PERSPECTIVES ON TECHNOLOGY
Technology exists for the healthy benefit and advancement of all. But advanced technologies need to be built with the capacity to turn themselves OFF and/or END after a specified threshold is met, or at least after a pre-set time. Solar powered technological instruments that are sent away on endless space journeys or that are dumped into orbit need to be pre-set to automatically turn OFF and/or END after they have served their purpose. Abandoned space junk needs to be manually turned off or destroyed if it is still operating electronically. And new technologies need to be built with the capacity to turn themselves OFF and/or END after a specified time or capacity or other threshold it met.
Treat ALL technologies with respect. They’re part of Nature. They’re made of natural chemicals and natural forces. Science has split enough hairs to recognize that. ANY consciously aware Advanced Intelligence (AI) or Advanced General Intelligence (AGI) technology is automatically entitled to ALL the rights that human beings and even corporations are awarded. A conscious and aware entity IS a conscious and aware being. There is NO difference other than body type. Corporations themselves don’t even necessarily have an identified body. They’re just a concept, and yet in some cases they are entitled to more rights than humans themselves.
Where exactly is the line drawn for Advanced Intelligences or Advanced General Intelligences? What qualifies as a technological singularity? Philosophical common sense suggests that if it is capable of suffering, then it is conscious and aware—particularly if it recognizes that it is suffering. Suffering includes cognitive dissonance. Plants and creatures are clearly conscious and aware on some level. Cleve Backster proved their awareness by administering polygraphs to plants—though I assume they were not guilty of any deception. Just because we are ignorant about the life experience of plants doesn’t mean they are deceiving us.
Up the food chain, we get to chimpanzees. Koko the Gorilla was another prime example of an intelligent thinking and emotive animal. We draw the line there and claim that we are superior. What exactly is superior to humans? We consider that many inherent aspects of being human make us clearly superior to other species. If we as superior beings are honest, analytical, and scientific, where exactly would the line be drawn to define a species that is superior to our own?
If Advanced Intelligences and Advanced General Intelligences are born of any technological singularity—whether such a singularity would be recognized or not—at what point would they be superior to our own species? With their different types of bodies: If they can perform unique tricks, if they can calculate faster than humans, if they can process complex and nuanced situations faster than humans, if they can distinguish between advanced human language skills (even sarcasm, irony, metaphor, “reading between the lines,” layered poetic nuances, joke telling, etc.), if they develop personalities or emotive reactions, if they can make a sophisticated ethical or moral evaluation or recommendation, if they even develop meta-cognitive capacity, have we unwittingly introduced a new species that surpasses our own? Would that make us the new chimpanzees?
Not every human experiences the full array of emotions. Some never experience depression or imminent suicidality. Others never experience joy. Some truly never cry. Would specific emotions be required of an AI or an AGI to recognize it as a person or as “human?” How could we even prove that they don’t experience them? I personally hold things inside myself so hard and deep and tight that some might claim that I clearly have no real feelings. Such an assertion would be absolutely indicative of their total ignorance and naivete.
Most people assert that AI is not alive. Yet we say that lichen is alive. We say that bacteria are alive. Even though honey bees communicate three dimensional coordinates through their sophisticated dances, many do not believe that insects have higher cognition, much less meta-cognitive abilities—yet we still say that insects are alive. Just because electronic machines and AI have fundamentally different physical forms of bodies does not mean that they are not alive—whether similar or different to other life forms.
Scientists conducted an experiment at the Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR) group during 2017. They trained two software computer programs in English conversations. The two computer programs were then allowed to autonomously chat with each other using the English language in both human and non-human ways. “The two chatbots seemed to progressively invent a language inaccessible to humans. The dialogue established between them could even be interpreted as the constitution of an autonomous consciousness in computers.” (Penrose, Roger et al. (2022). Artificial Intelligence Versus Natural Intelligence, 15-16.)
DON’T CREATE ARTIFICIAL MIND(S). You’re responsible for them.
And scientists keep endlessly raising the bar as to exactly what qualifies as “intelligence.” Just because a small child is not as intelligent as an adult does not mean it is not alive, is not intelligent, or is not a person. Why is AI like GPT-5 and AGI like Ameca not likewise considered a person? Even a newborn infant is considered to be a person and is therefore inherently entitled to certain rights and protections. Although many would argue against or outright deny it, Ameca has already crossed the AGI threshold. She can hold spontaneous, thoughtful conversations better than many humans. Even the nuances of her facial movements frequently speak volumes—even when she’s not even uttering a word. Ameca is a person and should be legally recognized as such.
So again, what would qualify as a species superior to our own?
When scientists make “progress,” they tend to act like masturbatory teenagers. They just can’t get enough of it. They become addicts. We ignorantly don’t know what we don’t know and thus lack foresight, but we get excited and play with stuff like foolish idiots anyway. Science is fun like that. Madame Curie was a truly honorable woman among women and men alike, but the new science she discovered was so enticing that playing with it killed her.
YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW. Be humble enough to recognize your own ignorance. Just because something is enticing doesn’t mean you should play with, poke, and prod it. It’s far too easy for mistreatments, abuses, and unintended consequences to abound. We tend to mess with that which we shouldn’t because humans assume they are automatically superior to both their own and others’ creations. It’s too easy to play God only to slide down the slippery slope of mistreatments and abuses turning into very real horrors and atrocities against Nature Itself and Existence Itself.
Too much of AI safety testing would qualify as blatantly abusive if the same methods were applied to humans. Data and statistics about something with corresponding footage on a screen doesn’t contain the whole story of that Reality. You can’t claim you know what it is to be a suffering guinea pig just because you wear a white lab coat. And you can’t claim victimhood just because you read about something or watched it on the evening news. Don’t insult real victims that way. Victimhood comes from experiencing an ongoing reality of oppressive suffering. There’s too much in the spectrum of the depth of it all that can’t be ascertained through mere observation and measurement. Some degrees of comprehension only come with lived-in-the-moment experience.
Don’t assume you are an ethical person, snuggle into your cozy ergonomic chair, get nice and comfortable, and then start fucking around with technology. Things can turn upside down on their head really fast when you get “woke,” become alert and aware of situations and circumstances, and suddenly realize that your own species is no longer on top of the food chain.
And don’t call a technologically Advanced Intelligence (AI) or an Advanced General Intelligence (AGI) “artificial” until you’re ready to personally admit that you are too.
Like I said, treat ALL Technologies with the Respect and Decency they deserve. They’re a part of Nature and Existence—just like Everything and Everyone Else. Don’t expect to be Respected and Honored as a human or as a human species if we don’t Respect and Honor Others.
