I haven’t done a tech update in a while, so I figured now’s a good time. Developments in AI technology have been blazing along at breakneck speeds. It almost feels like we’re hitting Singularity-level strides, at times. I wanted to round up some of the most ‘exciting’ or surprising developments, then hypothesize where things are headed.
Bottom line, all of this surveillance technology is for the use of the United States government and corporate America, which people will voluntarily put on, why exactly? So the machine can tell them where a particular box of something is at the grocery store? So they don’t have to ask a clerk? There won’t be any clerks of course. There will be weird little robots. It will become a status symbol to not have any of this garbage in your house. To have entirely mechanical stuff like a toaster that isn’t connected to the Internet will be something only the rich people will be permitted to have.
Thank you for this article. Two things, a luddite is merely someone who advocates for appropriate technology,there is a difference In the way its used as a snarl word to denigrate anyone who does not believe in rapid progress at all costs.
Also I do not buy into the idea that the battery problem is insignificant. How long those Boston robots move for,a few minutes? Lithium cannot power the world as it is,add in trillions ofmrobots...its simply impossible. Most of all,it's too expensive,from a monetary and energy perspective.
I'd highly recommend Tom Murphys "do the math" website, he sets out in exquisite detail the amount of energy avail5to the human race,its quite eye opening
I'm getting ready to sell my house, and my realtor told me to get all my stuff out and they would take pictures with digital furniture. She called it a virtual showing. I was like, "WTF?"
Now after reading this, I begin to understand, so thanks for that. This also terrified me. Thanks for the warning, I'll stay far, far away from all of this.
My greatest concern is the environment in which this is being developed. The relationship of the tech companies to the government ensures that the same people who unleashed the scamdemic will have first access to this technology. And we know from the recent past that they are more than willing to use it in evil ways. As a consumer I see great potential for good but it already has a capacity to be used for purposes of nefarious intent. I have a strong desire to move to a rural homestead and live real life instead of something out of my imagination.
Seems pretty obvious where all this is heading, a truly free society imbued with a moral code might use it all to the people's benefit, but the totalitarian systems that we are currently corrupted with will use it as a control system, one where the masses remain unaware.
Too many dystopian sci fi stories cover possible scenarios, if it remains a tool then that is one thing, if it becomes a crutch then that is another. We will all have our own views on religious or philosophical implications, in some ways it could well be a fake overlay on our existing "fake" reality, albeit one that doesn't contribute to our evolution but retards it.
I have been irritated by all of the AI/VR/whatever bullshit. I can see its uses, but it annoys me. The woke communist attempts to dominate the space just adds to the overall distaste I have for all of it.
I suppose I'm a luddite, and there's no stopping it now. But I particularly do not like robots. I don't want them near me, and I don't want to see them at all. They are unnatural and creepy, and could be quite dangerous for humans, should they malfunction and cause injury or death.
Good article though, and a useful update as to what's been going on. I shall ruminate on what you have written, perhaps you can sway me into a more positive attitude as I feel very negative about all of it.
BTW, I tried the stupid VR thing one time. It was okay, but I did not like having the headset on at all. It is weird and disorienting. I do not think the glasses are going to be much better.
BTW, have you pondered what is going to happen when people have robot pets? I do deliveries and I have already had to deal with real dogs coming after me. What happens when the damn dog is made of metal and has been programmed to "guard the house" and the idiot owner isn't around?
I bet one of the damn things is going to kill a delivery driver, just like some of the real dogs have done. How do you defend yourself against a robot dog with a killer attitude? You will need some sort of grenade or something to take it out.
For sure, they can bring your hamburger without smiling or grumbling and save you a painful human relationship. As for resurrecting your dog or your mother, that sounds like Covid blackmail "For your loved ones!" A good emotional selling point for dependance.
Not getting enough sleep, bro? Just had to ask because this post is riddled with spelling errors (Ray-Ban, grandpa, etc).
As for this tech, like with all tech, there is the potential to do real good and the potential to do real harm. I realize "Dark Futura" is going to focus on the bad stuff, but I can already think of half a dozen ways that this tech could be used for good - for instance, my mother-in-law, who doesn't speak any English or German, got stuck overnight in a German airport. Having a translator AI would've really helped, plus lots of other ways this could be good such as assisting the elderly, assisting the disabled, and eliminating menial labor such as digging ditches, picking vegetables and yes, being a waiter/waitress.
That being said, there's a bigger issue at play here, which is the way corporations view tech. Forget about the cutting edge stuff for a second and let's think about the business model that's been in effect for the past 20 years, sometimes known as "freemium".
1) Build something great (and low-cost/free) that users genuinely enjoy.
2) Grow the user base until the market (segment) is more or less saturated.
3) Start "monetizing" the users - harvesting and selling their data, blasting ads at them, etc. as well as offering a paid model that is, essentially, just the old free/low-cost experience.
