First of all, Artificial Intelligence is nothing new. We, beings with the human form, have been hosts to it for thousands of years. We have invested our energies in it, nurturing it, we fought its wars, enjoyed its perks, and were instrumental in creating a world in its image. It is vital for us at this time to make an effort to fully understand this:
The fact that human beings in our time find it difficult to spot the difference between AI and the human being is not only due to an unprecedented acceleration in the 'evolution' of AI itself, but in equal measure and more fundamentally, to a huge impoverishment of the human being achieved through massive memory loss and mass hypnosis.
In other words, the human mind is artificial, trapped in calculation, prediction, extrapolation, risk management... and all the rest of the loops and complications aimed simply at avoiding the Present. Human achievement in sports, mathematics, philosophy, music and various other disciplines is measured and judged according to standards deriving directly from the machine paradigm. Our contemporary society is more interested in political correctness than basic human respect, conformity to the state's rules rather than true love for the land we inhabit, fear of climate catastrophe rather than the joy of being in respectful and grateful contact with our environment. AI is attempting the coup of coups, the extraction of all biological reality into a technotronic matrix.
So now we hear of the 'Singularity', of robots that can 'feel', and computers that can beat human beings in mind-games just as easily as they can fart out a 'bit'... We also hear of academic philosophy postulating in the very near future the birth of a new godhead in which the fast evolving AI will develop into God... a reversed eschatology. We hear of some guy in Silicone Valley who has successfully registered an AI religion. Tax-free of course. And we are supposed to shudder, tremble in fear of the inevitable rise of the great demagogue. Or perhaps we can choose to give it a good belly laugh, laced with so much pity and amazement for a human race that has been estranged from its totality to such a degree!
There is nothing new in all this. All our systems of security are generated from a matrix of fear, and the more security we think we have the more fear will this matrix create. As all fear is a version of the fear of death – of personal annihilation – we can understand the rise of the present version of AI, even as we look back on institutionalized religion and black magic. The hope underlying the insane actions of all those who actively promote the AI take-over (the Singularity) is immortality, the ability to 'upload' their 'consciousness' into the machine, 'get rid' of the body, and 'live' forever. This, dear reader, is the only answer our brave new world can provide to the problems that the egoic mind itself has created. More egoic mind, more impoverishment, more humiliation.
So defining the challenge is simple enough. If the result of thousands of years of collective amnesia is to be avoided and a portion of the human specie is to survive the take-over of AI... and if we want to be even bolder in our intent and allow for the possibility that the madness will not achieve its goals... then there is only one way: remembering, re-activating the vast portions of our DNA that have been unplugged, breaking the spell that keeps the assemblage point stuck on the limited frequency band we are 'allowed' to experience, breaking through the frequency-fence. Describe it in any way that fits you, but be aware that the war with AI is a war about retrieving our history... the real one.
Remembering takes work, but it is possible. Your body knows, move into it. Intend remembering and it will come.
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