Let’s gently slide into the weekend by relishing this morning’s Print edition’s front pages: “Newspaper headlines: Cancer ‘game-changer’ and ‘tears for Phil’” (link), applauding again The Star for their dose of hilarity. Their front page is right at the bottom of the compilation, so do scroll down. Some broadsheets write about some new cancer treatment while the Red Tops are closer to the heart of ‘Teh People’, reporting on yon ITV presenter, bank interest rates and the ongoing rail strikes.
There were of course some other, rather interesting articles found in the online editions. For example, The Times has two reports, side by side, on AI. One of these articles presents a dire warning by one prominent AI developer: “Yoshua Bengio on how AI could cost us democracy – The Turing prizewinner fears what may come if machine learning exceeds human intelligence” (link, paywalled).
What is this ‘human intelligence’ whereof he speaks, I ask myself, and wonder if this isn’t just what our betters in the Westminster swamp should love because a dumb or dumbed down populace is much easier to control. Control, in the end, is what this is really about.
The other article is a long essay under the intriguing headline: “How does AI threaten us — and can we make it safe? Love, death and lies are only some of the risks in the next digital revolution” (link, paywalled). It’s quite ingenious to combine the demand about ‘making something safe’ – for the use of wimmin and children, I assume – with warnings about ‘lies’, i.e. fake news.
The experts quoted in this report claim that “we” can be made safe by more regulations for AI research – regulations created by the scientifically illiterate Whitehall mandarins, I assume. One such expert thinks that businesses ‘profiting from AI’ should be taxed properly, another warns of a “broader loss of critical thinking skills as we increasingly rely on AI for reasoning tasks.”, but the final paragraph really takes the proverbial:
“It’s social policy that’s going to save the day. It’s thinking about the welfare system and the education system and so on. That’s what’s going to allow people to survive.” (link, paywalled)
Well, haven’t we all been ‘thinking’ about the welfare and educational system’, with no consequences for our governing classes but for us? Remember the covid years? The two main articles in the DT and The Times are actually about the issues being analysed in the Covid Inquiry. These issues relate to AI – but that’s only mentioned in passing if at all. Thus, The Times writes that: “WhatsApp chats vanish — and take scrutiny with them – Modern government can’t run without messaging apps but it’s all too easy to keep us in the dark” (link, paywalled).
It’s again about control, here about every utterance by politicians needing to be scrutinised by us, ‘teh people’ – even though we’re too stupid to understand these lofty issues. If ‘modern government’ can’t run without WhatsApp, I ask myself why modern government has become ever more dire and why, despite WhatsApp, nothing actually works. But then: who knows if WhatApp chatters in government aren’t already ChatBots? I ask because I next looked at the article in the DT, headlined:
“Exclusive: Ministers had ‘chilling’ secret unit to curb lockdown dissent – Critics of Covid restrictions targeted by counter-disinformation team at the heart of the Government” (paywalled link)
Never mind that all of us Lockdown Sceptics knew about these ‘teams’ already because No 10 itself kindly informed us at the time of their existence. However, it was worse than we thought. For the record, here are the most important quotes (all emphases are mine):
“A secretive government unit worked with social media companies in an attempt to curtail discussion of controversial lockdown policies during the pandemic, […] The Counter-Disinformation Unit (CDU) was set up by ministers to tackle supposed domestic “threats”, and was used to target those critical of lockdown and questioning the mass vaccination of children. Critics of lockdown had posts removed from social media. There is growing suspicion that social media firms used technology to stop the posts being promoted, circulated or widely shared after being flagged by the CDU or its counterpart in the Cabinet Office.” (paywalled link)
What was this again about yon despicable ‘conspiracy theories’ which turned out to be true? Moreover, there’s no need to be mealy-mouthed about using ‘technology’ as the next quote shows:
“Documents revealed under Freedom of Information (FoI) and data protection requests showed that the activities of prominent critics of the Government’s Covid policies were secretly monitored. An artificial intelligence firm (AI) was used by the Government to scour social media sites. […] As well as the CDU, the Government operated a Rapid Response Unit (RRU) in the Cabinet Office that hunted online for content it considered disinformation.”” (paywalled link)
Yes, government used AI to ‘monitor critics’. Strangely enough I found no mention of this actual use of AI in the experts’ warnings about how AI would destroy democracy if not ‘regulated’. Clearly, it’s not just WhatsApps which need scrutiny, so do these secretive groups already using AI. Moreover, “The BBC also took part in secretive meetings of a government policy forum to address the so-called disinformation.” (paywalled link) Sorry, but the complicity of the BBC doesn’t really come as a surprise! Of course, the BBC was only ‘observing’ the work of those units, never participating. Yeah right … Next see this:
“The CDU was established in 2019 and was focused on the European elections before turning to focus on the pandemic. During Covid, the unit worked closely with the Cabinet Office’s now defunct RRU, whose responsibilities included tackling “purported ‘experts’ issuing dangerous misinformation”. The RRU has admitted in an FoI obtained by Big Brother Watch and passed to The Telegraph that it made requests for social media posts to be taken down. As part of its work, the Cabinet Office also passed the CDU “media monitoring” reports.” (paywalled link)
We remember that the antisocial meejah did indeed take down such posts. Moreover, this CDU is still operating and has “trusted flagger” status at social media companies including Facebook and Twitter, which means that requests for content to be removed are fast-tracked for consideration.” (paywalled link). For ‘fast-tracked for consideration’ read: remove texts and block access to their accounts.