3b) Sell your services to the government so they can control the populace on a political level.
4) Continue until all the juice is squeezed out and the experience is now shit.
5) Limp on for a while with your paid users and free (aka "monetized") users who grit their teeth and hang on.
6) A new competitor arises and kills off your business. The end.
Literally all the platforms we use today follow this model, including: Facebook, Meta, YouTube, Spotify, Discord, TikTok, Netflix, Amazon, Google search, etc. Even Substack. The only difference is what step that platform currently sits on the list - ones like FB and Google search are at the end of that lifecycle while TikTok and Substack are closer to the beginning.
All this AR crap and AI and chatbots and all the rest are just iterations of tech. The real issue isn't what some lonely wacko will do with his AR pet but whether the corporate model will ever change, and there is ZERO indication that it will change. Guess how much saliva will be drooled by corps when they can harvest everything you SEE with these glasses? How many ads will they be able to spam onto your field of view? Etc. They'll run every positive application or experience into the ground because that IS the business model that works.
Meanwhile, we, the poor souls who are normal folks, have to play an eternal game of Frogger, dodging from one new cool (free/low cost) platform/experience to the next, trying not to get squashed by the "monetization" cars. Or we can pay increasing amounts of money just to get a little privacy and quiet, but either way, we're either rent-paying donkeys or we're the product.
Therefore, in the very near future, there are going to be two classes of people: the ones with all the tech/gear who get a lot of cool and useful and entertaining benefits, but in exchange, you get no privacy and you agree to have every atom of yourself "monetized" OR you have freedom and dignity, but you're shut out from all the fun/exciting stuff until you're a neo-Amish, clip-clopping along at 10 mph while EV cars whiz by you as you make your way to the last remaining cash dispenser in your region.
Yes, the (real) Amish do have sustaining and fulfilling lives, but it is a LOT of work. It's much easier to just flip a switch and get some hot water and lights and all the rest. So that's the choice, really - slogging it out in exchange for freedom, or surrender everything for comfort. In other words, a backwoods cabin or your own AI butler managing your smart house, with no space left in between.
PS - Why no mention of the AI Pin from Humane? *hmm*
PPS - The US government can pass all the laws it wants to. It just takes a single "outlaw" country without these restrictions to develop the truly evil shit.
The imperial Brits used a "robot" killer called the Maxim machine gun. This benign tech was used with great effect in wiping out native Africans when the empire was "enforcing" discipline. I'm a 72 y/o male North American who tries to keep up but I'm already faced with a culture glued to the cell phone. I've played with ChatGPT. I asked recently "how could you make case that the USA society and government is essentially a fascist entity"? Hit "send" and get an answer in about one second. The response listed a number of points that confirmed my suspicions that....yup...we're there. i didn't really need AI to educate me on this but...the speed of the response is mind blowing.
It's hard to shake the feeling you wrote all that simply so you could blame all the dystopia on "Leftism", because presumably "Rightism" begins and ends with a radical form of libertarianism - that astonishingly actually sounds a heck of a lot like liberal Anarchism.
You are deeply invested in considering yourself some "rightwinger", despite the ludicrous mental ahistorical gymnastics you have to put yourself through.
You know, before recent centuries, the idea you could aggregate huge numbers of people by physical characteristics such as skin, eye and hair colour, nose size, or head bumps, and then infer from that matters such as individual intelligence - you would have been laughed out of the room. People may have preferred their own community, culture, ethnic traits, but the racialist idea that Group A was always smarter than anyone in Group B was as fanciful as saying every male must be stronger and faster than every woman.
Racialism is stupid. CRT is not. I doubt white supremacists would appreciate a Chinese-built robo-doctor that assumes all white folk are dirty and stupid and are so thick they need telling not to drink coffee when its too hot, or to open the box before eating the pizza inside. Or an African-built security-droid that assumes that all white people are congenital thieves that steal land and genocide without a moments thought.
Racialist cuts every way, and honkies in a multipolar world are going to discover that privilege has created more of the 'racialist' differences than they had supposed.
Having said all that, fuck the western regimes, and fuck the big tech private corporate regimes too. You can call it Leftist, you can call it Rightist, but at the end of the day it is AUTHORITARIAN.
It is shame that some fools and cretins "believe" in racialist bollocks and thereby give them an excuse for their intended authoritarian and draconian plans, which are really about cementing current wealth, power and privilege for their own offspring/company/ideology/state.
I have an Index, unimpressed by VR, but Meta/Quest get the upraised index finger.
We need a bot that can jump down into a trench or bunker network, use resources to protect itself while directing destruction of targets from all available resources.
Man, this is frankly nightmarish. I had not kept up with the tech, and had no idea it had come this far already. I'm no Luddite, but holy shit. Talk about post-humanism.
