The utter nonsense of sentient AI and Transhumanism cannot be understated. But that makes it even more of a threat.
The Premise: Turn Your Life Over To A More Intelligent Way Of Thinking
What is behind getting us to accept technology as our master? When we cede responsibility over to automation and become less human, or we allow our abilities as humans to be stunted. Yet there is a huge push in our culture to accept the superiority of AI Transhumanism as our ultimate masters. For know, articles like https://www.universal-sci.com/headlines/2019/3/5/can-robots-ever-have-a-true-sense-of-self-scientists-are-making-progress seek to acclimate us to robotics and Artificial Intelligence by attempting to convince us that software and machines can possess consciousness, that is can sentient and self aware.
If these machines are to be our carers or companions, they must inevitably have an ability to put themselves in our shoes.
For one, where does this premise that a machine will be a proper companion arise from? Is it as simple as a Match.com algorithm find characteristics, running a few calculations and BOOM you are in store for a lifetime of marital bliss? When did this argument become settled that a machine should be entrusted to care for us? That is is primary premise of that researchers assert as valid justification for creating self aware machines.
The article states that because humans learns by approximation, only knowing what affects them directly, a model of a machine which adapts to changes in it’s condition will approximate live cells adapting to new stimuli.
The hypothesis emerging from this is that we understand others as if we ourselves were acting – a phenomenon scientists refer to as “embodied simulation”. In other words, we reuse our own ability to act with our bodily resources in order to attribute meanings to the actions or goals of others. The engine that drives this simulation process is a mental model of the body or the self. And that is exactly what researchers are trying to reproduce in machines.
This equivocates a machine regulating a process with a machine being aware of a process, of a process’s implications. In other words a toilet can stop filling itself when the float reaches a certain level, but that doesn’t mean the toilet FEELS full, or is aware that the water is wet.
Who and What Is Behind This Rush To Embrace AI
The transhumanists suffer from an extreme form of philosophical materialism – the only things that exist are physical components. Therefore the soul does not exist. According to Joe Allen, author of Dark Aeon
This materialist inversion is the spiritual order that sits at the heart of transhumanism. In most versions the higher orders of being emerge from the lower. … However simple a lower order may be, it crackles with the field of wild possibilities. Therefore, through digital alchemy , the evolved human mind is able to transform dumb matter into machine intelligence.
Ray Kurzwail was obsessed with the resurrection of the dead.
His believe that technology would one day resurrect the dead had lead him to complete artifacts from his deceased fathers life – photos, videos, journals – with the hope that these artifacts, along with his father’s DNA would one be used to resurrect him.
We have previously written about the need to create the semblance of conversation in mental health apps in Hello Caller, AI Is Listening
Many studies are cited by proponents of AI’s use for mental health apps. In particular the study Bonding With Bot: User Feedback on a Chatbot for Social Isolation measured how users felt when chatting with AI about their mental states. The measure, called Net promotion, is borrowed from marketing. While it sounds “sciency”, in the end the measure is merely the short term gratification factor “did the person feel “good” about using the app?” The prognosis of the study: because a majority of those surveyed felt good after interacting with the AI chatbot, use of the app must be good for them.
For example, a 2021 study of about 800 people experiencing self-reported social isolation and loneliness had them interact via text messages with a chatbot. The study found most users reported they were satisfied and would recommend the chatbot to a friend or colleague.