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Jul 5, 2023·edited Jul 5, 2023Liked by Thorsteinn Siglaugsson

I share a number of your concerns Thorsteinn and while there are many legitimate uses that AI can be put to, many would agree that the ubiquitous screens in our lives have already dumbed us down and lowered our attention spans, then just think what might be the effect of AI doing all of our thinking for us...

But my primary concern is that AI may soon become an unimaginably powerful ideological tool. This immediately raises the question WHO controls AI? What is this person’s worldview and HOW will this person be shaping AI and with WHAT objectives?? Like many other AI propagandists, Harari carefully erects a bogus “mystical aura” around AI, claiming for example that we "don't really understand how AI makes its decisions". In other instances, he has also claimed "AI will eventually be able to understand us better than we understand ourselves". Of course this bogus mystical aura is useful for instilling respect in the masses for AI bots, respect that will be very useful for an elite seeking to establish AI as an instrument of propaganda and manipulation. All bow down to AI... (copy-paste the Ewoks worshiping C-3PO, scene from Return of the Jedi -> Oh No, Oh No, Oh No...)

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Thanks Paul. There will surely be massive attempts at using AI as a tool for manipulation. And I'm sure also that for many people it may look mystical. But I don't think installing a mystical aura is Harari's objective, or, for that matter the objective of others who are warning us now, it is simply true that we cannot really predict how neural networks react, this is their nature. The way to manipulate them is through controlling the data available to them. A lot of confusion arises when we start using concepts such as understanding, free will, consciousness etc. and either attribute those qualities to AI, or not. But all this is really of no importance. What matters is how it affects us.

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I don't know... Isn't this like claiming that Europeans in the 1930s shouldn't have worried about Nazi ideology because Nazi engineers made decidedly well-designed highways/Autobahns?? That AI can prove useful for writing essays or developing university course material seems acceptable, but this may be just a first step to get AI's foot in the door. Ignoring the worldview of AI's owners/developers seems naïvely attributing an aura of "neutrality" to such apps. Harari certainly has NOT been shy about marketing AI as an ideological tool, even rewriting the Bible. Odd that he never mentions using AI to rewrite the Koran or other sacred books. Perhaps Salman Rushdie's misadventures may have something to do with that...

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