Do You Trust This Computer (Chris Paine):

“THE PURSUIT OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS A MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR INDUSTRY, WITH ALMOST NO REGULATIONS.”

Thank goodness this shit is getting under way. You will probably have heard that over 6000 scientists, professors, physicists, technology savants (many of them laureates) blah-blah; cosigned an open, staunchly emphasized imploration & warning to governments & the international community regarding the development of AI & autonomous weapons systems back in July 2015. Not enough has been done about this barely restrained, scarcely regulated cataclysm of disproportionately dramatic stakes (as if we need yet another crisis to add to the pile), so this vital body of footage & interviews kicks the door off the argument that the whole world needs to be having. Not that there is much to argue about, as it’s as clear as day that this is one of the worst, most unnecessary, dangerous & ignorant directions available, particularly considering the extremity & abrasiveness of market forces (short-term suicidal) & political putrescence of the current climate. The doco’s remit roams further than just the subject of AI, with crucial sections on technocentricty & overly pervasive computer consumption plus surveillance, hyper-dependence & big data exploitation. There’s a real wealth of contributors from many spectrums of the argument. It appears that most who are substantially endowed with expert rank in the technological field are extremely concerned about the threat posed by this disturbingly fast moving pall of menace. Elon Musk features prevalently. So too does Stuart Russell, pretty much the godfather of AI. Russell, a serving professor of legendary status at UC Berkley, was originally obstinately optimistic & praise-spewing about AI, but has grown to renounce this initial favoritism for dire warnings & publicly admit or renounce his previous miscalculation.

There are some real freaks & masochists of dystopic incongruence that get to pitch their ore in. a favorite of mine (if you can call it that?) whom I have been following prior to viewing with increasing alarm, is the truly insane (not at all in a complimentary utility) Hiroshi Ishiguro of ATR Laboratories in Osaka. With more than a pinch of Desty Nova, a rictus, permanently all-black wearing mad-man that clearly revels in the role, Hiroshi is responsible for Erica, probably the worlds most advanced humanoid robot. He talks openly & frequently about ‘love’ & ‘partnerships’ with robots & trying to encode them with human ‘desire’ & ‘intentions’. Deranged babble about “love” between androids & humans, with an immensely unhealthy & sad obsession for some kind of synthetic sensuality, clearly a personal kink that now needs to be inflicted on the world in the name of ‘progress’. He has also stated that any ethical concerns can only be addressed/regulated by introduction to the market. Yes! that’s right – it’s got to go on sale before anything can be done about potential dangers or perniciousness. It’s a bit like drugging & impregnating a stranger, then discussing whether it was cool after the child is born. Damage first, assessment & consent later (when did the market ever do anything but exacerbate a fiasco?) Ruse. Pretext. Distraction. If the implications were not so apocalyptic (in the truest sense of an overused expression), these freaks would be fascinating (I’ve enjoyed these villainous shits in the 2000AD universe, Angel Cop, Akira etc, along with the existential conundrums & material for theatre they throw-up for years). Why would one peruse disability, negation, inadequacy, demotion & forego human ingenuity (especially ‘every day human ingenuity’ through circadian actions & cognition)? I am completely at a loss why AI/ & AI enhanced robots have any appeal? That saying, I suppose it all depends on one’s vulnerability/acceptance of ‘fakeness’ & ‘falsehood’. The psychological evaluation for these individuals must reveal considerable quandaries & skewing, much like the infamous banking/corporate psycho & sociopath parallel. I think so much comes down to individual inadequacy, perhaps even existential incompetence. Failed at life won at the circuit board. It’s telling that this shit is all (with very little exception) spilling out of the west/developed world, with America generally being at the forefront. Many of these schmucks remind me of US high-school massacre shooters – blasting their insignificance, insufficiency & resentment at the world onto ‘the mass’ by extreme action. Inflicting atrocity to gain recognition & empowerment by destruction/damaging imposition. I suspect a lot of these ‘scientists’ share very similar if not identical psychological profiling & rumination patterns, entity dysphoria, exceptionally low self-esteem & issues with personal ‘adequacy’. “I suck! But I will leave my mark. They will remember me.” Delusions of legacy, achievement, effect, stewardship. Control, merit, impact. Absolutely fucking pathetic. Deal with your own shit. Build your personal robot brothel, program subordinance & design the ‘partner’ as some mechanical madonna to look like the paramour/bride you could never acquire personally in real time – just leave the rest of us the fuck out of your derisible counterfeit squirming.

Sorry bout’ that. – the rich love the idea. It’s going to massively reduce costs for production & render huge (& we are talking gigantic) composites of the population unemployed & obsolescent “Quicker|! Faster! Cheaper!”. But price reduction, profits & ‘more control over work related actions’/exploitation out-put come before anything else (including it seems, species survival), & are decided by the would be beneficiaries (although this is clearly going to go tits-up & result in mass violence, to state the very best of bad inevibilities). Also, with AI, the idea is to ‘merge’ once machine to human interfaces are developed. So the rich can just buy (the price will be exclusionary for the majority) superhuman upgrades at a premium. There will be no need to earn (as in non-monetary), cultivate, lucubrate or train (so why even exist?) – just purchase/upload. No process, no journey, no discovery, no growth – just end credits. I come to the same conclusion – pathetic/pointless – but for free-market megalomaniacs & trash tycoons the ‘god syndrome’ is a fanatical fixation. you know when someone is forced to do something out of pure duress? Like an insincere apology – It’s totally worthless. If it’s unearned, what value does it have? Absolutely effing zero! But the cheats & losers will be off their rockers.

Probably the darkest moment of the feature comes from professor Hod Lipson from Columbia university (is there any major modern ill that the US is not responsible for pioneering/unleashing?). maaaaaan. This is so fucked-up. Their messing with artificial sentience coupled with mechanical function. It’s beyond grotesque. Really unfunny, uncool stuff….just awful to non-describable extremes. To be absolutely frank, I think that meddling with this shit in such a way is just grounds for execution. It’s a cardinal existential crime against life – a sin if you will (I am not at all religious, but this shit is offensive to life on a scale that I cannot describe). & the results of this ‘research’ will go where? The market? The corporate sector? The military? The government? – incorrigible. Google & Facebook come off really bad (twang the nerve if you did not see that one coming). Facebook are cruder & more overtly obnoxious & toxic. Google on the other hand are far more sinister, opaque & worrying. Really’ really’ really bad news & cause for the sternest of concern & consternation. The ultimate in Etonian encopresis – Alexandre Nix of Cambridge Analytica is also present, taking it to an all-time low with extraordinary mega corruption & malformation.

Director Chris Paine (Who Killed The Electric Car 1 & 2) has done a remarkable job (shame it comes this late). Watch it & get involved, before yet another crisis is prescribed (possibly an extinctionary one) without your knowledge or agreement. As professor Russel states with apparent alarm, the US defense bodies are frequently contacting him about how “American military dominance” needs autonomous weapons systems & AI. Meanwhile, the shit-spewing tard in the White House will sign anything awful/disastrous put in front of him provided it has terrible consequences. this recently included the atrocious/dystopic-harbinger ‘10 pilot programme’ regulation waivers for UAV’s (unmanned aerial vehicles, aka drones) in commercially expansive roll-outs linked to the likes of offenders Apple, Microsoft, Uber & Intel because “we need flying burgers” – (Uber’s chief executive Dara Khorsrowshahi). The worst thing at the worst moment. This transgression perches on top of the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration Pilot Program, instigated last year by resident Chump. – deposition.