31 mar Artificial Intelligence is the Triumph of Flat Earthers
Our brain, despite its incredible capacity, doesn’t know how to distinguish between the real and the imaginary, a fact widely known in the circles of opinion manipulators. Let me explain.
Reality and imagination are concepts created by humans and, therefore, do not belong to the framework of elements detectable by the human brain. Our limit of perception is our senses. They act as antennas, responsible for capturing, like radar, what is around us and informing the brain, isolated in its well-protected bony abode. Whatever they say is taken as truth.
We don’t see radio signals, but reason forces us to believe in their existence. We don’t see Wi-Fi, but rationally, we know it exists. However, our imagination is fertile, and we end up creating a philosophical gap, so to speak, to believe in anything that suits us, even if it hasn’t been captured by any of our senses or has scientific evidence, which, let’s face it, doesn’t make much difference to many people. For example, those who believe in a god don’t see it, don’t have concrete evidence, but believe unwaveringly in its existence based solely on faith. And, contradictorily, they deny all the thousands of other competing gods.
This gap is only possible because of rational thinking, the great inventor of realities. Our brain, somewhat naive, has absolute trust in the senses, and consequently becomes their hostage. But there’s someone who can change this scenario, even if partially: consciousness, our differentiator from other animals, a result, among other things, of a significant growth in our frontal lobe, directly associated with higher cognitive functions such as decision-making, problem-solving, and planning. Thanks to it, we can question what we see, smell, hear, etc. We can reason, seek logic, try to understand contradictory phenomena but also believe in stories that we ourselves invent. Basically, the conscious mind allows us to confront our senses and make decisions despite what we are feeling and/or perceiving.
Look at the stories we are presented with every day, in movies, soap operas, series, theater, etc. Even though we are fully aware that it’s simulated, that people are pretending to be other people, saying things invented by other people, that there is a battalion of people behind the cameras, we sincerely want exemplary punishment for the villain, root for the hero to achieve his goal, rejoice at seeing a passionately in-love couple finally coming together, fear monsters, demons, and serial killers wearing masks, get frustrated in the face of blatant injustice, and cry at the death of a beloved character, even if you’ve seen that actor dying dozens of times in other stories. In Brazil, actors who play villains in soap operas can’t go out on the street because they will certainly be harassed in the supermarket queue. As much as truth, lies also could mess with our emotions. Even blatant ones.
Certainty is an illusion
The phenomenon of social bubbles is explained because the brain has a defense system for our mental patterns. Any information that confirms our beliefs will carry much more credibility than one that denies them. A dose of hormones from our reward system, including dopamine, is released each time what we believe receives another reinforcement. True or false? It doesn’t matter. It’s not malice, stupidity, or ill-intent. It’s just how things work. Hence, the urgent need to use reason to analyze the information we receive. Who gave it, what are the proofs, the arguments, does it make sense, is it really true, or are they trying to deceive me? Just because information is pleasurable doesn’t mean it’s true. Self-deception is reason’s greatest enemy.
I have a commitment to myself: I don’t want to be right. I want to be as right as possible. This presupposes questioning everything I believe in search of the version that seems most logical to me. That’s why I’ve always been suspicious of those who are sure of everything. But I won’t lie: discovering that we are wrong hurts. It hurts a lot. The process I mentioned regarding our reward system also works in the opposite direction: immense discomfort overwhelms us when information contradicts our beliefs. So, instead of questioning, most people prefer to embrace the lie, a long-time companion of the comfort zone and our great bosom buddy.
The artificial intelligence tools that proliferate on the internet are capable of creating parallel realities where so many people already live, feeding the flames of blazing illusions. Very soon, conspiracies will gain images, sounds, and smells, turning delusions and daydreams into practically celestial truths, coming from God. YOUR God, of course. As we have seen, the other 3587 are scams.
The sum of all fears
I confess that I am anguished to be daily confronted with yet another tool (or several) that invents realities. Avatars that look like real people speaking what we write (the so-called text-to-voice), completely invented images bordering on perfection, our voice (or that of others) precisely emulated for later use in videos showing us saying what we didn’t say, AI that creates videos from scratch, but also advertising, stories, articles, and many others stuff that have a huge impact on our imagination, arming our senses with increasingly real perceptions, and therefore, staggering.
The internet created parallel universes. Artificial intelligence is officializing them. From now on, there will be no more fantasy. Only reality. And the reality is that instead of entering the multiverse, it will be the multiverse that will enter us. In addition, they will end the work of many, many people, a topic I will comment on another time.
People who saw Jesus in toast may confirm the miracle by showing him preaching the gospel smeared with butter. Clairvoyants will use digital crystal balls showing videos with their clients’ future presented crisply, in 4k. Generals will have clear and indisputable images of weapons of mass destruction. In soccer, offside will never be called again because each club will have its own VAR. Politicians will post videos proving that they didn’t promise what they promised (and vice-versa), saying that the other video was the one produced with artificial intelligence. Cheating spouses will send photos to their partners showing how much fun they’re having at the Accounting Seminar. Sex tapes of celebrities will even lose their attractiveness since they will be posted by the thousands. Video calls will not be reliable: no, Messi is not inviting you for a game, nor is Gisele Bundchen going to be cheering for you. But I guarantee that this statement of mine will have no effect. The logic will remain the same: if I’m seeing and hearing, it must be true.
Stretching the legs of the lie
Truth and lie, which have always been so fluid, will finally have their positions strengthened. Both in attack and defense. Polarization will reach a level of crystallization that society, once moving towards unity, the so-called global village, will move in the opposite direction, namely, against the civilizational process. An increasingly fragmented society. What were once local cultures will be replaced by WhatsApp groups fueled by well-structured and proven delusions. The clash of cultures will be literal and violent. There will be no more discussion. There will be no more reflection. Not that there is much today, but the windows will be increasingly closed, preventing the entry of light through democratic and healthy debates.
Maybe we’ll go back to the model of the Middle Ages, with self-sufficient fiefs. Each of us choosing our castle and living happily in that place where everything is the way we want it. Others must be exterminated, or at least silenced, a threat to our happiness. “What they believe is absurd. They are idiots, manipulated, or opportunists.”
Each bubble will have its own artificial intelligence system, which will always confirm the obvious and unquestionable reality. It’s the victory of the deniers. The irony is that, thanks to science in its most sophisticated expression, they will find all the necessary arguments to reinforce their creed in the flat earth, the evils of the COVID vaccine, and the Jewish-Communist-globalist conspiracy that wants to dominate the world. Let there be artificial intelligence for so much ignorance.
In addition to the triumph of ignorance, we will live the end of utopias, as they will be materialized and, therefore, lose their condition of unattainable, making the existence of the word and even the concept it represents senseless.
The tragic end
Speaking of utopia, in an even more dystopian scenario, people will start living in their own parallel world, lonely, isolated from each other, in individual and personalized bubbles, fully enjoying the ex-utopia of perfect life until they begin to no longer feel pleasure because, like any drug, dopamine and its correlates also stop working if used continuously, and increasingly larger doses will be necessary. And humanity will perish from a dopamine overdose.
A second irony is that, indeed, machines will exterminate humans. But not in the way we imagine, eliminating us with their own mechatronic hands due to our obvious uselessness or imperfections. They won’t even need to go to that trouble. They were created to do our work for us. But, in this case, we will do their work for them. Instead of staining their chips with blood, they will just watch our self-annihilation from the front row, turning into the only and definitive rulers of the triangular earth.
