Manufactured Intelligence

I checked the thesaurus online for words that represented the opposite, or antonyms, of the meaning of the word “artificial”, and these were some of the examples: genuine, real, unpretentious, natural and unaffected.  I then looked for synonyms, or words that have the exact or nearly the same meaning as “artificial”, and here are some of the words I was given: bogus, sham, unnatural, fake and manufactured.  This last one was the most curious.  

Corporate man has always been at odds with nature.  Nature is a slow-moving, intelligent sort. A meticulous thinker, mulling over all the pros and cons of any direction it may take.  Sometimes reactions take decades, sometimes millennia.  For corporate man, this simply won’t do.  They created a world where a drop in profit from one quarter to the next is considered a loss.  They need to act quickly and control all aspects, so they make attempts at replicating the natural, in order to maintain their control, to efficiently steer their way to constant growth, at any cost.  I’m in no way a conspiracy theorist.  Everything I say is before our very eyes, and these days there is no longer any shame in the corporate world.  They have become so emboldened that they tell their story just as it is, for all to hear, as if it’s the natural order of things.  In the end, they may be right, considering we eat up whatever excuses they come up with to tell us why they screw us every chance they get.  They created this artificial world over the last number of decades and convinced most of us that it’s the one true path, the only path, no matter what you see happening to you, and around you.

 Seemingly out of nowhere, (but not), artificial intelligence is being force fed to us as the fixer of all current evils, the magic assistant that will revolutionize, empower and resolve, without the aid of those pesky, emotional humans.  Once again, they’re selling us technology that will multiply existing fortunes and render many of us useless, by claiming that it’s for our own good.  They’re only thinking of us.  Instead, what it really is, is the constant reach for more ways to make money from us, and to control our actions without even having to try very hard.  And the speed at which they can move is astounding.  A year ago, artificial intelligence was barely more than a phrase, now we find out that it’s already part of our daily lives!  Your smartphones, (smart enough to dupe us all), are filled with positive AI promos from various companies, telling us how much better our existence will be.  I recall that Einstein was also convinced his work was solely for the benefit of mankind, until he realized where Oppenheimer’s work was going to lead, and today, the story of the creation of the atomic bomb is being sold as a double bill with the Barbie movie.  What an opportunity!  Maybe someday there’ll even be a Broadway musical.  That’s entertainment.

 In the end, no matter the dissent, if these conglomerates have their way, (of which there is no doubt), every aspect of our lives will be controlled and/monitored by some sort of unnatural intelligence.  Governments sit back and watch very quietly indeed, which says everything about real power.  And so do we, as always, too busy to look up from our desks, as another “innovation” steps in, with the capability to do much more harm than good.

Fiquem bem.

Raul Freitas/MS