ecological collapse

populist wave

AI out of control

International tensions continue to rise

Global cooperation is more difficult

Countries stockpile doomsday weapons in large quantities

Greek Mythology: Phaethon

Goethe's cautionary fable: The magic broom

Both stories are about powerful individuals (possessing magic)

It is not the strength of individuals that causes disasters

It's because the cooperation network stems from a large number of ordinary people that is difficult to control.

Religions, countries, companies, markets, etc. are all networks

Information is the glue that maintains network connections

Naive view of information (will be mentioned many times in future chapters)

In fact, ignorance is power

The more information there is, the more likely it is that relatively scarce and expensive true information will be submerged in relatively common and cheap information.

Nazi-like neo-totalitarian networks may emerge in the 21st century

Flying pigeons delivering messages are messages

Olive branches and rainbows are symbols of peace and tolerance in the Bible

The shapes and movements of galaxies are information to astronomers

Polaris is a message to navigators

The starry sky is a message to the astrologer

Shutters are information to spies

If the situation were changed, it might not be information.

In order to find the truth situation (the naive information view believes that, In this context, any object used is information)

Some information can present reality, Most of the information is not intended to represent reality; And all information creates connections

The so-called information is the ability to combine different "Dots" are connected to form a "network", thus Create a "new reality"

Even if the information presents a false reality, it can become a social bonding

The invention of this technology, which connects people and stories, enables the network to expand to infinity, because stories are like sockets that can connect infinite people.

Three Levels of Reality in the Universe

Traditional materialist view: History is driven by power relations and material interests. If people do not serve themselves, they will be destroyed by heaven and earth.

Author's point of view: The traditional materialist view ignores the story's Great power. Stories are noble lies

1. Pursue the truth (not tell stories)

2. It is necessary to establish order (telling stories)

But too much pursuit of the truth The story is in danger of collapsing

story limitations

Building a country still needs to be dealt with A lot of tedious and boring routine work Processing massive amounts of data, lists

Humans are good at remembering stories (vivid), but have trouble remembering data (boring)

Before the emergence of written documents, whether it was stories or data, people could only tell them orally and use their brains to memorize them, but their brain capacity was limited.

The birth of written documents broke through the limitations of human brain capacity

Written documents allow humans to create more intersubjective realities (also true and false)

Information retrieval: Although a large amount of data is recorded, it is difficult to find when using it.

No matter how you classify it, it will never be perfect. The real world is extremely complex and changeable.

Moreover, the purpose of classifying bureaucracies is not to present the real world, but to facilitate their own work. At the same time, it also brings obstacles to the cooperation of different departments (only caring about the interests of one's own department, destroying the interests of the political system)

Therefore, the bureaucracy imposes an artificial order on the world and creates a mechanical and rigid intersubjective reality.

Various forms and certificates are very troublesome and have even become a nightmare for many ordinary people (such as proving that my mother is my mother)

The dangers of bureaucracy: labeling everything in the world, including you (which may not be accurate), is just a work habit or tradition to them, but it will truly determine your destiny

Bureaucracy understands people better

People are very ignorant of bureaucracy

Not understanding means distrust. Conflicts continue. Even angry enough to rise up to destroy the bureaucracy (anti-intellectualism?)

All powerful information networks (including bureaucracies), All can be good or bad, depending on how they are designed and used

Bureaucracy (written documents) though creates a larger order, but its complexity determines that it is more than a mythical story The balance between truth and order is even more difficult to achieve.

Well, the truth is still important. In order to support the truth, people In order to balance truth and order, everything was done (in the pre-AI generation) What effort? (Please see next chapter) Since bureaucracy (written documents) emerged because Human brain capacity is limited, so with the advancement of technology, Especially with the emergence of artificial intelligence AI, this super speed Will a super-capacity brain do better than humans? So as to better balance truth and order. (This will be discussed in the second part)

In order to build a large society, humans must unite people to form an order

So mythology and bureaucracy became the two pillars of large societies.

But the two are not perfect. Rulers will always make mistakes, and people will always wake up. Therefore, people who use these two will always be abandoned and overthrown accidentally.

Therefore, some people think that they can only rely on the almighty God who never makes mistakes.

Some people think that AI in the future can be such a "god"

But can God really solve all this once and for all? Let us first examine the gods of the pre-AI generation—the various religions. What effects have their efforts produced?

Note: From the Stone Age to the AI ​​era, with the continuous advancement of technology, people's information networks have utilized various technologies and are constantly evolving. However, AI is an essential change.

Most important function: Provides superhuman legitimacy to the social order

So, how is God’s will conveyed?

So, even if it is "God's" will Can't get around people

Absolute correctness does not exist!

Self-correction mechanisms also have limitations

It is a centralized information network

Lack of powerful self-correction mechanism

Advantages and Disadvantages

It is a distributed information network

Has a powerful self-correction mechanism

Advantages and Disadvantages

dictatorship of the majority

people and truth

Democracy is different from populism

Democracy and dictatorship are not absolute, but a continuous spectrum

In the Stone Age and the hunter-gatherer age, although institutional systems and information technology were backward, they were often able to achieve extensive dialogue because of their small scale. Leaders also do not have the means and technology to monopolize all information flows.

