Miklos
« Je donne mon avis non comme bon mais comme mien. » — Michel de Montaigne

Click to enlarge. Source: Flow

I read today Ross Douhat’s NYT newsletter “Pope Leo Isn’t Standing Athwart the Singularity” posted yesterday (5/28). I must confess I don’t see what the author means by “Singularity”, in this specific (A.I.) context. More generally, I have really no idea what his overall opinion of the encyclical is. As to me, I tend to agree with a report I had read earlier about the Pope’s position.

For me, to put it (much) simpler – I am not a Pope (yet) -, A.I. is, first, a “new tool”, and while any tool has usually been invented for reasonable uses, it has (almost always) be abused by greedy humans (in search of power and/or money). Take the knife, for instance: it allow to slice meat, to peal veggies, but also to kill any existing form of life, including humans. Even just the stone: there are proofs that some monkeys use stones in order to break the shell of nuts, but it can be used in order to harm. So has been any invention.

Looking more specifically at technology, look what the internet has caused: the ever-increasing propagation of fake rumors, dis­in­for­mation and with it a decrease in critical thinking (there was a French saying many years ago that “If it’s in the newspaper, then it must be true” – this is now the case on the internet), used, again, for the above purposes (power, greed), and with observable results: the rise of far-right (and far-left) extremism and political power.

This tool – A.I. – being so universally available on so-called “smart” phones – is already shaping children and adolescents: they refer to it as not only a useful, but necessary crutch, and, being so young, can’t exercise any critical thinking about it. I have been using – should I rather say, testing – a variety of A.I.s (after all, I am a trained computer scientist) and while they indeed could be useful in some cases, they do make insidious, factual mistakes (usually referred to as “hallucinations”), in addition to create dependence.

Into which kind of adults will they develop? Twenty-three years ago (in 2003), I had written in my blog:

We are thus transforming into a new being, atrophied in our muscles (except for those of our fingers for the keyboard, and especially of the thumb for the mobile phone), hybrid (wired and permanently connected, not only to a mobile phone, but to the network), and soon atrophied in our brain – no need to think when we are immobile and cut off from the real world and when we “navigate” in a world of signs: we have nothing but reflexes and needs, increasingly instinctive and immediate – to finally dissolve, the ultimate fusion fantasy – in this hyperspace and its hyperculture that the philosopher Pierre Lévy describes to us in rhapsodic tones. This process of man’s devitalization is manifested by his evolution from citizen to consumer, from actor to spectator, from active to passive, towards the “upper” society of which H. G. Wells speaks in The Time Machine: “The Eloi, like the Carolingian kings, had decayed to a mere beautiful futility,” living only in idleness and fear of others, those below, the Morlocks, servants turned predators

Coincidentally – and (obviously) ironically – three days ago, I posted this (English follows French).

While A.I.’s “powers” are already immense, it is a giant with feet of clay: it – and the world at large – increasingly depend on… electricity. Everything that we use (or almost) needs it. But did you hear of the total power blackout in the Iberian Peninsula a year ago? If this happens – and as it had, it will –, how will we humans continue to live in cities – no electricity, so no water (powered by electrical pumps), no elevators, no fridges, no stores (the “cash” registers being off, the lights being off, their fridges being off), no transportation, no phones… and no A.I.

This ever-increasing interconnectivity of technical systems makes it increasingly likely that bugs, breakdowns and outages will propagate rather than be “just” local and produce unexpected havoc.

While there had been a way to “terminate” the Golem after it turned into a violent monster, will there be a way to neutralize unrestrained A.I.s?

Source: Whisk.

The Oval Room had witnessed scandals before, but never Alice and the White Rabbit waltzing elegantly across its floor as though time itself were drunk.

While they danced, the Queen of the Night stormed in, her cloak churning like a furious nebula.

“WHERE IS THAT TREACHEROUS PRESIDENT?” she roared. “He has forsaken Ukraine for the Russians—just to line his own pockets!”

The President, hearing this, dropped instantly to the floor and scuttled under his desk, where his wig abandoned ship and rolled away like a guilty ferret.

The Queen seized the wig, shaking it as if it could confess.

Alice twirled past and said, “Oh dear, he’s hiding again.”

The White Rabbit added, “He does that whenever morals are mentioned.”

The President peeked out, trembling.

The Queen’s eyes blazed like eclipsed suns.

“You will crawl out,” she hissed, “and answer for your cowardice.”

He squeaked something unintelligible.

Alice and the Rabbit resumed their graceful dance.

And the Oval Room quietly decided it would never tell anyone what happened that night.

– ChatGPT

Source: NotebookLM.

Cliquer pour agrandir. Source : Whisk

It was a most curious gathering in the Oval Room: Alice, the White Rabbit, and the Queen of Spades—each with their own unique sense of style and flair. Alice, naturally, was served a hamburger—perhaps because the President knew she had an endless appetite for adventure, but not for tea. The White Rabbit, in a clear nod to his busy schedule, was handed a cell phone to check the time—though he kept muttering, “I’m late, I’m late!” as he fiddled with it, trying to find the charger.

Meanwhile, the President, clearly in a state of unprecedented diplomacy, threw caution to the wind and invited the Queen of Spades to a spontaneous dance. He twirled and spun, as if trying to impress the Queen with his own rhythm—though it was mostly chaotic, resembling a mix between a frantic cha-cha and a very nervous mambo. The Queen, unimpressed but slightly amused, simply stared at him with an air of “Well, this is new.” And so, in the surreal world of Wonderland, where logic and manners often take a backseat to the absurd, it was indeed another fine day of peculiar politics and whimsical diplomacy.

– ChatGPT

Cliquer pour agrandir. Sources : Whisk (image), ChatGPT (texte).