We were going to blink, and it was going to have hurt us. One flick of a programmatic neuron somewhere in a Texan datacentre and our lives would be nailed to whatever plank of wood they pleased. The “AIs”. They’d have us, and we’d know. Would it be a drone at the window telling you to stay put? Would it be sirens and plumes of smoke in the distance? In your street? In your home? A sudden fire in your soft, human-like flesh? But it’s not been as simple as that.
Other than a complete takeover of the human race and every field within it with a swoop of an API call, there’s no clear winner’s line for AI to cross. Nobody can say if that specific day will ever come, but it’s certain that we’re not there now, and we’re most likely not there within the next few years ala wild, doomsaying estimates from sources that directly and/or tangentially profit from the propulsion of wild, doomsaying estimates.
The fact that we’re not currently robotic underlings is a handy fact if you need a cudgel to dismiss concern regarding the introduction of more agentic LLMs into Every Possible Facet of life. Yeah, let’s just keep barrelling ahead! I mean, if it’s not annihilated us yet, what harm could it really do?
relly maks u fink
There’s no denying that plenty has happened, though. People have died at the words of this new technology - that is, people who would have been alive had the technology not existed - but those are just individual, outlier stories to today’s corporate technologist. They don’t reflect the true reality of this paradigm shift that may well be the next evolution of human existence, do they bro? We’re the smart ones, so we’ll manage to keep the beast in the cage wherever we’re concerned. Bro. Please.
So if the tell-tale sign can’t quite yet be the entire downfall of our species, what is it? By now you must have, at minimum, been mildly fooled by a generative AI’s video, or seen an image of a neat sculpture where your brain liked it but then your eyes had to do a double-take with Suspicious Mode on. They used to be so obvious and laughable, three years ago when we shook our heads at your cousin’s friend’s mechanic’s auntie falling for them on Facebook. Well, we’re the cousin’s friend’s mechanic’s auntie now.
And it’s not like we woke up one day and suddenly we were falling for the all the AI images. And it’s not like we woke up one day and suddenly an LLM-based robot had replaced all of our service workers. And it’s not like we woke up one day and the machines had subjugated the human race.
Live footage of me not being subjugated by machines.
It’s the slow rot that gets you; edging forward imperceptibly until it engulfs everything. Too much to see all at once, but plenty enough to show you that the signs were there all along. It won’t do a Hollywood launch. Like any rot, it will sit innocently in the mainstream telling you its “ridiculous” plans, normalising insanity, using ever-increasing aggression, deploying a private and unaccountable police force, murdering civilians, denying those crimes, censoring media and using physical means to crush dissent. Those last few may not have been AI, but you never know.
Many of us are still tied to companies that are a) ploughing ahead with the AI gamble while acknowledging that most people don’t like it and it probably won’t work if everyone doesn’t get on board and b) kowtowing to fascism in real time. What happens if the basic modern services we’ve come to rely on become unsustainable under capitalism, or turn out to be owned by an adversary?
It’s not been a Hollywood launch for either AI integration or fascist coups. It’s been quite a slow creep, but the thing with creeping is that it arrives eventually. From our perspective, the sirens and the plumes of smoke should be quite clear.