Is there a critical thought meltdown in the modern world, or what!? The explosive hubris of humanity has left common sense in the dust with barely a second thought. The latest version of the “we’re doing it because we can” sanity flex is artificial intelligence. What kind of great tool is this!? We don’t have to think at all anymore… (Some sarcasm is hard to avoid.)
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. While the dominoes of discovery fall, and continue to fall, recent heritage appears all but blind to this balance of nature truism. All you ever hear about is how much better everything will be with the new this and that tech. There isn’t any critical mention of the environmental impact. most society is sold, sold, sold out through the carbon fueled industrial bonanza, and an ongoing bloodbath ravages diversity with pollution and exploitation. With each dropped promise falls another degree of integrity, and yet the petroleum plantation planners are still operating. Spreading the damnation of what is likely their own curse upon everyone and everything about them. From the choking air, to the chemical spill waterways, to poison minds, and radiation fog. Each tech advance has some downstream disaster that manifests as unaccounted for fallout that absolutely could have been predicted, anticipated, and factored in as variable of each technology’s real worth. The PSYOP we call history is Earth’s monopolist’s perverse wet dream. The corporate industrialist resource hoarders clearly have a sinister willingness to technologically shell game masses into division and confusion. There is awareness of how damaging modern energy, medical, media, and military tech is. The pushers do it anyway. The facade is tempting, fancy and thin. With a more disciplined inspection one can see where we are and have been.
Modern time is a time of unrelenting promotion for conserving resources. Responsible application of any technology right now, you would think, would factor in maximum efficiency. So what of the revolution in “intelligence”. It’s not just artificial; it’s a sick resource hog. The demand for digital space, the power to hold it, and the other natural resources supporting it are staggering. Electricity grids strain for AI while communities brown out and rotate outrage. Water supplies strain for AI while communities face limited use. Then we all pay the increased cost of living while our email boxes fill up with every imaginable product that Siri and Alexa heard us talking about. Stopping for a second and thinking this through brings intelligence itself into question. This is not the first generation that metaphysically builds the gallows, strings up the noose, climbs up on the stand, sticks the head in the noose, and kicks the can thinking that this is just what you do when you are “advanced”. However, with a bit of critical thinking, a pause in the rush to digital nirvana, an intelligent thought or two of what a balanced scale is, and a consideration of who’s teaching us what maybe we can be the last.