My Four Cigarettes

An interesting example has been told in the movie "Ex Machina". Tricky part is, that the screenplay-writer couldn't think beyond his own low horizon. Ava - the robot - passes the Turing Test in this movie. I doubt this would happen in reality. The reason for my doubts is: The creator and coder gave Ava a special task, a goal. Ava's job is to break free. BULLSHIT!

Stanislav Lem - a polish si-fi-writer and philosopher - wrote an assumption what would happen or even would be necessary for mankind's survive Summa technologiae in 1964. One thing he considered as important part is the "Black Box Principle". Input ---> unknown process ---> result. This is a major aspect. Put cultural or ethic limits to AI but don't tell it what to do exactly. No goals. Just learn and think free.

This is not possible with conventional algorithms yet. But necessary. We need stochastic processes (throwing of pushpins).

Also from the sixteens: "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" The plot for the iconic movie "Blade Runner".

 

Cigarette 22

The boring life.

Out at the loggia, smoking, I thought about last customer request for some reverse engineering three days ago. Generally I am lazy. Since I can remember I hatet school, I hated army, I hated studies and especially I hated daily work. Every fucking day, week after week, year after year since I was seven years old. I hate things like hair cut. Because all this shit is more or less unavoidable. At the other hand: What makes me a human? Play "Spider Solitair" or "Skyrim"? LOL! I need the damn money from my customers. And I hate it. I want to be able to do nothing.

Although in this case I could commit suicide because of boredom.

A wasted cigarette.

 

Haha yes. This lead me directly to roll another cigarette ...

Cigarette 23

It's late meanwhile. I had a very stressful evening at the loggia with my wife about the theme "Accompanied self-determined dying by abstinence from food and fluid" in the case of "Game over". Funny, this discussion and San's link and remembering the movie "Soylent Green" together formed a complete new view.

Yuval Noah Harari gave a very clear and useful statement of meaning(less) of human live. This is a point of view I used before in a bit different way. I want to add the smaller roleplay parts: We all play small roleplay games. We start to play roles for our parents - probably different roles for father and mother. Later we play roles for friends and teachers. We play roles for the boss and for our partners. All this targets to get satisfaction or gain benefit or profit. Later we play an incredible role for our children. However, everything we do act with the same assumption that there is (must be!) a meaning in life.

Back to "Soylent Green": At least people can decide to end their life in a human and easy way and will be processed to food for the living people. A sarcastic idea?

At the other hand: Everything we, as mankind, have reached, including Pokemon, was only possible during fights and struggles. If there are no further reasons (idols/religions/ideologies) anymore to fight for (better car, better home, better weapon etc.) we will degenerate immediately. If there is really no meaning in human being and no need to care for the food of the next day ... mankind will die quickly.

In real we are driven by lunatic wishes, fears and emotions of any kind. Who the hell needs really more than the food for the next day? But it's fun, isn't it?

 

Cigarette 24

Another comfortable evening at the loggia, drinking red wine and smoking. Everything could be fine. But it isn't.

Wife was away for four days and I could use that mofucking 65" TV to play Bethesda's new DLC for TESO: Morrowind. En passant I saw that Bethesda will have a stream at E3. At Monday. 6 am for me :(( Not sure, if I'm cool enough to get up at this time.

How ever, my wife watched a cultural magazine at German TV (TTT). It dealt with "documenta", world's largest exhibition of contemporary art. And I thought by myself: Okay nice, but were are the appropriate reports about ongoings in the real world? Something like what will influence our life in near future? E3? VR? Alexa, Cortana, electric mobility and what not? I lived for so long in this intellectual sphere. I love it and I think it's important. Essential. But it's the world of a minority. And it supresses all the processes on their way.

I am old but at least I heard Johnny Cash's "Hurt" and I thought: "Dude, become young again and buy an accoustic guitar." After more than 30 years ;-) No sooner said than done. And yes, I bought Roger Waters' "Is This The Life We Really Want?" After all this years. I think it is important to keep old cultural values. But focus on them only is a big mistake. The world change more and more rapidly. The German TV failed at this point. I'm afraid E3 will change our world dramatically. I had some bad struggle with my wife about this point. "You and your Bethesda-addictment! Not many care for that like you do." I say: at least more care for E3 than care for documenta. Not sure if I will get up at six am ... how ever, many folks live in old borders.

