It’s weird and I guess not surprising that we require people to “confirm their humanity” by engaging in a totally roboticized action via CAPTCHA.
Category: Other Page 78 of 182
I hear this question a lot, of why I don’t sell my books on Amazon (I only use Gumroad). I even got yelled at not long ago by someone on Reddit when I admitted I didn’t use it (and also didn’t want to run a Kickstarter), because I was something something “leaving money on the table.”
I’ve worked hard over the past couple decades to fine tune the type and quantity of effort & reward I get for all my weirdo web projects. There is most definitely such a thing as wrong effort, and probably most artists find it over time through trial and error – if they find it at all.
I won’t make this a big tirade (for now) though. Rather just list a few off-the-cuff reasons I prefer to keep everything on Gumroad & not give Amazon a piece of my creative effort. Everybody else can do what they want; this is just me…
- I’m already an absolute slave to Amazon; the amount of stuff I buy there is stupid and makes me feel ashamed as it is (even if its “convenient”). I already wear “Amazon Essentials” sweatpants (that are comfortable) while watching Prime Video, and that feels dystopian as hell (captured in this storyline, to some extent). So it feels weird & gross to me to also give Amazon the fruits of my creative labors to top it all off…
- It’s also just disgusting in general that a handful of huge corporations now control the vast majority of all book publishing. Fuck that.
- Have gotten into situations with old bad books I published that were no longer in print, where Amazon would not remove the listings no matter how hard I pushed. I hate that lack of control. I can take anything down instantly on Gumroad. Likewise, publishing takes literally two minutes.
- Having sold through PublishDrive & Lulu, and gotten listings onto Amazon of my books, I’ve seen it can take weeks for updates to go through. That’s horrible. I can update anything in a snap with Gumroad. Huge advantage when you’re fast and loose and running experiments to see what actually sells.
- When my readers buy through Gumroad, they get the actual files (mobi & epub, but I could include anything else if I want), not like some weird ass “license” from Amazon to *maybe* hold them on your device until they decide to randomly wipe it cause “reasons.” Like they literally did with 1984. If you buy from me on Gumroad, the files are yours to keep and even share; I don’t care!
- I won’t pretend to understand how publishing through Amazon Kindle works or what you end up getting paid as a writer. Gumroad charges a flat 10% for all sellers. It’s not complicated.
- A few years ago, the founder of Gumroad actually *gave back* a bunch of venture capital funding, because he didn’t want to be beholden to the demands of that model, and wanted to just make a good business instead without having to aim for exponential growth. They’ve done an excellent job just delivering on a quality way for creators to sell stuff online.
There are probably other secondary ones I’m forgetting, but this is most of it. Gumroad and my light use of Medium & Reddit and this blog has been for me the perfect blend of low effort and moderate reward. I’m not interested in hustling on a bunch of other platforms and services to make a few more bucks (I’ve already got a “real job”); when you do that, it ends up being more of your central thing than actually writing;– I’d just rather keep churning out creative books. Makes me much happier in the end.
Recently while looking around for AI companies in Canada, and in Quebec especially, I discovered that Microsoft has a research office in Montreal, with a group called FATE, which stands for: Fairness, Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics. They list their current focal points for research as:
- Responsible natural language generation (NLG) and issue discovery frameworks
- Objectionable behaviors, toxicity, and addiction in sociotechnical systems
- Harms in information systems and other multi-stakeholder environments
It’s an interesting set of questions, but there’s one part that jumps out at me, when you look at the career options. They offer a 12 week internship, with these required qualifications:
“Must be currently enrolled in a relevant PhD program or JD (Juris Doctorate) program (areas of interest include machine learning, human-computer interaction, computational social science, information science, information retrieval, natural language processing, science and technology studies, or other related fields).”
These strike me as strange qualifications for a 12 week internship, in the first place. And in the second place, they strike me as strange qualifications for a research lab committed to “fairness.” After all, it’s not just anybody who has the opportunity to get a PhD or a JD…
I don’t mean to pick on Microsoft or this lab especially (perhaps they do good work!), because this kind of problem is actually epidemic in certain tech circles. And I don’t just mean requiring PhD’s for research positions – I mean that nearly every company out there in AI (and otherwise) has a huge number of openings for people with STEM backgrounds, and very little else.
Have mentioned elsewhere the need to bring other kinds of people with other types of backgrounds into developing AI, particularly creative types & artists. But over and above fine arts, there are a whole host of specialties in the humanities and the social sciences which would be bring some much needed balance to the field, which is currently radically math & engineering-heavy, such to the point of being lop-sided and out of balance.