Bottom line, all of this surveillance technology is for the use of the United States government and corporate America, which people will voluntarily put on, why exactly? So the machine can tell them where a particular box of something is at the grocery store? So they don’t have to ask a clerk? There won’t be any clerks of course. There will be weird little robots. It will become a status symbol to not have any of this garbage in your house. To have entirely mechanical stuff like a toaster that isn’t connected to the Internet will be something only the rich people will be permitted to have.
A great post. I’m curious about some of the terminology and applications. You’ve detailed a lot in one place. Thanks.
Thank you for this article. Two things, a luddite is merely someone who advocates for appropriate technology,there is a difference In the way its used as a snarl word to denigrate anyone who does not believe in rapid progress at all costs.
Also I do not buy into the idea that the battery problem is insignificant. How long those Boston robots move for,a few minutes? Lithium cannot power the world as it is,add in trillions ofmrobots...its simply impossible. Most of all,it's too expensive,from a monetary and energy perspective.
I'd highly recommend Tom Murphys "do the math" website, he sets out in exquisite detail the amount of energy avail5to the human race,its quite eye opening
I'm getting ready to sell my house, and my realtor told me to get all my stuff out and they would take pictures with digital furniture. She called it a virtual showing. I was like, "WTF?"
Now after reading this, I begin to understand, so thanks for that. This also terrified me. Thanks for the warning, I'll stay far, far away from all of this.
My greatest concern is the environment in which this is being developed. The relationship of the tech companies to the government ensures that the same people who unleashed the scamdemic will have first access to this technology. And we know from the recent past that they are more than willing to use it in evil ways. As a consumer I see great potential for good but it already has a capacity to be used for purposes of nefarious intent. I have a strong desire to move to a rural homestead and live real life instead of something out of my imagination.
Seems pretty obvious where all this is heading, a truly free society imbued with a moral code might use it all to the people's benefit, but the totalitarian systems that we are currently corrupted with will use it as a control system, one where the masses remain unaware.
Too many dystopian sci fi stories cover possible scenarios, if it remains a tool then that is one thing, if it becomes a crutch then that is another. We will all have our own views on religious or philosophical implications, in some ways it could well be a fake overlay on our existing "fake" reality, albeit one that doesn't contribute to our evolution but retards it.
I have been irritated by all of the AI/VR/whatever bullshit. I can see its uses, but it annoys me. The woke communist attempts to dominate the space just adds to the overall distaste I have for all of it.
I suppose I'm a luddite, and there's no stopping it now. But I particularly do not like robots. I don't want them near me, and I don't want to see them at all. They are unnatural and creepy, and could be quite dangerous for humans, should they malfunction and cause injury or death.
Good article though, and a useful update as to what's been going on. I shall ruminate on what you have written, perhaps you can sway me into a more positive attitude as I feel very negative about all of it.
BTW, I tried the stupid VR thing one time. It was okay, but I did not like having the headset on at all. It is weird and disorienting. I do not think the glasses are going to be much better.
Comrades make sure to not miss the new telescreen
BTW, have you pondered what is going to happen when people have robot pets? I do deliveries and I have already had to deal with real dogs coming after me. What happens when the damn dog is made of metal and has been programmed to "guard the house" and the idiot owner isn't around?
I bet one of the damn things is going to kill a delivery driver, just like some of the real dogs have done. How do you defend yourself against a robot dog with a killer attitude? You will need some sort of grenade or something to take it out.
For sure, they can bring your hamburger without smiling or grumbling and save you a painful human relationship. As for resurrecting your dog or your mother, that sounds like Covid blackmail "For your loved ones!" A good emotional selling point for dependance.
Among other repulsions.
Okay, Simplicius, you inspired me and I banged out a post about robot dogs:
https://morgthorak.substack.com/p/death-to-the-robot-dogs
Not getting enough sleep, bro? Just had to ask because this post is riddled with spelling errors (Ray-Ban, grandpa, etc).
As for this tech, like with all tech, there is the potential to do real good and the potential to do real harm. I realize "Dark Futura" is going to focus on the bad stuff, but I can already think of half a dozen ways that this tech could be used for good - for instance, my mother-in-law, who doesn't speak any English or German, got stuck overnight in a German airport. Having a translator AI would've really helped, plus lots of other ways this could be good such as assisting the elderly, assisting the disabled, and eliminating menial labor such as digging ditches, picking vegetables and yes, being a waiter/waitress.
That being said, there's a bigger issue at play here, which is the way corporations view tech. Forget about the cutting edge stuff for a second and let's think about the business model that's been in effect for the past 20 years, sometimes known as "freemium".
1) Build something great (and low-cost/free) that users genuinely enjoy.
2) Grow the user base until the market (segment) is more or less saturated.
3) Start "monetizing" the users - harvesting and selling their data, blasting ads at them, etc. as well as offering a paid model that is, essentially, just the old free/low-cost experience.
