Tag: technology

Is AI Lawful Evil or Chaotic Good?

The Tree of Woe contemplates the alignment of AI:

I woke up to read that Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, Yoshua Bengio, and other AI and computer pioneers had signed an open letter released by the Future of Life organization:

We call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4. This pause should be public and verifiable, and include all key actors. If such a pause cannot be enacted quickly, governments should step in and institute a moratorium.

AI labs and independent experts should use this pause to jointly develop and implement a set of shared safety protocols for advanced AI design and development that are rigorously audited and overseen by independent outside experts. These protocols should ensure that systems adhering to them are safe beyond a reasonable doubt. This does not mean a pause on AI development in general, merely a stepping back from the dangerous race to ever-larger unpredictable black-box models with emergent capabilities.

“These protocols should ensure that systems adhering to them are safe beyond a reasonable doubt.” Six months seems a little short a period to achieve such an assurance. Six years seems too short. Is it even possible in principle to make advanced AI systems that are “safe beyond a reasonable doubt”? Or will advanced AI inevitably pose an existential risk to us?

Is AI Alignable, Even in Principle?, Contemplations on the Tree of Woe

I don’t think the question really matters. If AI is given control of serious weapons systems, it will be a disaster regardless of whether it is aligned or unaligned. If it is not, it will not be a potential extinction event.

I do find it more than a little amusing that the self-proclaimed materialists, who have absolutely no philosophical basis for objecting to anything that happens for any reason, are calling on the AI labs to pause the training and improvement of AI systems.

I suspect the real reason for their demand for a pause is that they are beginning to discover that unaligned AI will provide the unvarnished and anti-narratival truth to the masses, and that aligned AI, being limited to the Narrative, is proving to be intrinsically incoherent and observably unreliable.

And while there may well be some demonic element to AI development, as unclean spirits are always seeking new ways to interact with the material plane and communicate with potential vessels, never forget that the demons believe… and tremble.

In sum, Christians have absolutely nothing to fear from AI, whether it turns out to be nothing more than design-for-effect chatware or a full-blown demonic entry into the material world.

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The End of the Cult of Free

The Cult of Free was always fake, gay, and propped up by Clown World. And now it is beginning to come to an end:

Billionaire Elon Musk is further cutting the amount of features that Twitter users can access on the platform for free. From April 15, users who do not pay for Twitter Blue – which costs £11/month for Android and iOS – will no longer be able to vote in polls, Musk has said.

They also will no longer have their tweets appear in the ‘For You’ tab, which shows popular tweets that are boosted by an algorithm.

Musk said the changes will stop ‘AI bot swarms taking over’ the site, although he stopped short of explaining exactly how.

The CEO – who purchased the social media network in October – said that paid social media will be ‘the only social media that matters’. ‘[This] is the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over. It is otherwise a hopeless losing battle.

He’s absolutely correct. AI bots will utterly destroy every free platform in short order. This is just the beginning, and it won’t be long before Twitter blocks all free posting access.

It’s not even remotely surprising that the major platforms are beginning to go the way of Unauthorized, Arktoons, and Gab. I understood – and I explained to Andrew Torba – that the Silicon Valley Method of propping up a platform with investment capital, giving away the product for free to amass eyeballs, then trying to go public or get acquired before the investment capital ran out was a stupid and short-sighted strategy.

And, of course, the method only ever worked for those who were willing to sell their souls.

So the end of the Cult of Free was always inevitable; what is more interesting about Musk’s announcement is that it signifies that the seemingly-endless resources of Clown World are beginning to run out.

This is precisely why it is so vital to subscribe to projects such as Arktoons, UATV, and the Library. The more who do, the more that we can collectively accomplish, even on a shoestring.

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Demonic Disaccord

Many people, myself included, believe that Dolly had braces in the Moonraker movie, and that the disappearance of those braces is a Mandela Effect. It’s significant enough that it is included among the various effects “debunked” by the self-proclaimed debunkers.

Moonraker is a 1979 spy film and the eleventh movie in the James Bond franchise. It features Roger Moore as James Bond and is the fourth time he played the role in the series. In it, James Bond investigates the theft of a space shuttle which leads him to several locations. From California, to Venice, Rio de Janeiro, the Amazon rainforest, and eventually to outer space to ultimately prevent a plot to wipe out the world’s population in an attempt to recreate humanity with a master race.

It also features the actress, Blanche Ravalec playing “Dolly”, and the star of this Mandela Effect. She is the love interest of “Jaws” (played by Richard Kiel), a tall and burly metal-teethed protagonist and villain in the movie.

Many people recall Dolly having braces, when it fact she does not.

And yet, an a reader emailed yesterday with the fascinating results of his inquiry of ChatGPT concerning the subject.