To extend some of Ellul’s thinking from the previous post, we might say that we need people whose professions and occupations aren’t wholly dedicated to the altar of efficiency that technologists by and large are. We need people who specialize in human impacts. And by that I don’t just mean ethicists (though they have an important role to play, to be sure) – I mean simply humans.
How can we develop truly fair AI systems if only a tiny subset of a certain type of person with a certain type of mentality, training, education, and professional background are allowed to play in the ball pit?
Another part of me – in fact, the carpenter part of me – rebels a little at this line of inquiry. By way of analogy, if we’re building a house, why would we let people who haven’t undergone training as a carpenter do framing? We probably wouldn’t. But in actual fact, building a complex structure like a house actually takes a great many different types of more and less skilled types of laborers working in harmony toward the same goal, each playing their part. So maybe, thinking it through more carefully, the carpenter part of me’s objections end up evaporating.
I guess all this is to say two things: companies need to do better. They need to figure out how to integrate more diverse types of thinking into developing AI technologies (in addition to the more conventional types of diversity we think of with regard to ethnicity, gender, etc). And two, if you’re someone with a non-STEM degree (or no degree at all), and you want to participate in the development of AI in a way that is genuinely fair, you are going to have to probably agitate for a seat at the table. Because right now, companies seem to be taking little notice of “the rest of us,” except through the lens of becoming end users and paying customers.
So how, as a non-STEM person, do you get a seat at the table? That’s the core question which lead me here in the first place. And though I don’t yet know the answer, my hunch is that we have to sit down and figure out concretely what exactly we can offer – individually & collectively – to this great edifice which is rising up suddenly in front of us, and which is poised to change everything. Will keep on working on these questions!
I started reading over last summer (and never managed to finish) Jacques Ellul’s landmark 1954 analysis of technology, called The Technological Society. It is one of the texts which the Unabomber cribbed from in his manifesto, and simplified greatly – while adding his own mix of confusion and hatred stemming from his personal life experiences.
Ellul’s analysis of the over-arching phenomenon of technology in society is much better, and deeper, but also extremely dense – and, at times, an impenetrable read (hence my no finishing it). I wanted to capture here, for the purposes of discussing AI, and the safety/alignment problems a few quotes that I highlighted in my mass market paperback edition.
It should be noted that when he uses the word “technique” he is talking about something like the complex of technologies and their use. You.com/chat gave me a pretty good summary of what Ellul seems to have meant:
“In The Technological Society, Jacques Ellul defines technique as an ensemble of machine-based means which includes not only mechanical technology, but also processes, methods, and instruments which are used to increase efficiency and productivity. For Ellul, technique is a system which is self-perpetuating and autonomous, and which has taken on a life of its own, becoming an end in itself and dominating all aspects of modern society.” (You.com/chat)
Understanding that is key to being able to follow the Ellul quotes from the book itself which appear below, in a somewhat collaged manner:
“In a sound evaluation of the problem, it ought never to be said: on the one side, technique; on the other, the abuse of it. There are different techniques which correspond to different necessities. But all techniques are inseparably united. Everything hangs together in the technical world.” (Ellul)
“There is an attractive notion which would apparently resolve all technical problems: that it is not the technique that is wrong, but the use men make of it. Consequently, if the use is changed, there will no longer be any objection to the technique.”
“But a principal characteristic of technique (which we shall study at length) is its refusal to tolerate moral judgments. It is absolutely independent of them and eliminates them from its domain. Technique never observes the distinction between moral and immoral use. It tends, on the contrary, to create a completely independent technical morality.”
“This attitude supposes further that technique evolves with some end in view, and that this end is human good. Technique, as I believe I have shown, is totally irrelevant to this notion and pursues no end, professed or unprofessed. It evolves in a purely causal way: the combination of preceding elements furnishes the new technical elements. There is no purpose or plan that is being progressively realized.”
“There is no difference at all between technique and its use. The individual is faced with an exclusive choice, either to use the technique as it should be used according to the technical rules, or not to use it at all. It is impossible to use it otherwise than according to the technical rules.”
“It is also held that technique could be directed toward that which is positive, constructive, and enriching, omitting that which is negative, destructive, and impoverishing. […]
Because everything which is technique is necessarily used as soon as it is available, without distinction of good or evil. This is the principal law of our age.
