Reading the news on a regular basis is a trip on its own, and sometimes that trip takes you to the twilight zone.
But today’s article certainly takes the cake.
Picture this, you wake up, brew a cup of coffee, lay back on your chair and while you’re just catching up to what happened last night on this crazy beautiful planet… You come across the strangest thing.
An article penned by a trio of Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt, AI champion and director of Amazon Daniel Huttenlocker and more importantly, the man who needs no introduction, Henry “The kiss of Death” Kissinger.
War atrocities meet surveillance network meet Artificial Intelligence. What can go wrong?
The first question comes to mind: Is this for real? Or maybe I am just dreaming.
This on its own is weird enough, because these are the types of guys who you’d expect to hold secret meetings behind locked doors, not revealing their plans for humanity to the public.
But it gets weirder as you keep reading.
The first thing that you notice is that the article is published in the future. In this coming August to be exact.
So the second question that comes to mind is this one: Wait have long have I been sleeping for?
Jokes aside, you keep reading. But it gets weirder as you find these guys openly gloating about some seriously terrifying things.
As in “AI developing new weapons, strategies and tactics” kind of terrifying.
Oh great! First they built Orwell’s Big Brother and now they’re coming for Skynet.
It gets scarier as you realize how proud they are with the very disturbing things we’re all worried about, like the spying Alexa or Google Home… Which is pretty messed up to be frank.
In fact, if there is one word to describe this whole article that would be “Messed up”. And if you don’t believe me just check this extract below:
“Given these developments, it is possible that in many parts of the world, from early childhood onward the primary sources of interaction and knowledge will be not parents, family members, friends, or teachers, but rather digital companions, whose constantly available interaction will yield both a learning bonanza and a privacy challenge.”
We all know that cults and dystopian leaders aim for the children first, but this is a new level altogether: Openly admitting their family-destruction plans without even skipping a beat.
Let me give you another pearl:
“The technological capacity of governments to monitor the behavior and movements of tens or hundreds of millions is likewise unprecedented.”
So there you go, without shame nor remorse, openly revealing the future plans - if not present - that all this surveillance network would go to government to monitor its citizens in a manner not unlike some of the worst chapters of our history like the Stasi or the KGB.
I mean… In case there was any body left who still believes that all that spying was set in place to “improve the user’s experience”.
I won’t say more to let you enjoy the article without spoilers, but I must warn you, there are some seriously disturbing revelations written in a totally nonchalant way making the whole thing stranger than Stranger Things.
Well, in Star Trek, the ships computer sees all, hears all, records all.
But it is not a problem because there isn't anyone playing thought police or fining people for chewing gum.
It is the Orwellian State that is the problem, not the monitoring.
In fact, the monitoring is almost inevitable, and is beneficial in many ways.
It is the moral busy-bodies and the power-hungry that need to be kept away from using the system to terrorize people and harass people's lives.
interesting … I think one can say that a future not based around humanity won't have humanity