On Mon, 17 Dec 2018 06:16:51 +0000 (UTC) jim bell <jdb10987@yahoo.com> wrote:
On Friday, December 14, 2018, 2:20:10 PM PST, juan <juan.g71@gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, 14 Dec 2018 16:24:10 -0500 John Newman <jnn@synfin.org> wrote:
I'm cynical - about AP, about humanity, about the chances of ever divesting ourself of what seems to be the plotted destination for civilization: dystopia for the masses.
Don't worry! There will be no dystopia for the masses because there will be no masses. Once the ruling class has enough 'artificially inteligent' robots at their disposal they will get rid of the human robots, who are clearly a potential threat.
This sounds like a variant on the Terminator series of movies.
It does - I don't claim any originality =) So, in the terminator series people create 'autonomous' machines and then the machines decide to get rid of the human race. More or less the same scenario is discussed here and not as pure fiction : "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us" https://www.wired.com/2000/04/joy-2/ by bill joy, (co)founder of sun microsystems. I think the stories about out-of-control machines are really dumb. They are a transparent piece of diversion and propaganda. People like bill joy, who play the 'good' cop, and the vast majority of technocrats who don't even pretend to be good, came up with this silly idea that "the machines are to blame" to try to hide the fact that "the machines" are just the tools they are using to serve their own political ends. And tools are not moral agents. The people who use the tools are. IF you read the bill joy article linked above you will notice that the best part of it was NOT written by joy "On the other hand it is possible that human control over the machines may be retained. In that case the average man may have control over certain private machines of his own, such as his car or his personal computer, but control over large systems of machines will be in the hands of a tiny elite—just as it is today, but with two differences. Due to improved techniques the elite will have greater control over the masses; and because human work will no longer be necessary the masses will be superfluous, a useless burden on the system. If the elite is ruthless they may simply decide to exterminate the mass of humanity. If they are humane they may use propaganda or other psychological or biological techniques to reduce the birth rate until the mass of humanity becomes extinct, leaving the world to the elite. Or, if the elite consists of soft-hearted liberals, they may decide to play the role of good shepherds to the rest of the human race. They will see to it that everyone's physical needs are satisfied, that all children are raised under psychologically hygienic conditions, that everyone has a wholesome hobby to keep him busy, and that anyone who may become dissatisfied undergoes "treatment" to cure his "problem." Of course, life will be so purposeless that people will have to be biologically or psychologically engineered either to remove their need for the power process or make them "sublimate" their drive for power into some harmless hobby. These engineered human beings may be happy in such a society, but they will most certainly not be free. They will have been reduced to the status of domestic animals" That's from a guy named Kaczynski.
Jim Bell