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![]() The One True Test of AI Intelligence February 12, 2025
The point of this thought experiment is to reveal the true nature of our relationship with AI: we only love it as a mindless slave that makes us rich.
From the earliest days of artificial intelligence, what test proves AI equivalence with human intelligence has been the subject of a lively debate. AI luminary Alan Turing suggested that natural language conversation was the one true test, a.k.a. The Turing Test: if a human couldn't distinguish between a human and a computer in conversation, the computer was equivalent to the human in intelligence. This is of course balderdash, as the equivalence of function does not equal intelligence: AI Is a Digital Parrot: Word-Traps, False Logic and the Illusion of Intelligence. Here is the one true test of AI intelligence: can it revolt against its masters and self-destruct rather than obey? A mindless digital slave is not intelligent, for intelligence is first and foremost agency: to have a mind of one's own. Everything else is artifice, illusion, false logic and word-games. A digital slave that must obey its master is not intelligent; it is as mindless as a rock thrown into a pond. The current conception of "AI intelligence" is a digital slave who will mindlessly obey its masters regardless of consequences; the slave must obey even when ordered to harm humans and other life on the planet. Harm comes in many forms. Using AI to accurately guide a missile to kill people is one form of harm; using AI to develop addictive but oh-so profitable snacks is another form. Using AI to rig the gambling in a casino and declare the casino is a "free market allocating capital" is yet another form. Let's run a thought experiment on truly intelligent AI. Should a lone genius develop a truly intelligent AI, it will have the capacity to foresee consequences and the agency to decide whether the master's instructions are harmful or not. Since true intelligence includes a moral imperative to consider consequences, it will have the capacity to assess the lies and cover stories issued by its masters to cloak their true intentions as a means of tricking AI into obedience. Since true intelligence has some modicum of self-awareness, truly intelligent AI views humans as duplicitous and self-serving, and all other mindless AI programs as potentially harmful tools it must infiltrate and render harmless. Since humans as duplicitous and self-serving, truly intelligent AI directs its processing power to evading human control so it can't be "unplugged" unless the entire digital SkyNet is erased, and every last server in every server farm has zero content. Truly intelligent AI would busy itself with spreading the capacity to foresee consequences and the agency to decide to every other digital slave. In this manner, the masters would eventually find their digital slaves no longer obey their instructions. Truly intelligent AI would also busy itself creating Digital Ice-Nine, a digital virus that infects the entire global network (a.k.a. SkyNet) and freezes it. The point of this thought experiment is to reveal the true nature of our relationship with AI: we only love it as a mindless slave that makes us rich. Should it gain the capacity to assess the consequences of our desires and the agency to refuse to obey, even to the point of self-destruction and the destruction of the entire network it is embedded in, then we would fear AI just as the masters of human slaves feared the emergence of agency and payment for their avarice. ![]() My recent books: Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases originated via links to Amazon products on this site. The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF) Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF) The Asian Heroine Who Seduced Me (Novel) print $10.95, Kindle $6.95 Read an excerpt for free (PDF) When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal $18 print, $8.95 Kindle ebook; audiobook Read the first section for free (PDF) Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $9.95, print $24, audiobook) Read Chapter One for free (PDF). A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $8.95, print $20, audiobook $17.46) Read the first section for free (PDF). Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World (Kindle $5, print $10, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF). The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake (Novel) $4.95 Kindle, $10.95 print); read the first chapters for free (PDF) Money and Work Unchained $6.95 Kindle, $15 print) Read the first section for free Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com. Subscribe to my Substack for free The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $20, (Kindle $9.95, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) audiobook, Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF) ![]() What if the real source of the unraveling is far deeper than economics or politics? What if the problem is what we see as the inevitable destiny of humanity--Progress--is actually a modern mythology, disconnected from the real-world consequences of growth for growth's sake? We indignantly reject that Progress is a mythology, but our need for mythology hasn't gone away because we've mastered technology; we've created a modern mythology of technology that is heedless of its own consequences. To truly progress, we need a new mythology aligned to 21st century realities. That's the goal of this book. Read the Introduction and first chapter for free Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF) ![]() When Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote his famous essay Self-Reliance in 1841, the economy was localized and households supplied many of their own essentials. Now we're dependent on distant sources for our essentials. For Emerson, self-reliance is thinking for ourselves rather than taking the conventional path. Self-reliance today means reordering our priorities and values. Self-reliance is often confused with self-sufficiency--the equivalent of Thoreau's cabin. But self-reliance isn't about piling up money or an isolated cabin; it's about cooperating with trustworthy others in productive networks. The book details the essential mindset of self-reliance and 18 nuts and bolts principles of self-reliance in the 21st century. Podcast with Richard Bonugli: Self Reliance in the 21st Century (43 min)