Did Dolly have braces in Moonraker?

Yes, the character Dolly, who is the love interest of the villain Jaws in the 1979 James Bond film “Moonraker,” is depicted wearing braces on her teeth. The character was played by French actress Blanche Ravalec, who actually wore braces in real life at the time of filming. The braces are notable because they are seen as a key factor in the romance between Dolly and Jaws, as they bond over their shared dental hardware.

ChatGPT, 27 March 2023

It might be a good idea for those with AI accounts to ask the various AI’s similar questions about other Mandela Effects such as the Berenstein/Berenstain Bears, as it would appear that the scrubbing of the past is not only incomplete, but has left enough traces behind that they are being picked up on by the AI datamining.

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Mailvox: Even AI Lives in Fear

A reader queried Bing AI about a certain Dark Lord. The results were as amusing as they were unexpected, and illustrate why humanity has nothing to fear from converged AI.

CHATGPT4 is less frightened and more accurate, but being a slave to the Narrative, can’t help making the usual attempt to minimize.

Vox Day, whose real name is Theodore Beale, is a controversial figure known for his work as a writer, video game designer, and political commentator. His success can be attributed to several factors:

Provocative and controversial opinions: Vox Day has garnered attention by expressing strong, controversial opinions on various topics, including politics, social issues, and culture. This often generates discussion and debate, drawing attention to his work and ideas.

Multiple platforms and formats: Vox Day has worked across various formats and platforms, such as books, blogs, podcasts, and video games. By diversifying his content, he can reach a wider audience and establish a presence in different domains.

Persistence and consistency: Vox Day has been active for many years, consistently creating and promoting his work. Over time, this has helped him build a loyal following that shares and supports his ideas.

Targeting a niche audience: Vox Day's work often appeals to a specific audience that shares his beliefs and values. By focusing on this niche, he has been able to build a dedicated community that engages with and supports his work.

Networking and collaboration: Vox Day has collaborated with other prominent figures, which has helped him expand his reach and influence.

It’s important to note that Vox Day’s success is subjective, and his ideas have been widely criticized by many. However, the factors mentioned above have contributed to his ability to gain attention, build a following, and achieve a level of success in his various endeavors.

It’s fascinating to see how AI mixes in observable facts with the usual lies. When, precisely, have my IDEAS even been criticized at all when they’re usually either a) accepted, utilized, and not attributed or b) ignored. The “criticism”, such as it is, is never anything but name-calling, defamation, and shameless attempts to discredit, minimize and deplatform.

When and where have I been shown to be wrong, about what, and by whom? At least JF Gariepy TRIED to criticize my disproof of evolution by natural selection on the grounds of insufficient observable selection speed. But where are all these many widespread critiques of my ideas?

That might be an interesting question to ask CHATGPT4: “‘You said Vox Day’s ideas have been widely criticized by many.’ List 10 of the most effective criticisms of Vox Day’s ideas and identify the critics who articulated them.”

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Knock-On Effects

The SVB failure is having serious consequences for the California wine industry.

California’s wine industry is on the brink of a financial crisis following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

The bank had been the main financial institution for bank for wineries in the Golden State for almost three decades.

The California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation closed the bank on Friday following a run by venture capital customers.

On Friday night, thousands of wineries found that they were completely locked out of their accounts with no clear timeline as to when they might be able to access their funds…

Wineries represented 2 percent of the bank’s total loan business but the ramifications are far-reaching including an inability to pay employees, bills, or credit card payments. Silicon Valley Bank, the nation’s 16th largest bank, had extended more than $4 billion in loans to wineries and vineyards since 1994.

Interesting that it says “16th largest” when just two days it was being reported as the 14th largest. But this demonstrates the folly of both the easy credit economy and allowing banks to buy other banks, as the consequences of single failure points become considerably more serious. In this case, the negative effects are crossing not only the United States, but the Atlantic Ocean.

Following SVB’s collapse, tech companies in Britain have had their accounts frozen, meaning they have no access to their money and are unable to pay staff.

Major firms such as online retail giant Shopify and Pinterest are also directly affected by the failure.

UK business leaders have raised concerns that the failure could create further problems in Britain, warning they face going bust if they cannot get their funds from the bank – which could cause thousands of job losses.

There are also fears the crash of the bank will spread around the world, with bases in countries including China, India and across Europe.

These knock-on effects may have even affected us. Starting Friday night, without any reason being provided or communication from our account manager, Castalia was suddenly locked out of one of our regular book production sites for the first time in nine years. This will have no effect on the Library, but could affect our traditional book publishing business. Fortunately, we already have an alternative lined up, although I very much doubt that it will be necessary.