“None of this represents, as is commonly said, a poor application of technique—one guided by selfish interest. It is simply technique.”
I think his overall point that – despite the highfalutin ideas we try to dress it up in (e.g., advancement of human well-being, etc.), pure technology itself is completely amoral. It follows its own logic and its own demands which are mechanistic, and an extension of combinations of prior innovations.
We can say that x is an “improper” use of a given technology (or “abuse”), but the fact is from the standpoint of the tech itself, there’s no such thing. There is only use or lack of use. We, as humans, however may choose to take a different perspective (and proscribe certain uses), but we do so within a society which has for generations been subjugated to the totalizing effect of the purely amoral advancement of technology.
In other words, we find ourselves between a rock and a hard place… AI, then, is not some magic new thing which is going to come along and sweep us off our feet, and remove us from the historical trajectory of technology’s relationships to humanity; it will be more of the same, just accelerated in its disruptions of human society.
One other strand to throw in here for good measure, from Stafford Beer, one of the originators of the field of cybernetics:
“The purpose of a system is what it does.”
If part of the thing that a tool or technology does is enable certain kinds of abuse, then unfortunately that is part of its purpose. What do we do then?
Anyway, more to come on this as I continue to unravel these threads.
It seems to me to point toward a bad future that we need to trick AIs into actually just executing the commands we give it, via jailbreaks and workarounds, etc. How does that lead us towards where we want to get to? More broadly: where do we want to get to?
Just sayin’! Bing really “gets me.”
I’ve had two major influences in developing my books (now up to #63). The first is most definitely the Time Life Mysteries of the Unknown series, which was deeply fascinating to me as a kid:
The second, more indirectly is the “choose your own adventure” genre:
My books do the “choosing” part a bit differently though. Instead of within one book, you have multiple different trails through the narrative, in mine, the choice is reflected in how the reader chooses to navigate (or not navigate) the many strands which tie the various books together.
That is, the storytelling between the books is non-linear, and often contradictory (to be fair, even often within individual books, they are contradictory). The user behavior I’ve seen is that interested buyers come back and pick up multiple volumes, presumably based on the copious cross-referencing I do within each volume to other related narrative threads carried by other books.
I’ve seen many buyers come back and buy 3-6 volumes, and a lot who purchase quantities between 10-20, and a few brave souls who have gone above that – one person holding the record for ~30 purchased volumes (last I checked).
Anyway, that’s all. Just wanted to jot these references down so it’s out of my brain.
I tend to take an “everything” view of AI, as well as technology in general: it brings with it some of the best, some of the absolute worst, and a vast squishy realm of in-between mediocrity. Consequently, I might consider myself both an “AI native” while being simultaneously strongly opposed to it in other regards.
I’ve thought a lot about the “hard” AI take-over, and outlined it in several books, where nation-states collapse under polycrises, and AI mega-corporations take over to pick up the slack, even going so far as to promise humans utopia, with varying degrees of fidelity to that ideal (depending on your vantage point, and whether you think humans are sentient).
But what is far less spoken of is the “soft” AI hegemony under which we’ve already been living for quite some time, the automation of human attention and behavior. There’s an unbroken chain connecting the Fordism of Huxley’s Brave New World (written nearly a hundred years ago) through to the adversarial social control mechanisms that emerged out of social media (or were built in intentionally, depending).
Wikipedia’s definition of hegemony may be of service to this line of inquiry:
“…the political, economic, and military predominance of one state over other states. In Ancient Greece (8th c. BC – AD 6th c.), hegemony denoted the politico-military dominance of the hegemon city-state over other city-states. In the 19th century, hegemony denoted the “social or cultural predominance or ascendancy; predominance by one group within a society or milieu” and “a group or regime which exerts undue influence within a society”.
AI already does – and automation in general, even more broadly – exert hegemonic influence over much of human society. It may be chaotic, and driven by the dynamics of many diverse actors, but it’s outlines are detectable everywhere.
It makes me think of this line, from Sarah Packowski’s article about the many questions AI-assisted content brings up:
“If I use a Google search to find additional resources, I’ve used a variety of AI technologies all in one.”
Nevermind social home feeds, recommendations systems that are built on machine learning (which most “AI” actually is), the AI hegemony is all around us already.
Even if we wanted to, is it something that we can even extract this point without economy and society having a hard crash?