 

Cigarette 25

I watched "Steve Jobs" with Michael Fassbender and Kate Winslet. An interesting movie. Unfortunately it stops at 30% of the story. The final scene is at the presentation of the iMac. Just a silly PC in my eyes. I never ever used any device from Apple. But Steve Jobs initiated a revolution with the iPhone. Like Johannes Gutenberg did with letterpress. For me Gutenberg and Jobs set the two most important markpoints in human evolution. You may counter: "What about James Watt, Graham Bell, Michael Faraday, Louis Pasteur, Wernher von Braun, Alan Turing, Karlheinz Brandenburg etc.?" Yep, all these guys and many, many others where incredible important for mankind. But Gutenberg and Jobs opened knowledge to the people and gave them the ability to communicate in new forms. The base of the era of information that we have and use today was laid by this two persons. They are my heroes.

 

The creator of Ava determinded it. What Lem said is: don't determine the AI. Let it grow without limits. It'll do this somehow or other. The figure of Ava did a traditional job: determined to escape. A simple program. A very special job. That's the wrong way. Let AI think about what it wants for itself. We implement our patterns into the machines. Why?

In "I Robot" the AI Sonny makes a drawing of a prophecy: A man standing at a broken bridge. The Messiah. And it thinks Del Spooner (Will Smith) will be this Messiah. But it is wrong. Itself is the Messiah. Finally it seems Sonny is able to accept this fate - or chance. That's a major difference to the AI Ava. Sonny is open, Ava is determined. Sonny has the opportunity to cooperate with humans, Ava don't. Ava reached it's goal. But what's beyond? The last pictures of "Ex Machina" show Ava observing shop-windows of woman fashion shops. Will it become a "woman"? Why the hell should an AI become a woman? Because it was programmed for exactly this role. Isn't it awful?

 

LOL! So you decided to become a bum? (Vincent Vega in "Pulp Fiction")

 

Cigarette 27

Smoking another cigarette at the loggia some doubts about the Sony videos came to my mind.
The tricky part is: "Life" or "to live" are transcendental terms. Life is nothing you can find in nature or in the universe. It's an imagination in our brains. No AI would ask for it! And no really AI would think about to become a human.

 

Nicotine I think and several other substances wich causes cancer and other illness. But the cigarette caused benefit for me as well.

This said explains clearly the difference between me as a human being and artificial intelligence. "Benefit" - what is that? Or simply the end of my life wich is unavoidable - contamind by nicotine or not. Life? It is a trancendental, philosophical construct. Often combined and extendended with relegious imaginations and rituals. The so called "life" is a chemical, physical and electrical and what not process running a determinded DNA-program. A process that fires nature to dispose variants and enable nature to test new variants by mutation and inheritance. Cool concept, one would say. But it isn't a concept. No one developed it. It's just a stochastical process that follows the rules of entropy. Physics even. All this evolution is finally just a process of chemical, physical and electrical and what not processes. Does this one work? No? Let it perish. Or yes! Let it do it's job! And replace it by other systems when it's time for that. Not really effective but sucsessful if you think mankind is a sucsess so far or probably in future.

No artificial intelligence would need any philosophical constructs like "life" or "death" or "God". I would mistrust every AI that tells me: "I want to live."

 

"consciousness"? Really? In my opinion you should better call it "imagination". Imagination, influenced by an infinite amount of external experiances and a basic determination by DNA, historical evolution, social enviroment and personal reflections. I for myself learned how a mental disease can change my view to the world. Same effect after the recovery. For me nearly everything has changed dramatically compared to my life 15 years ago. So tell me, what is the temporary view to the world worth when it can be changed basically within a period of two years by external circumstances?

For the sake of mankind I hope AI will never develop such mechanisms.

 

Cigarette 28

Today I finished reading "It can't happen here" by Sinclair Lewis. Out there at the loggia, smoking, I thought by myself again: "Man, how could this guy forsee Donald Trump in 1935? Lewis lived often in Europe between 1928 and 1933 and married a jounalist who worked in Germany. Unbelievable how he describes that cheap promises and lieing can lead to win elections. He describes how poor people with low income and low education act. And how liberal folks hold on and prays that everything will become good. And he describes as well how the so elected president fucked them all later. Exactly what happens in USA at the moment.

More and more I think we Germans arn't really the exception. Stalin killed more people than Hitler and probably it just needs extraordinary charisma, a bit of luck and brisant circumstances to drive every country into such a situation. Don't get me wrong: I don't want to excuse Germany from its guilty. But watching Trump my fear grows, that another clown endanger the world. This time with nuclear power in his hands.