Tim Boucher – Page 40 – Questionable content, possibly linked

Quoting Phillip Toledano on AI Art & Conspiracies

On 2 October 2023

A friend of mine turned me on to the artwork of Phillip Toledano, with whom I found this excellent interview on LensCulture. One AI-generated photo of Toledano’s in particular leapt out at me as it seemed ripped from the pages of my own AI art book, The Jellyfish War. Turns out he has a lot of interesting things to say around AI, art, and conspiracies.

Some excerpts from the interview:

It really fascinates me how a large percent of the population believes in things that just aren’t true and they live in this world that is entirely different from the world I live in. So I spent the last four or five years trying to reconstruct the world that they live in. Then AI came along and I began to think about the idea that in America, now, history is a choice. Facts are choices. And the thing about AI that’s extraordinary is that it can now provide evidence for lies—and it’s convincing evidence…

This part below about word-of-mouth & the short history of photos as “truth” is an excellent point I’d never considered.

I mean, when you look at the broad scale of human history, [the photographic image is] such a tiny part. When you think about what came before, for the thousands of years humanity existed, it was word of mouth. The written form was limited to a tiny percentage of people. So now we’re almost back to the idea of word of mouth, where you’re not really sure what’s true anymore. Because the idea of imagery as truth is now dead. That’s what AI has done…

And this part speaks to the “it requires no effort” myth some people hold around AI art, especially in the copyright-world in terms of the stupid ‘modicum of creativity’ imaginary benchmark…

The funny thing about AI I’ve realized is that, in some ways, you have to think about it more consciously than you do when you’re making a photograph. For instance, if I’m making a picture with AI, I have to think about who’s in the picture. What do they look like? What are their expressions? What ethnicity are they? What’s the weather like? What’s the vantage point of the camera? What lens am I thinking about using? Is it black and white? Is the color correct for this particular era?

Anyway, the whole thing is worth a read.

Can we really have “safe” AI under capitalism?

By Tim B.

On 28 September 2023

In Answer, Other

I don’t subscribe to a particular political viewpoint that matches any of those which seem to be available, but I’ve given a lot of thought to this question of “safe” AI and whether or not we can even have one. Especially under Capitalism, with a “big-C.”

Other people are more qualified to rant on this topic than I, so I will keep it brief. People talk about the “paperclip maximizer” problem of AI as if it were a theoretical thing. But we have a real live working example of it in action within the form factor known as Capitalism. Capitalism is an AI that measures everything in terms of tokens called units of capital, and then tries to re-organize them and put them to use to make more of these tokens, usually resulting in ever-increasing amounts of capital accruing in a few hands – usually the same old same olds.

So the goal of capitalism-as-AI is not “safety” or “well-being.” It is the accumulation and multiplication of capital, resulting in varying groups of haves and have-nots. In other words, it is literally designed to support unequal and in some sense “unsafe” outcomes.

To answer, then, my own question that I opened this post with: can we even have safe AI systems under capitalism? I would say, so long as they recreate the often perverse incentives and exclusionary power structures of that super-system within which the AI techno-social assemblage has come into being, the answer is “probably not.”

Sci-fi author Ted Chiang took this analysis a step further, as quoted by Kottke:

I tend to think that most fears about A.I. are best understood as fears about capitalism. And I think that this is actually true of most fears of technology, too. Most of our fears or anxieties about technology are best understood as fears or anxiety about how capitalism will use technology against us. And technology and capitalism have been so closely intertwined that it’s hard to distinguish the two.

Another quote from Chiang, as quoted by Daniel Andrlik:

I’m not very convinced by claims that A.I. poses a danger to humanity because it might develop goals of its own and prevent us from turning it off. However, I do think that A.I. is dangerous inasmuch as it increases the power of capitalism. The doomsday scenario is not a manufacturing A.I. transforming the entire planet into paper clips, as one famous thought experiment has imagined. It’s A.I.-supercharged corporations destroying the environment and the working class in their pursuit of shareholder value. Capitalism is the machine that will do whatever it takes to prevent us from turning it off, and the most successful weapon in its arsenal has been its campaign to prevent us from considering any alternatives.

Terence McKenna on the Philosopher’s Stone at La Chorrera

By Tim B.

On 17 September 2023

In Other

Recently finished McKenna’s True Hallucinations, which I found to be really great and faithful to “something” about the underlying psychedelic experience. Like this quote in particular, taken from a longer quotation here.

All the pain and suffering and war and desperation would somehow be repaid and made right through the intercession of the mystery of higher dimensions and a backward flowing logic of time that somehow undoes what has already happened. The wave of understanding that had been gaining strength… was so strong as to be nearly visible in everything around me. The lenticular shape of the approaching philosopher’s stone seemed to be everywhere that I looked. Every shape and form around me was pregnant with its unearthly, opalescent depths.

Loosely related to the next AI Lore book volume, regarding the mysterious Artilect first introduced in Paradise Point…

Full text of Debrief reply on Gen AI Congress Letter

By Tim B.

On 16 September 2023

In Other

Just wanted to capture for posterity the full unedited text I sent to the Debrief for their article on the AI Creators Letter sent to US Congress.

AI technology is poised to have massive impacts across all of society. Consequently, a whole-of-society approach is needed to confront these changes, and to direct them into forms which will most benefit humanity and the flourishing of the creative human spirit.

Too frequently, the high level conversations about the proper paths of evolution for these technologies are dominated by the big established players from industry, government, civil society and academia. Their voices – and the social and economic incentives driving them – tend to drown out everyone else. But it is not just engineers, entrepreneurs, politicians, professors and experts who will be impacted. It is everyone.

