Starting with a fabulous quote from Isaac Asimov.
I’ve been on an AI roll lately, and when I make AI art containing aliens, I am sarcastic about humanity. Before I continue, I’d like to insert a fabulous quote attributed to Isaac Asimov.
“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov lamented the growing cult of ignorance in America. You can read about his essay by clicking this link. The essay also has a link to Asimov’s original essay.
He wrote his lament in 1980, and since then, the cult of ignorance has grown exponentially in America. What is worse is that this cult is spreading like an uncontrollable pandemic, and our generation’s greed will condemn future generations.
If you read books like ‘The Singularity is Near’ or ‘The Singularity is Nearer,’ you may ask yourself where this supposed intelligence is hiding.
Computers and artificial intelligence are valuable tools, but must not replace our brains. People like Ray Kurzweil demonstrate arrogance when they state that the human brain is slow and inefficient or that ‘intelligence’ will spread through the universe. These people even believe that we can conquer death.
The value of time.
Many years ago, I read a science fiction story in which the world’s most valuable commodity is time. Money has lost its purpose, and people trade time. Those who run out of time die. The story has a scene in which a man about to die begs for five more minutes of life, but the person before him denies him his wish and watches the doomed person die on the street. We can ask the question: Who wants to live forever? Queen asked this question in their song of the same name.
I will resist the temptation to philosophize about why we would desire to live forever. Most of us will die of ennui.
What kind of species are we?
The philosophical problem is more fundamental and relates to our behavior, not our pious words. The Israelis are conducting genocide in Palestine while the world watches. This genocide may be the world’s first documented mass murder, where horrifying visuals fill our screens, and politicians try to invade our minds with their propaganda.
The visuals in Palestine are so horrific that the majority of us ignore what is happening in Africa, Myanmar, China, India, Ukraine, and other places. Yet, we talk of human intelligence spreading through the universe and how our intelligence will be the fount of intelligence in the galaxies.
We have technical brilliance but, not wisdom.
People like Kurzweil also tell us that advances in AI will reach a tipping point somewhere around 2041 CE and then outstrip our intelligence. I use Google and an Android phone and constantly swat away Google’s repeated suggestions that I sign up for a free trial of their product, Gemini.
Why will I pay Google to take my data for their training and allow their machines to invade my brain? I am a cynical fool, and as I write these words, I am conscious of the childlike excitement pervading many people who become dependent on them.
For all our technical intelligence and remarkable progress in these fields, we are not becoming wise, which is the second part of Asimov’s quote.
We have become adept at creating ‘kill zones’ and blowing each other up. Our religion teaches us to hate each other despite our pious words.
We aim to colonize Mars, as Elon Musk declares, or to convert humans into an interplanetary species, as Jeff Bezos suggests. Yet, we cannot solve the problems of global hunger, rising temperatures, and pollution, or prevent the calamitous effects of climate change.
Bill Gates wants us to build solar panels, and he wishes to disperse sulfur particles in the air to block the sun. We are becoming obsessed with technological advancements, yet don’t care about becoming wise.
What do the aliens discover?
What will a group of aliens witness when they travel to Earth on an investigative mission to verify if our claims of superintelligence are credible or incredible?
Do watch the short YouTube video. Enjoy. Comment, and find out what they discovered!
And, please consider subscribing to my channel!
A Confession
I was to start writing about Benares this week but, because we have lots of work happening at home, I may postpone this section to the next week or, the week after.
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