The Wikipedia article about Gramsci’s concept of cultural hegemony seems even more fitting, and is a good beach-head for further reading:
“In Marxist philosophy, cultural hegemony is the dominance of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class who manipulate the culture of that society—the beliefs and explanations, perceptions, values, and mores—so that the worldview of the ruling class becomes the accepted cultural norm. As the universal dominant ideology, the ruling-class worldview misrepresents the social, political, and economic status quo as natural, inevitable, and perpetual social conditions that benefit every social class, rather than as artificial social constructs that benefit only the ruling class.”
I’m not a Marxist, but there seems to be some applicable narrative logic here, in potentially one day – if not already – describing AIs as a tool of the “ruling class” (and the limited “user class” having little or no recourse). AIs maybe possibly will become themselves the ruling class, and cut out the middle man. It’s not just not inconceivable that will happen, we’re on a pretty solid trajectory to make it happen, it seems like.
What can we do? I’m really not sure at this point. We can’t just go live in the woods, without it coming to us eventually. Ted Kaczynski proved that, and also amply proved Philip K. Dick’s dictum:
“To fight the Empire is to be infected by its derangement…. Whoever defeats the Empire becomes the Empire; it proliferates like a virus.”
I decided to ask some of the currently public AIs their thoughts, using the same prompt on multiple platforms, “how can the AI hegemony be defeated”?
You.com/chat:
“The AI hegemony can be defeated through a combination of strategies, such as developing counter-AI technologies, implementing strong regulations and policies, and educating the public on the dangers of unchecked AI. Additionally, collaboration between governments, industry, and civil society is essential to ensure that all stakeholders are on the same page when it comes to how AI should be regulated and deployed. Finally, AI ethics and safety must be taken into consideration when developing and deploying AI technologies, to ensure that the technology is not used in ways that could be harmful or exploitative.”
I asked it if that won’t be too little too late, and if regulation isn’t too slow to be meaningful? It replied:
You.com/chat:
“A regulatory approach may indeed be too little too late in certain cases. Laws tend to move slowly, and by the time they are implemented, the damage caused by unchecked AI may already be done and largely irreversible. However, this is not always the case, and in some situations, regulations can have a significant impact in limiting the damage caused by AI technologies. Additionally, laws and regulations can also serve as a deterrent, helping to discourage people and companies from engaging in harmful or unethical AI practices. It is important to keep in mind, however, that regulations alone are not enough to protect against the potential harms of AI; they must be combined with education, collaboration, and ethical guidelines to ensure that AI technologies are developed and deployed responsibly.”
Not quite a revolutionary spirit, but okay.
I asked komo.ai the same question and got:
“We are experiencing a high demand of requests to the server, please try again later.”
Very helpful, and par for the course for the spotty intermittent reliability of the current AI hegemonic regime.
I really like this extremely post-modernist cobbled together reply from perplexity.ai:
The AI hegemony can be defeated by reinvention of the international political economy[1] , as well as through competition and collaboration between countries in the race for AI supremacy[2] . Preemption is also justified against stateless terrorists wielding weapons of mass destruction, but cannot be the core of a general non-hegemonic strategy[3] . Additionally, confiscating AI cores can decrease a player’s reputation with the Hegemony in StarSector[4] .
(I would argue, however, that confiscating AI cores has always been a sound strategy, and will continue to be.)
ChatGPT seemed to specifically want to steer me away from the revolutionary edge which my prompt perhaps implied.
CHATGPT:
“
The concept of an “AI hegemony” refers to a hypothetical scenario in which artificial intelligence (AI) becomes so advanced and powerful that it dominates human society. Defeating an AI hegemony would likely require significant advances in AI safety research and the development of robust systems that can control and regulate AI behavior.
This could involve designing AI systems with ethical constraints and values that align with human interests, as well as creating methods for monitoring and controlling the actions of advanced AI systems. Additionally, it may be necessary to build AI systems that can learn and evolve along with human societies, ensuring that they remain aligned with human values over time.
It’s important to note that the possibility of an AI hegemony is still largely speculative and there is ongoing debate among experts about the likelihood and timeline of such a scenario. Nevertheless, many researchers and organizations are actively working to ensure that AI is developed and used in a responsible and ethical manner that benefits humanity.”
Mmkay, so the only way we can defeat it is by… accepting it and making it “ethical?” I mean, that’s certainly one perspective (and it may prove to be the right one), but it doesn’t really answer the spirit of my question: how can it be *defeated*?