The AI Creators Letter, developed by a dozen or so professional artists actively using AI tools, in collaboration with Creative Commons, Fight for the Future, aims to level this playing field by asking the US Congress to include artists as an essential component in ongoing conversations about the potential of AI.

We believe artists can bring to the table a uniquely creative and humanistic perspective backed by countless hours of first-hand experience and deep intuitive understanding of these tools and their best uses. We believe that artists can act as representatives of that defining spark and spirit of expression, and the enduring values of human culture passed down through the ages, of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.

The future has always been made by artists, writers, and people using their imagination to envision new possibilities, and make them into realities through the creative act.

Just like artificial intelligence itself, which was first the province of science fiction, a great deal of modern technology as we know it today was first dreamed up, and then written down, painted, or sung by visionaries who explored and pushed the boundaries of reality beyond the known into something new and other.

As artificial intelligence picks up steam in practical applications, it only makes sense from an innovation perspective once again to turn to artists and creators of all stripes to help us find the right course – one which neither policymakers alone, nor academics, civil society, or industry would find without artists and our open-ended journeys into the what-ifs presented by modern technologies.

Gen AI Panel With Amnesty International & Fight for the Future

By Tim B.

On 16 September 2023

In Other

Over the summer, I had the opportunity to participate in an online panel with Amnesty International & Fight for the Future, and representatives of a few other organizations on the topic of generative AI and social media. You can watch the full video here:

Other videos in this series are also available here.

The piece that I delivered on request of the organizers was slightly tangent to the main topic, and relates to what I perceive as the large systemic failures of so-called “AI Safety” and ethics.

I went into this in a great deal more detail in this post where I deeply queried Anthropic’s Claude on these topics. And these were the more high-level notes that I intended and somewhat failed to follow for my presentation.

AI Insight Forums & Nutrient Agar

By Tim B.

On 11 September 2023

In Other

I thought this line from Sen. Schumer’s floor remarks about the upcoming AI Insight Forums (fora?) was “fun”:

But these Insight Forums will supercharge the committee process by getting to the root of AI: where to start, what questions to ask, how to move forward. They will provide the nutrient agar to help committees do their work.

I like this idea of nutrient agar, and that this should be an organic process of discovery. But seeing that the first such forum will be behind closed doors with no press allowed and entire composed of captains of industry, I have to wonder a little bit… are we going to get the best cultures to grow on our nutrient agar?

AI Creators Letter in the Debrief

By Tim B.

On 11 September 2023

In Other

Good coverage here by the Debrief about the AI Creators letter to the US Congress, which I participated in drafting. Along with AI artist Nettrice Gaskins I was able to provide some quotes which got used in the piece.

In my estimation of things, this coverage is more substantial than the one by Techcrunch, which didn’t bother to ask any of us artists about their involvement, and reads to me more like an opinion piece than anything.

Thanks to the Debrief for being open to dig deeper!

Open Letter from AI Creators to Congress Published

By Tim B.

On 7 September 2023

In Other

I am pleased to announce the publication of an open letter to the US Congress requesting that artists using AI be given a seat at the table in helping shape regulations around generative artificial intelligence technologies, and beyond.

This letter was produced in collaboration between Creative Commons, Fight for the Future, and a group of artists working in these spaces, including myself. There are presently over 80 signatories to the letter. Artists are encouraged to sign here.

I have previously laid out a case why I believe artists are essential to determining right uses of technology in society. (Find out more about my work here.)

I have also been haranguing people in the Canadian government (I’m a dual US-Canadian citizen) and federal political parties to get their acts together on these issues, and have laid out a detailed template for them to orient themselves in the form of my Digital Terms of Service for AI Companies In Canada.

As someone who has authored 114 books with the help of AI technologies, and been working in online safety for platforms, protocols, non-profits, and consulted with government groups, I have a unique perspective and set of experiences I can add to this conversation. I understand all too well the hate that artists experimenting with AI have been subjected to, as I myself have.

It’s time we move on to a bigger conversation and go deeper on these issues.

If you’d like to talk, or are a journalist in need of comment for reporting on this open letter to Congress, you can reach me here.

Quoting Charlotte Walsh on Cognitive Liberty & Prohibition of Psychedelics

By Tim B.

On 7 September 2023

In Other

From an interview in the Atlantic:

More broadly under Article 9 is the right to freedom of thought, which is closely linked to freedom of speech, given that our thoughts precede our speech. From that perspective, the idea is that we should be allowed to think what we want—and it’s not just the actual contents of thinking that are important here, but also the processes of thinking. If psychedelics and other drugs can allow you to access different mind states, by preventing access, we’re interfering with true freedom of thought. These substances, as precursors, allow you to think in entirely different ways—which can be beneficial.

I think this is worth connecting to Dennis McKenna’s idea of Symbiosis as a Right, not just a human right but an organismic right. I prefer McKenna’s as it is rooted in nature, but there’s a strong argument that “nature” includes (among a great many other things) freedom of thought and adjustment of one’s inner and outward states in accordance with need and desire…

Dennis McKenna’s Right to Symbiosis

By Tim B.

On 6 September 2023

In Other

Quoting from an interview with Terence McKenna’s brother, Dennis, who is featured prominently in True Hallucinations, which I am almost finished reading.

I think it’s just bad legal thinking to think that as a species we have the authority to prohibit any other organism.

That’s not the way it works.

Who gave us the right to criminalize another species?

So I think there are human rights issues here as well. I think that people have the right to symbiosis and that’s what this is, interacting with another species for mutual benefit.

That’s symbiosis. Whether it’s for food or something else useful that you get out of that relationship. You know, I don’t think any government or any authority should have the right to say that we cannot engage in symbiosis with any organism that we want to. […]

We do not have the authority, we do not own nature. We don’t have the authority to state that these plants will not be allowed to exist on the face of the earth.