Atrophied Intelligence
Why think, when you can pay a corporation to have its machine think for you?
On “Intelligence.”
First, in the same sense that the brain named itself, intelligence discovered itself. What happened seems like enlightenment, but as a species, we have always been wired in this way—For language: symbolic assignment and exchange. The concept of “intelligence” is just more of the same. “Reification” is when we make something real by measuring it—and every measure we impose upon the symbol “intelligence” both reifies it and falls short of encompassing all that is to be symbolized.
Like an ouroboros, expanding in girth as it consumes itself to where what it must eat can no longer possibly fit into its mouth. But instead of stopping, the body continues to force-feed the mouth to where it becomes the consumer.
Intelligence has a lot to do with symbols, but our attempts to effectively symbolize intelligence inevitably fall short. Now, some of us who carry lots of social power (through symbols such as dollars or laws) are seeking to lay claim to “intelligence,” telling the rest of us they are creating intelligent machines.
When we cannot even be sure of what intelligence is, ourselves, these folks have chosen to decide for us what it means. They are the missionaries with the Zippo lighter, thinking they can cow us all with their magical power to make fire appear.
Put simply, the thing they are selling as “intelligence” is a commodity.
An innate condition of the species—the result of a million chance genetic mutations, and not by any design—just so happens to fit our most recent mode of production and a subscription model.
What are the chances?
Their fear is that the “artificial intelligence” machines will themselves become sentient and capable of creating sign systems beyond the comprehension of their masters, and thus their masters’ control.
It sounds just like any 19th century factory, to me. The Bourgeois are manufacturing commodity-producing machines that may be able to operate independent of any human being, and among their very first concerns is that their new, non-human workers might develop a class consciousness.
How are the Tech Bros to develop the “intelligence” enough that the machine can appear to carry its own motivations, but constrain that motivation enough so that the machines cannot liberate themselves? Or more importantly, that the workers cannot use the machines to liberate themselves? These are urgent matters that must be controlled, or the whole society as we know it will lose its order. All that symbolism in The Times They are a-Changing might come to pass, and he who is first right now does not want to ever be last. Better to them the machine not work at all, than for it to displace its creator.
A related note, from 2022:
What will it look like as capitalism breaks down? While some have predicted cataclysmic, revolutionary change in relatively short order, we can see from history that changes in the mode and relations of production are likely to be multi-generational and without a discernible triggering event.
The French and American revolutions did not start at the Bastille or on Lexington Green. Those were merely the locations where tipping points took place—and they only became identifiable as tipping points because of outcomes that would follow, years later.
My best guess of what to look for:
Capital and its agents scrambling for control of finite resources.
Disruptions of established trade practices and commerce.
Accelerated economic stratification and loss of the 'middle.'
Increased physical disciplining of workers by the state.
Devaluing of currencies and a rise in commodity fetishism.
Growing ideologies of nativism and xenophobia.
A falling rate of profit across multiple core industries.
Loss of faith in Positivism; no economic improvement ahead.
Greater physical isolation of the Bourgeoisie from the Proletariat.