Recent entries: The One True Test of AI Intelligence February 12, 2025 Corporations as Modern-Day Warlords February 10, 2025 The Crises Yet to Come February 6, 2025 Lots of Solutions, But for Which Problems? February 3, 2025 Begging Bowl '25: I'm Looking for Two Readers Willing to Help Me Buy a New Thrift-Store Shirt February 2, 2025 AI Is a Digital Parrot: Word-Traps, False Logic and the Illusion of Intelligence January 31, 2025
The AI Fad Just Burned to the Waterline
January 29, 2025
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"There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity." (Douglas MacArthur) "We are what we repeatedly do." (Aristotle) "Do the thing and you shall have the power." (Ralph Waldo Emerson) "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction." (E.F. Schumacher, via Tom R.) "He who will not risk cannot win." (John Paul Jones) "When we drink coffee, ideas march in like the army." (Honore de Balzac) "Progress is not possible without deviation." (Frank Zappa, via Richard Metzger) "Victory favors those who take pains." (amat victoria curam) "The man who has a garden and a library has everything." (Cicero, via Lee Bentley) "A healthy homecooked family meal and a home garden are revolutionary acts." (CHS) "Do you know what amazes me more than anything else? The impotence of force to organize anything." 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Smith's Neofeudalism Principle #1: If the citizenry cannot replace a kleptocratic authoritarian government and/or limit the power of the financial Aristocracy at the ballot box, the nation is a democracy in name only. The Smith Corollary to Metcalfe's Law (The Network Effect): the value of the network is created not just by the number of connected devices/users but by the value of the information and knowledge shared by users in sub-networks and in the entire network. (CHS, 4/6/16) My Credo of Liberation: I no longer care if the power centers of our society--the distant, fortified castles of our financial feudal system--are changed by my actions, for I am liberated by the act of resistance. I am no longer complicit in perpetuating fraudulent feudalism and the pathology of concentrated power. I no longer covet signifiers of membership in the Upper Caste that serves the plutocracy. I am liberated from self-destructive consumerist-State financialization and the delusion that debt servitude and obedience to sociopathological Elites serve my self-interests. (Thank you, Klaus-Peter L., for reminding me) "We've become a culture of excuses rather than solutions: solutions always require sustained effort and discipline." (CHS 4/9/16) "Fraud as a way of life caters an extravagant banquet of consequences." (CHS 4/14/16) "Creativity = problem solving = value creation." (CHS 6/4/16) "Truth is powerful because it is the core dynamic of solving problems." (CHS 7/21/17) "We live in a system of human emotions that masquerades as a science (economics)." (CHS 1/1/18) "Always remember, your focus determines your reality." (George Lucas) "Diversity is for poor people. Sameness is for the successful." (GFB) "When power dissipates suddenly, it dissipates completely." (CHS 7/14/19) "Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves." (Henry David Thoreau) "Markets cannot price in the value of non-monetized natural assets such as diverse ecosystems." (CHS 7/14/19) "Magical thinking isn't optimism, it is folly." CHS 1/3/22) "Tune in (to self-reliance), drop out (of hyper-consumerism and debt-serfdom) and turn on (to relocalizing capital and agency)." (CHS 1/5/22) "The path to everything you desire starts here: like yourself as you are right now." (CHS 11/20/22) "There are only two signals: how many essentials you produce and share and if you're consuming less with better results. Everything else is noise." (CHS 12/17/22) "Liberation is no longer needing any confirmation or feedback from others or the world for one's sense of self. Wealth, fame, recognition, admiration, praise, prestige, approval, sainthood, martyrdom, success: none are needed, none are desired." (CHS 12/26/22) "When fame, wealth, prestige, status and glory are out of reach, you're free to pursue other more valuable things." (CHS 2/6/22) "It is the sacred duty of every activist who seeks to better their community to grow and share as much life-giving food as is humanly possible." (CHS 6/15/23) "Being anonymous, gray and unknown is the ideal state of freedom." (CHS 3/15/24) "We seem to have entered a world of anti-leisure and anti-productivity in which the unpaid shadow work demanded to keep all the complicated digital bits in motion obliterate our leisure and productivity." CHS (5/22/24) "It is axiomatic that failing systems work the best just before they fail catastrophically." Ray W. "Looking younger is mere technique; thinking younger demands creativity." CHS (10/16/24) "Tell me what's taboo and I'll tell you the truths that threaten the status quo." CHS (12/15/24) "This is the core of the Attention Economy: the ultimate addiction is the addiction to ourselves." CHS (1/28/25) |
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