In the thousands of years after the Agricultural Revolution, writing technology helped give birth to large bureaucracies. First, the groups became larger. Second, technology made it easier to monopolize information. Third, it became difficult to maintain democratic dialogue. .

Under technological constraints, democracy and crowd size are incompatible

However, local affairs in large-scale autocracies can adopt democratic forms

Mass media, such as the invention of printing, made the dream of mass democracy a reality

Popular democracy is also popular totalitarianism

The new wave of information technology revolution (AI) will have a more significant impact

You can make your own decisions

Can create new ideas

The computer is becoming an active agent

Facebook’s algorithm fuels real-life violence Violent conflict over the Rohingya in Myanmar in 2016-2017

definition

Humans possess both intelligence and consciousness

Computers may not have consciousness at this stage, and they may have it in the future, but they definitely have intelligence at this stage, and for making autonomous decisions, intelligence is enough

What is happening: Computers learn to write, write music, draw images, make videos, code, and even process government documents, leaving many people unemployed.

What science fiction imagines: robots rebel and shoot humans; connect human brains to computers to control humans...

The author believes that what is more likely and more terrifying is that Computers may invade the underlying operating system of human civilization. Just like those smart people have done for thousands of years: by Language to manipulate and reshape society.

Learn human language and thinking, making it impossible to tell whether the person on the other side of the network is a human or a computer

Create myths and religions that are beyond human control

Make democratic dialogue meaningless

Establishing "false intimacy" with humans in communication, thereby influencing human behavior

Monopolize human information acquisition channels and make people blindly trust AI answers

Human culture may no longer be dominated by itself

This round of information revolution is far more important than before and may create unprecedented political structures, economic models and cultural norms on an unprecedented scale.

When writing computer code, you are not just designing a product, but redesigning human politics, society and culture.

Even if voters and politicians want to take responsibility, they don’t understand this round of information revolution and don’t know what to do.

Those companies that led the computer revolution understand all this, but for the sake of profit, they often take advantage of the loopholes and are unwilling to take responsibility.

For example, the information-to-information transactions that are emerging today

Information replaces currency

The “social credit system” mentioned later may be feasible

If we want to exert our agency, we must first understand the nature and capabilities of these new technologies. This is an urgent and due responsibility for every citizen.

There are not enough people to implement monitoring

There is too much data obtained through monitoring and cannot be analyzed.

24 hours, ubiquitous monitoring

AI can analyze surveillance content faster

Subcutaneous monitoring technology is also developing

For example, as mentioned before, social media algorithms encourage hateful things, and the results are inconsistent with the goal (the goal is to increase user engagement). Computer algorithms create internet trolls and other extremists by rewarding certain instincts in human nature while punishing certain kindnesses

Long before the invention of computers, the problem of consistency has troubled mankind for thousands of years.

The risk of consistency problems in computer networks is particularly high

Make sure to set the computer to the correct one, The ultimate goal that can never be violated Can it solve the consistency problem?

However, computers create their own myths and systems of value judgments, from which humans are completely excluded.

The data for machine learning comes from humans, so computers will inevitably learn human biases

Modern imperialism, massive population deaths

Destroy the ecological balance and cause a large number of organisms to become extinct

Democratic countries can choose to use it in a controlled manner. Basic principles:

easily replaceable

It is impossible to predict what new job opportunities the new scenario will bring

Jobs that you have just adapted to may quickly become obsolete, leaving humans with no time to repeatedly adapt to new situations.

Massive unemployment can easily lead to a totalitarian system

The extreme behavior of many conservatives is unnecessary, and the flexibility of the democratic system should be fully utilized

Algorithms behave inscrutably

People’s understanding is limited

It may be useful to study algorithms using

So ultimately human supervision is necessary

For a democratic system to function, two conditions must be met

Changes in the situation today

Decisive legislation prohibits impersonating humans

Ban algorithms from filtering and curating critical public debates without oversight

Information from centralized power centers can be processed faster and better

Totalitarianism cannot control artificial intelligence through a reign of terror

Artificial intelligence also has problems with the goals of totalitarians.

Totalitarians like to hide their mistakes, and artificial intelligence brings trouble to this behavior

Artificial intelligence can easily monopolize information and turn totalitarians into puppets

Want to get rid of the human subordinates who can't get rid of the tail, so as to trust the theoretically correct information technology

Want human agency to oversee AI

Paranoid dictators could give AI the power to wield nuclear weapons

Terrorists have mastered artificial intelligence and may use it to trigger a global epidemic

Computers make it easier to centralize information and power, thus forming a new and more powerful age of empires

A new silicon curtain could divide humanity into hostile digital empires

Initially promoted by private enterprises

The government and military began to take the lead

AlexNet visual recognition in 2012

Google's AlphaGo defeated Lee Sedol in 2016

In the 21st century, if you want to rule a colony, you no longer need gunships, just use data

Countries’ defense measures

The nature of the new information economy makes monopoly and concentration easier

It is also much easier for digitally leading countries to upgrade their industries

PwC predicts that artificial intelligence is expected to add US$15.7 trillion to the global economy in 2030, of which China and North America combined will capture 70% of the share.

technologically

cultural values

social norms

political structure

Because there is the principle of "guaranteed death together"

Cyber ​​weapons can do far more than nuclear bombs

Cyber ​​weapons become less predictable

The luck of success increases the temptation of cyber warfare

Cooperation is the real law of the jungle