3b) Sell your services to the government so they can control the populace on a political level.
4) Continue until all the juice is squeezed out and the experience is now shit.
5) Limp on for a while with your paid users and free (aka "monetized") users who grit their teeth and hang on.
6) A new competitor arises and kills off your business. The end.
Literally all the platforms we use today follow this model, including: Facebook, Meta, YouTube, Spotify, Discord, TikTok, Netflix, Amazon, Google search, etc. Even Substack. The only difference is what step that platform currently sits on the list - ones like FB and Google search are at the end of that lifecycle while TikTok and Substack are closer to the beginning.
All this AR crap and AI and chatbots and all the rest are just iterations of tech. The real issue isn't what some lonely wacko will do with his AR pet but whether the corporate model will ever change, and there is ZERO indication that it will change. Guess how much saliva will be drooled by corps when they can harvest everything you SEE with these glasses? How many ads will they be able to spam onto your field of view? Etc. They'll run every positive application or experience into the ground because that IS the business model that works.
Meanwhile, we, the poor souls who are normal folks, have to play an eternal game of Frogger, dodging from one new cool (free/low cost) platform/experience to the next, trying not to get squashed by the "monetization" cars. Or we can pay increasing amounts of money just to get a little privacy and quiet, but either way, we're either rent-paying donkeys or we're the product.
Therefore, in the very near future, there are going to be two classes of people: the ones with all the tech/gear who get a lot of cool and useful and entertaining benefits, but in exchange, you get no privacy and you agree to have every atom of yourself "monetized" OR you have freedom and dignity, but you're shut out from all the fun/exciting stuff until you're a neo-Amish, clip-clopping along at 10 mph while EV cars whiz by you as you make your way to the last remaining cash dispenser in your region.
Yes, the (real) Amish do have sustaining and fulfilling lives, but it is a LOT of work. It's much easier to just flip a switch and get some hot water and lights and all the rest. So that's the choice, really - slogging it out in exchange for freedom, or surrender everything for comfort. In other words, a backwoods cabin or your own AI butler managing your smart house, with no space left in between.
PS - Why no mention of the AI Pin from Humane? *hmm*
PPS - The US government can pass all the laws it wants to. It just takes a single "outlaw" country without these restrictions to develop the truly evil shit.
The imperial Brits used a "robot" killer called the Maxim machine gun. This benign tech was used with great effect in wiping out native Africans when the empire was "enforcing" discipline. I'm a 72 y/o male North American who tries to keep up but I'm already faced with a culture glued to the cell phone. I've played with ChatGPT. I asked recently "how could you make case that the USA society and government is essentially a fascist entity"? Hit "send" and get an answer in about one second. The response listed a number of points that confirmed my suspicions that....yup...we're there. i didn't really need AI to educate me on this but...the speed of the response is mind blowing.
It's hard to shake the feeling you wrote all that simply so you could blame all the dystopia on "Leftism", because presumably "Rightism" begins and ends with a radical form of libertarianism - that astonishingly actually sounds a heck of a lot like liberal Anarchism.
You are deeply invested in considering yourself some "rightwinger", despite the ludicrous mental ahistorical gymnastics you have to put yourself through.
You know, before recent centuries, the idea you could aggregate huge numbers of people by physical characteristics such as skin, eye and hair colour, nose size, or head bumps, and then infer from that matters such as individual intelligence - you would have been laughed out of the room. People may have preferred their own community, culture, ethnic traits, but the racialist idea that Group A was always smarter than anyone in Group B was as fanciful as saying every male must be stronger and faster than every woman.
Racialism is stupid. CRT is not. I doubt white supremacists would appreciate a Chinese-built robo-doctor that assumes all white folk are dirty and stupid and are so thick they need telling not to drink coffee when its too hot, or to open the box before eating the pizza inside. Or an African-built security-droid that assumes that all white people are congenital thieves that steal land and genocide without a moments thought.
Racialist cuts every way, and honkies in a multipolar world are going to discover that privilege has created more of the 'racialist' differences than they had supposed.
Having said all that, fuck the western regimes, and fuck the big tech private corporate regimes too. You can call it Leftist, you can call it Rightist, but at the end of the day it is AUTHORITARIAN.
It is shame that some fools and cretins "believe" in racialist bollocks and thereby give them an excuse for their intended authoritarian and draconian plans, which are really about cementing current wealth, power and privilege for their own offspring/company/ideology/state.
I have an Index, unimpressed by VR, but Meta/Quest get the upraised index finger.
We need a bot that can jump down into a trench or bunker network, use resources to protect itself while directing destruction of targets from all available resources.
Man, this is frankly nightmarish. I had not kept up with the tech, and had no idea it had come this far already. I'm no Luddite, but holy shit. Talk about post-humanism.