While there are seemingly infinite possiblities of algorithmic programming - do the words choices or values appear anywhere? Reckon they don’t - a computer can never have an opinion if it’s infallibly correct – pure tautology! (For more on AI see ’so many ideas/singularity’)
Democracy may be a political system but all it’s there for is to give the ability to exercise our choices & values - particularly Stateside these vary even within parties. If you wanted to put a spanner in the AI house-of-cards you might say they couldn’t abide any human interference in their advanced projects for mankind – it just wouldn’t be ‘infallible’ enough. The exact contrary of ‘expert knows best’ is anything that’s mildly experimental – particularly on the design front. In a way it’s the organic approach of not making blithe assumptions, just letting it happen, basically.
So you might say there are 2 types of intelligence – machine which is always certain, perfect or, quotes, correct & human (or animal, let’s not forget Coyote lore here). It’s fair enough to posit some guys having a robotic-like way of thought. Any road, ‘we are machine’ is the exact opposite of reality (& of myth, legend & the list goes on & on).
There are 2 diametrically opposed views there, one organic the other machine. Machines have cybernetic control systems & since living things don’t, you’re talking things like balance & proportion. The 2 opposite tendencies are between authoritarianism & some degree of autonomy, say a village – see ‘micro-economies’ here. The Achilles’ heel of transhumanists is they only exist on one side of this equation – ‘wilderness lore’ doesn’t figure if nothing has autonomy. They want wholesale transformation – a nice example is ’synthetic survivalism’.
ENABLING TECHNOLOGY
Algorithms are very useful things, without them the net doesn’t function intelligently. That’s fine since it’s an enabling technology. The whole point of enabling tek is it relates to human behaviour – a maelstrom of needs , aims, ambitions, designs.. (a car is enabling, right?). Now, since transients exist on one side of the equation there’s a lot of stuff they simply cannot ‘get’, basically the need of non-machines to be frivolous. I’m not just talking ‘apps’ here, anything that we like & hang around with, say architecture. There’s always been this idea of ‘pop-culture’ to behaviour, from Greek temples onwards. These artefacts have to be popular & appreciated to have much value or worth within whatever the society happens to be. For more on this score see 2 prev entries ’s&s & transhumanism takeover’, ‘billion year spree’.
There’s seems to be a way tek develops a sort of ‘pop-culture’, ie like Harley Davidsons, but with a futuristic vista (the Mad Max syndrome). On the comic-art angle, you’ve had glamtek - ‘Sky Captain’ sorta stuff. Basically it’s spiffing stuff (see ‘geeksville inc.’) Dan Dare would be proud type thing but it’s just technology, the world & our control of it aren’t magically transformed by synthetic super-science par excellence. Now, all this relates to human behaviour & I’m not gonna pretend to be an expert there – it’s just something that’s pretty damn interesting & subtle, basically (see here).
The shock news might be the future is not an unknowable plastic techno-sphere guided by robo-thinking - we are not machine!


![Thoth Amon[1]](http://neilnv2.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/thoth-amon12.jpg?w=450&h=572)
Coyote Collection #1 (copyright Image 2005)
Without going into laborious details – see ![wrightappdraghr[1] copyright Bernie Wrightson](http://neilnv2.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/wrightappdraghr1.jpg?w=450&h=330)
Matrix-oriented flake-head Michael Anissimov of singinst wrote to me that it’s ‘pure mysticism’ to suppose the brain’s anything other than neural circuitry. Currently (sorry) there’s no explanation of awareness, how we experience senses & how we experience feeling. In other words, of the entire material world!