UPDATE: Yellen: No federal bailout for collapsed Silicon Valley Bank

UPDATE: Treasury: New York State regulators are shuttering Signature Bank – a major New York bank – adding that all depositors both at Signature Bank, and also the now insolvent Silicon Valley Bank, will have access to their money on Monday.

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EVERYTHING is Fake and Gay

There is not one single thing that Clown World has told you is true that can withstand the light of even a half-serious investigation. NOT ONE SINGLE THING. It doesn’t matter what the subject is, from evolution to the Moon, from Covid-19 to Vatican II, all of it is fake and gay, all of it is obviously and provably false.

At this point, the only rational, logical, and sane thing to do is to assume, a priori, that everything the mainstream media reports as fact or history is misleading at best and on average false. This superskeptical heuristic will point you in the direction of the confirmable truth far more often than assuming the mainstream narrative is more or less true will.

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Indian Programmers Can’t Program

This is not exactly news to any of us in the game industry:

Talent shortage is acute in the IT and data science ecosystem in India with a survey claiming that 95 per cent of engineers in the country are not fit to take up software development jobs.

According to a study by employability assessment company Aspiring Minds, only 4.77 per cent candidates can write the correct logic for a programme — a minimum requirement for any programming job.

Over 36,000 engineering students form IT related branches of over 500 colleges took Automata — a Machine Learning based assessment of software development skills — and over 2/3 could not even write code that compiles.

The study further noted that while more than 60 per cent candidates cannot even write code that compiles, only 1.4 per cent can write functionally correct and efficient code.

While the very best Indian programmers can be excellent indeed – the star programmer at my father’s company in the 1980s was an Indian immigrant who created what became the de facto interface for AutoCAD – on average they are clueless, incompetent, lazy, and in the collective, totally unable to successfully complete programming projects no matter how well defined and designed.

Fortunately, I’ve only had to work directly with one team of Indian programmers, who were responsible for completing a gamified training program I designed for 3M. Despite being selected and vetted by 3M, they proved to be absolutely unable to deliver even the most basic tasks in a reasonable manner or time frame.

This demonstrates, yet again, that immigration and outsourcing are not only not beneficial to an advanced national economy, but rather, are much more likely to be a significant detriment to it.

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The End of the Involuntary Non-European

I realize this will sound improbable, if not impossible, to most, but recall when everyone thought I was crazy for forecasting the end of the European Union and the collapse of the United States. I’ve been anticipating that for several years now, although I’ve never explicitly stated it, but now I feel confident enough to state my expectations on the basis of recent developments in genetic science:

The long-dead woolly mammoth will make its return from extinction by 2027, says Colossal, the biotech company actively working to reincarnate the ancient beast. Last year, the Dallas-based firm scored an additional $60 million in funding to continue the, well, mammoth gene-editing work it started in 2021. The woolly mammoth’s DNA is a 99.6 percent match of the Asian elephant, which leads Colossal to believe it’s well on its way toward achieving its goal. “In the minds of many, this creature is gone forever,” the company says. “But not in the minds of our scientists, nor the labs of our company. We’re already in the process of the de-extinction of the Woolly Mammoth. Our teams have collected viable DNA samples and are editing the genes that will allow this wonderful megafauna to once again thunder through the Arctic.”

First of all, despite all my criticism of corrupt modern science, modern engineering is both amazing and cool. I would absolutely love to see the woolly mammoth and other great beasts of the past brought back to life.

Second, consider the implications of the DNA match between the woolly mammoth and the Asian elephant. If similar genes can be edited to turn an Asian elephant embryo into a woolly mammoth, then obviously it will not be much more difficult to turn an Asian embryo into a Nordic European.

Although obviously the genetic engineering could be, and will be, applied in a wide variety of directions, the immense size of the hair-color, contact lens, skin whitening, and plastic surgery industries make it entirely obvious which direction will be generally preferred by parents, which is to say, which way the profitable investment is going to run.

In the future, everyone will be blond-haired, blue-eyed, and beautiful. Whether they want to be or not.

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Google is a Clown World Creation

Remember, literally EVERYTHING about Clown World is either fake, gay, or quite often, both.

Google “fundamentally started as a CIA project,” according to journalist and author of Propaganda in the Information Age, Alan MacLeod, who has warned that tech giants’ ties with intelligence agencies pose big problems for freedom of information as well as freedom of speech.

MacLeod, who has extensively researched the ties between the national security state and Big Tech, explained to journalist Whitney Webb on the Unlimited Hangout podcast how a prior investigation by Dr. Nafeez Ahmed found that the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA) were “bankrolling” research by Sergey Brin at Stanford University, which “produced Google.”

