, Arthur]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
Publisher: c.a.u.b.
Published: 2016-01-10T16:00:00+00:00

Machine Lords

Technological progress is neither unguided nor inevitable. It serves particular interests, as the tools it brings forth benefit some and help exploit others.

For the last century or so, it could be fairly said that scientific and technological progress provided a net benefit to the great majority, if not all, of humankind. Say what you want about pollution and "denatured" lifestyles, the fact remains that almost all over the globe people enjoy longer and healthier lifespans as well as the freedom that comes with increasingly unfettered communication, as a result of advances particularly in medicine, engineering and computer technology. It is understandable, then, that some people assume that this will continue to be the case in the future. We have already seen that the phrase "If it goes on like this..." is the cornerstone of the Singularitarian movement. – But will it?

Knowing what we do, that question is easy to answer. Money will continue to flow into AI and automation research until the needs of the elites can be met without resorting to human labor. The freedom afforded by modern communication technology and the Internet will continue as long as they are required for aiding the growth of knowledge, international collaboration, and social mobility that are needed to drive innovation forward. – Note that "social mobility" here means enabling talented minds to get to where they will be most productive, rather than an intermingling of the elites with the plebs. Sure, as long as the game is on, the occasional rising star might be accepted among the ranks of the one-percenters, particularly if what brought them so far contributed in a significant way to the elites' designs – think Silicon Valley entrepreneurs or media creators applying the relevant nudges. In fact, these individual cases are useful in their own right, because their example is the shining light that many up-and-coming creatives and engineers are following. If this is how they get "up there", they're thinking, they'll just have to push in the same direction in order to make it – which is exactly the direction the elites want them to go.

But once the game is done – once they have what they want – the rest of us are disposable.

"But," I hear you protesting, "won't the elites still need our money?" And the leftists among you might add, "After all, they're only rich because they leech off our productivity, right?"

If only that were true. In fact, we are long past the point when this was anything more than a comforting myth. These days, when I hear people say that, it always sounds to me a little like the heroine of "50 Shades of Grey" thinking that even though she has put herself entirely at Christian Grey's disposal, he will still be nice to her because he needs her to love him.

I'm sorry, Anastasia, but that's not the way it works.

In the naive view of capitalism, hailing back to the end of the 19th century, a typical entrepreneurial career might have

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