Of course, the Great Whitehall Denial Machinery is now in full swing, claiming that government never did such heinous things like impeding free speech – they were only concerned about national security:
“A government spokesman said: “The unit’s purpose is to track narratives and trends using publicly available information online to protect public health and national security. […] The RRU, which closed in July 2022, tracked government policies and important issues – not individuals. It used publicly available information, including material shared on social media, to assess UK disinformation trends and narratives.” (paywalled link)
See – the hands of those units are clean, they ‘dindu nuffink’. It were those social media moderators who did the dirty deeds. It cannot come as surprise to learn that the CPU is still in existence because, after all, just like WhatApps, ‘modern government’ cannot be run properly without monitoring us plebs. We’re the heinous ‘conspiracy theorists’ again when we claim that this apparatus, AI driven, is used to make us Net Zero compliant.
That’s all I have for today. Government distrusts us so much that they cannot do without monitoring our every word while scare us about the future effects of AI … ’tis a nice deflection from government’s past and present use. Have a lovely weekend.
That power corrupts is an empirical fact of history and one must sometimes wonder if Alfred Adler was right (in contrast to the other two Viennese schools around Freud and Victor Frankl). Summarising these as the will to pleasure, the will to power, and the will to meaning, one can play a parlour game categorising the individual psychology of politicians. Matt Hancock’s is obviously mainly Adlerian – power went to his head though there was a touch of Freud also with the groping of his secretary – while Johnson’s is mainly and incorrigibly Freudian with his pursuit of the no10 job more Frankl than Adlerian, to give his life meaning as power had no purpose beyond that with him (so the rare Freudian and Frankl mix is a recipe for chaos). The politician least affect by the pleasure principle was Thatcher and her pursuit of power was a merely a means to an end in her almost religious ‘will to meaning’ (Frankl’s logotherapy is a kind of secular religion about the source of meaning in life). As Charles Moore has pointed out Thatcher was at root was a preacher. Sunak, appearances to the contrary, is Adlerian, his back stabbing route to power being the give away. But this is just a parlour game. For God’s sake don’t take me seriously (even though most politicians can be seen as varying mixes of Adler and Freud!).
The social psychology dimension is more relevant than individual psychology as we are governed by nudge units embedded in nearly every government department, most notoriously in no 10 and the cabinet office as the pandemic revealed and monitoring the population is a necessary part of assessing the effectiveness and fine tuning of nudges. It’s apotheosis is the Online Harms Bill which seeks to end privacy altogether. That and the WHO Treaty, said to be merely ‘under discussion’ – yeah right – are two enormous threats to liberty and it is against that background that the furore over AI is a bit of puzzle.
The band wagon of concern about AI, which has MPs and columnists engaged in blather about something they do not understand though a few may think they do, and worries that AI will outsmart us and take over, is hot air at present. That big tech itself has joined the fray is more of a clue and not because they fear loss of control. It has been clear since 2016 and most starkly in the collusion to support Biden, big pharma and government lock downs and vaccine authoritarianism, that big tech knows it depends on the state – the fusion of corporations and state, an index of fascism, taking a modern form – and signals it is not diverging from the state by joining in a chorus of concern. The Online Harms Bill is a warning shot to big Tech about who is master and AI is a proxy for arm wrestling between partners who behaved as equals but now must sort out who is in charge. A plague on all of them.
I have no idea what you’re talking about here Stout.. What I do know is that AI will be nothing like what everyone guesses as some sort of heroic super computer. or even some human shaped robot +. Sorry.. But I suspect it will grow and control its environment and other necessities out of sight. My favourite is fungus. I dunnoknow. But the most appalling thought is thay it may be grown in an environment part of the Civil Service. and become psychologically stunted
Another interesting piece to read whilst relaxing in your deckchair on this gorgeous day.
Hamilton 68.
Basically we can’t believe anything we read. Except for Viv and Debbie.
https://therealnews.com/hamilton-68-how-former-intelligence-officials-and-democratic-operatives-conspired-to-manufacture-russiagate
One of the worst offenders for disinformation is our beloved BrainlessBroadCaster.
https://dailysceptic.org/2023/06/02/bbc-verify-should-investigate-the-bbcs-own-climate-misinformation/
Sadly kids are being indoctrinated daily with the Climate Change Myth through their “education” as well as the BBC.
To all you smartphone lovers.
Ever wondered if the device can be remotely turned on so that your conversations can be overheard?
Also “THEY” will know exactly where you are.
Did ever a population go so meekly into slavery
Viv we are definitely being lied to over and over again.
Here’s a funny article from a man down under.
https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2023/06/conspiracy-what-conspiracy/