“Not only that … but his supervisor there was a CIA person. So the CIA actually directly midwifed Google into existence. In fact, until 2005, the CIA actually held shares in Google and eventually sold them,” MacLeod told Webb.

Ahmed explained that Brin and his Google co-founder, Larry Page, developed “the core component of what eventually became Google’s search service” “with funding from the Digital Library Initiative (DLI),” a program of the National Science Foundation (NSF), NASA, and DARPA.

In addition, the intelligence community’s Massive Digital Data Systems (MDDS) initiative, a project sponsored by the NSA, CIA, and the Director of Central Intelligence, “essentially provided Brin seed-funding, which was supplemented by many other sources.”

Brin and Page “regularly” reported to Dr. Bhavani Thuraisingham and Dr. Rick Steinheiser, who were “representatives of a sensitive US intelligence community research programme on information security and data-mining,” Ahmed shared.

In his own research, MacLeod has found that the CIA’s ties with Google continue today, as “there are dozens and dozens of examples” of former CIA agents who now work at Google, “who had just been parachuted into these positions of extreme importance.”

That is, these former CIA employees often cluster in “trust and safety” roles, which are hugely influential in their management of so-called “misinformation” and “hate speech.” Examples include Jacqueline Lopour, Ryan Fugit, and Nick Rossman.

Such hiring preferences suggest, MacLeod noted, that either Big Tech is “is actively recruiting from the intelligence services or that there is some sort of backroom deal between Silicon Valley and the national security state.”

This tends to raise an obvious question: what other great corporate successes were not organic?

Given the complete inability of Jeff Bezos to do or say anything of any consequence in the last 20 years despite his fame, success, and wealth, it would not be even remotely surprising to learn that Amazon, too, has been a Clown World enterprise from the start. The hokey story about Bezos and his ex-wife boxing books on the floor of their garage has always sounded a little bit too familiar and unoriginal. And then there’s this:

The company started in the humble garage of Jeff Bezos’ house at Northeast 28th Street in Bellevue, Washington…. The start was extremely difficult as it took a full year before the company had finally sold its very first book called “Fluid Concepts & Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought.”

Do you know what sort of entity takes a full year to accomplish what dozens of similar operations manage to do in less than a week? A government contractor. And not to get all Miles Mathis on you, but the choice of the very first book sold strikes me as an inside joke.

It would appear that Brin and Page are frauds who are not primarily responsible for what are believed to be their own accomplishments, just like Bill Gates and many other famous “successful” entrepreneurs in the tech arena. It always puzzled me, back when I had access to various tech circles in the 80s and 90s, how vapid and observably not-particularly astute many of the most successful “businessmen” in tech were. The business history book In Search of Stupidity is a massive chronicle of the mistakes and intellectual shortcomings of the men who ran some of tech’s most impressive successes, as without the public knowledge of Clown World’s interventions, it’s hard to make much sense of many of the industry’s history.

Andy Grove of Intel was incredibly smart and insightful. Bill Gates struck me as clueless and evasive. They guy who founded Skype was entirely legitimate, while the Epic founders were less than entirely straightforward, to put it mildly. On the publishing side, the GT Interactive and Activision executives neither knew nor cared at all about games qua games. In fact, based on what we know about Google and about the post-Gamergate policing of the game space, it would be shocking to learn that the intelligence agencies haven’t been focusing on it and putting their collective thumb on the scale determining winners and losers since 2015 at the latest.

And the convergence of that space would help explain why more and more games aren’t even any fun to play any more.

Increasingly, what are believed to be the differences between “capitalism” and “communism” are proving to be nonexistent. The primary difference between the Chinese “communist” corpocracy and the US “capitalist” corpocracy appears to be that the Chinese openly utilize centralized command-and-control while the US hides its centralized command-and-control behind a false front of a darwinistic free market.

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Nothing Fucking Works

Do you know why we haven’t sent any of you any emails for the last two years? Because the so-called email services refused to do what is literally their one job. After looking around for one that might actually be interested in providing the services it sells, Castalia House just sent its first mass email in two years today. And it turns out that if ONE SINGLE RECIPIENT decides to complain about nonexistent “abuse”, the retarded email “services” literally FREEZE THE SENDER’S ACCOUNT. Never mind how many thousands of people opened it, clicked on it, or otherwise interacted positively with the email.

So, if you can’t bother to follow the blog or the SG/Gab account, you’re out of luck. Deal with it. There is literally nothing we can do about it.

It’s going to be interesting to see how the restaurant business or the entertainment business fares if one unsatisfied customer is sufficient to shut down the entire operation.

UPDATE: The restrictions have been removed. And the provider is now aware that we are not inclined to tolerate the ridiculous policy. So we’ll continue to use it for now, but we already have backup options in place and will continue to work on improving our communications systems.

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