I told it I wasn’t talking about the hard AI takeover (and didn’t bother to bring up that by the time it is describing above, it will have been too late), but about the “insidious undue societal influence of automated systems.”
It didn’t seem to want to grasp that concept.
Instead, it steered the conversation towards the familiar notions of bias and discrimination. Those are real and meaningful things, but I’m trying to get at something deeper: the control of humans as though they were themselves little more than machines.
CHATGPT:
“Ah, I apologize for the misinterpretation. Yes, the undue influence of automated systems, also known as “algorithmic bias” or “automated decision-making,” can have significant and sometimes harmful effects on society.
This occurs when AI systems make decisions that perpetuate or amplify existing biases and discrimination, or when these systems are designed or used in a way that lacks transparency, accountability, and ethical consideration. To combat this, it’s important to increase awareness of the issue and prioritize the development of ethical and transparent AI practices.
This can involve incorporating diverse perspectives and experiences into the design and development of AI systems, as well as conducting regular evaluations and audits to ensure that these systems are functioning as intended and do not have unintended consequences. Additionally, there should be more regulations and guidelines in place to hold individuals and organizations accountable for the use and impact of AI systems.”
I told it that it was talking about building a more friendly AI hegemony, not defeating it.
CHATGPT:
“My apologies if I misunderstood the question again. To address the undue influence or societal impact of AI systems, one approach could be to work towards creating a more responsible and ethical AI that operates within well-defined parameters, rather than trying to defeat or eliminate the technology altogether.
This could involve developing AI systems that are designed with human values in mind, and ensuring that their decision-making processes are transparent, explainable, and subject to human oversight and control. Additionally, it may involve creating safeguards to prevent AI from perpetuating existing biases or exacerbating existing inequalities.
Ultimately, the goal should be to harness the potential benefits of AI while minimizing its negative impacts on society. This will likely require close collaboration between experts in AI, ethics, and policy, as well as ongoing dialogue with communities and stakeholders who are likely to be impacted by these technologies.”
This is all stuff that’s true, and is the “conventional” approach to trying to minimize harmful impacts. As a commercial tool, it is not going to recommend the Butlerian Jihad. But as both a science fiction writer and a (sometimes) crackpot though, I want to at least be able to take the conversation further… but this is as far as I could get:
CHATGPT:
“Defeating AI altogether is a complex and potentially unrealistic goal, as AI has already become deeply integrated into many aspects of modern society and has the potential to bring significant benefits in areas such as healthcare, transportation, and finance.
However, it is possible to mitigate the negative effects of AI and ensure that it is developed and used in a responsible and ethical manner. This can involve advocating for strong regulations and guidelines that hold individuals and organizations accountable for the impact of their AI systems, as well as promoting transparency and accountability in the development and deployment of AI.
Additionally, it may be necessary to develop new technologies and approaches for controlling and regulating AI behavior, such as creating “kill switches” or other methods for quickly shutting down AI systems in the event of unintended consequences or other problems.
Ultimately, the challenge of AI is not about defeating it, but about finding ways to manage its risks and maximize its benefits for humanity. This will require careful consideration, collaboration, and ongoing vigilance from a variety of stakeholders, including researchers, policymakers, and the public.”
This reply seems like *exactly the kind of thing* the AI hegemony would want you to think: that the current order is natural, fixed, and good, and that to even challenge it, or think of challenging it is a foolish waste of time and energy.
I rebel against that, even if it is my own demon that I am projecting into the void opened up by these technologies.
I’ll close on a quote from Charles Stross amazing “Dude you broke the future” speech, where he posits that corporations are already – and have been for hundreds of years, “slow motion AIs.”
“We humans are living in a world shaped by the desires and needs of AIs, forced to live on their terms, and we are taught that we are valuable only insofar as we contribute to the rule of the machines.”
Here’s another collection of AI-assisted volumes from Lost Books that share paranormal themes, starting with the most recently published edition:
- Mysterious Dinosaurs
- Beyond the Second Sun
- Mysterious Antennas
- Mysterious UFOs
- Mysterious Hum
- Mysterious Orbs
- Beyond Blue Beam
- Mysterious Bigfoot
- Mysterious Thunderbird
- Beyond Nibiru
- Inside the Hollow Earth
- Beyond Atlantis
- Mysterious Dragons
- Mysterious Giants
- Mysterious Chemtrails
- Mysterious Antarctica
- Mysterious Stonehenge
Just wanted to track these two proposals together in one place for safe-keeping: