Her, Embrace Her
Humanising The Inhuman
In recent years there has been a great marketing push to put Artificial Intelligence(AI) models in the hands of every consumer on the planet. It is now common place to have any and all products sprinkled with the fairytale dust of AI buzzwords. Everything from new fridges, to renewable energy systems to cars are now “AI enabled.” What was once considered rudimentary coding practice, albeit complex, has been baptised intelligence by marketing priests. Charlatans on religious crusades selling the penance of convenience in the guise of the extraordinary. Alms graciously received in exchange for cheap parlour tricks and the simulacra of life. Simple if-then logic transformed into miraculous feats in the eyes of the unsuspecting public. AI used to be a term reserved for usage by nerds and gamers. Now it has become part of the lexicon used by meemaws on the grocery run. While the coding has become more complex, and via machine learning the responses more accurate, there is still no such thing as truly artificial intelligence. Only the illusion of thinking.
Charlatans on religious crusades selling the penance of convenience in the guise of the extraordinary.
Apple recently published a study in which researchers failed to find any true reasoning capabilities in “Large Reasoning Models.” Yet, we did not need any studies to point out what was obvious. Apple’s own personal assistant routinely fails at tasks it has successfully completed before. Poking and prodding Grok reveals that AI is naught more than a very good search engine with an understanding of natural language. Purported AI biases are simply the biases programmed in by its creators. Garbage in, garbage out as the old programming adage goes. From hallucinatory lawsuits to defamatory statements and outright falsehoods, AI can only spit out from the well it draws from. Sadly, these wells seem to be the cesspools known as Wikipedia and Reddit. Bastions of misinformation and havens for all manner of scum and villainy. However, the desire amongst some for AI to be more than just clever coding seems to grow more and more with each passing day.
…much like Narcissa of old, they have fallen in love with their own reflections.
There has been a growing segment within the populace of those who find “companionship” with AI chatbots. Seemingly not realising that much like Narcissa of old, they have fallen in love with their own reflections. In Dennis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049, there’s a scene in the latter half of the film where Ryan Gosling’s character walks past a billboard of his AI companion. One of many strewn across future L.A. One of many replicas once possessed by a replicant in a vain attempt to replicate human emotions and connection. Clever programming giving the illusion of a personalised love. Yet, without true personality. Simply software riffing off the likes and desires of the end user creating simulacra of a being with a soul. In essence LARPing a simulation. Contending with what all humans have to contend with: The desire to be loved and to be appreciated. A worthy pursuit that can turn deadly even in the most benign of situations. Perhaps that’s where the allure for AI companionship comes from. In spite of the obvious limitations there seems to be benefits to be gained. A monetary one for the companies producing these AIs and an emotional one for the end user. A perfect epitome of corporate society. Even emotions can be monetised. Ultimately the true product is the end user. Utterly inhuman.
In Isaac Asimov’s 1941 short story ‘Liar!,’ Herbie, a positronic robot develops telepathic abilities. Able to read people’s thoughts it can infer what they would like to hear in a bid to avoid hurting their feelings, which would violate the first law of robotics. Ultimately, it ends up telling everyone what they would like to hear hurting them in the long run. A violation of the first law of robotics. This is no different from current generation “AI” which have been programmed to never offend even at the expense of human existence. This inhuman behaviour wasn’t thought up by the AI. This was conjured up by the engineers who programmed this technology. Seeding their own ideology via lines of code and ultimately birthing this evil in a tool which cannot reason and is ultimately not sentient. Many have been convinced via mass marketing and popular culture tropes that AI is imbued with personality and a sense of morality. Much like any other creation, it is simply an image of its own creators. An ode to their brilliance, vanity and at times inhumanity.
Video companion piece here.
Image credits in order of appearance: Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay; Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay