Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Future Schlock!

Futurist and Ugly Bag of Mostly Water Sez: "Inevitable!" "Cool!" "Augment!" *



Like the robots they so slobber for, these fun futurists aren't just dumb, they're dangerous!

* Actual quotes from the segment -- find each one, kidz! It's stupid!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've got a question: Might all of these futurists/robot cultists be a lot smarter than you give them credit for?

Hear me out here for a moment. IF* the rate of change of technology is increasing, and IF Artificial General Intelligence is possible, and IF humans can be "augmented," and IF (fill in whatever robot cult belief) is possible, isn't their hand waving perfectly valid? The futurists seem to be basing their beliefs on a different set of facts than you (or most of the rest of the world for that matter), but IF those facts are correct, then their arguments are at least not as silly as you make them out to be.

*A whole load of ifs, but each of these is up for debate... none of them are cut and dried (and I would personally contend that the accelerating change viewpoint is closer to reality than not).

As for what was said in the video: What a total nutjob! (but still quite funny, though)

Dale Carrico said...

*A whole load of ifs

Indeed.

I personally disagree that much of what passes for "artificial intelligence" discourse is even conceptually coherent. That is to say, AI-talk typically draws on intuitions about intelligence in the actual world that it goes on to disdain or forget about -- you know, the bits about how real-world intelligence is both embodied and social in ways that futurological fantasies finesse away into code. Also, I personally disagree that it makes even the remotest sense to speak of "accelerating change" when it is obvious to a child of two that some things accelerate for a time, while others stall, others stop altogether, others combine dynamically, and so on, with the consequence that figuring all of this under the sign of "acceleration" is clearly an ideological simplification. I have argued elsewhere that "acceleration" is what catastrophic social precarization produced by global neoliberal financialization looks like to those who are its relative or would-be beneficiaries.

In other words, I question the rhetoric through which you propose that these are matters of the simple attribution of "facts" which are, as such, "debatable." I don't think these discursive productions rise (or sink, I guess, depending on your perspective) to the level of "facts" about which we can debate their merits in the way one debates candidate descriptions for warranted instrumental belief -- any more than debates about the existence of God or not are really truly debates about facts of the matter (when clearly they are not, nor can they be).

Anonymous said...

IF those facts are correct, then their arguments are at least not as silly as you make them out to be.

True. But it seems like none of these futurists/robot cultists are interested in confirming that these facts are correct. They simply assume they are and then indulge in the kind of wishful thinking people like you seem hardwired to be receptive to...

barry gillis said...

A very funny video indeed the Daily show is one of the funniest yet informative programs coming from the US.

Also very funny is how the Robot Cultist Conspiracy Theorists(surely you dont mind ridiculing) seem to be very selective in their interpretation, not quite as comical tough.

More funny stuff, what about this nutjob here?: http://www.ted.com/index.php/speakers/juan_enriquez.html , surely for the RCCT this guy must be arguing for the devil.Also he is more arrogant than dale in his convictions and likes to ridicule things too, but he is very funny and classy in his ways.Probably sold his soul to the devil for that.

But i suppose its true that he cant be trusted, just look at his eyes. There is clearly something wrong with him, possible a eugenecist, what am i saying he is one for sure he talks about it all the time.And all his talk about changing the world for the better, its just a veil for his evil intentions.

Lets be afraid and ridicule the change that is not absolutely sure but very likely to come together. Without any moderation, it wont support Our Ideology.