In October or 2024. Mr. Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic published an essay, self described, on this own personal website, titled “Machines of Loving Grace”, which is an AI reference. I am and was considerably disturbed by such ridiculous inferences truly.
To prove the point, I went to one of ‘their’ expert AI authorities, JULIUS, so as to confirm that my contentions are in fact correct.
I first asked Julies, a well-known AI chatbot, and asked it what “love” was? The responses I got the following:
Romantic Love: This type of love typically involves passion, intimacy, and desire between partners. It can include both emotional and physical attraction.
Familial Love: The bond shared between family members, characterized by loyalty, support, and a sense of duty. This love is often unconditional and deeply rooted. So when it refers to partners and to family members, it is referencing HUMAN parties or people. Its safe to say that AI systems or robots do not love each other or us even.
Then there is the word ‘grace’, also a big red flag. I asked Julius what ‘grace’ was. The response I got back, was:
“Grace can be understood in several contexts, primarily as a concept of elegance, kindness, or divine (???) favor.
- In a Religious Context: Grace often refers to the unmerited favor of God toward humanity, signifying forgiveness, love, and spiritual strength that is given freely, rather than earned.
- In a Social Context: Grace can describe a person’s ability to act with poise, kindness, and tact, especially in difficult situations. It reflects a sense of (human?) dignity and composure.”
Part of Julius’ answer references “God toward humanity” and it also refers to a “person’s ability” which again would refer to HUMANS. Oops. There sure is a lot of human and humanity indicated going on there. So I ask you then: Where can this “Loving Grace” come from? Well it doesn’t. Not now and not in foreseeable future do I expect to be loved and cuddled by AI anytime soon. Let us move on, for further examination.
The essay that Mr. Amodei presents to too lengthy to respond to all its components in all, for now, but we will highlight several important issues which are screaming for a considered response.
MEDICINE AND MEDICAL ISSUES
I get the feeling that the essay in places, was partially directed by someone in big pharma or who an interest in seeing the furtherance, even the continuance of drugs is the primary solution to most human heath issues going forward. There is considerably more than to healing than just drugs. There is much more which can come to play a part in curing people and allowing folks to live better and more productive life. Now, as I write this, and given that President-Elect Donal Trump was first responsible for the program “Right -To-Try” he opened a Pandora’s box for big pharma which gives people the right to move out of traditional cures and witch-doctor potions to examine the use of things which are out of medical orthodoxy to save their over lives. Many have done so and found relief in alternatives things otherwise they were apparently doomed to die otherwise.
The one name which must be mentioned here and considering alternative medicine hallmarks, is one Raymond Rife. Mr. Rife was the responsible for the first use or development of “Electromagnetic and Frequency Healing” during its first stages of its development. If one were to do their own research on the matter, aside from building a 60,000-power optical microscope, which to this day has never been duplicated. It is interesting to note that a short time after the man received an award for his work and received great accolades for his achievements, the “powers-that-be” raided his lab and raped it. They took (stole) everything. Rumor has it that he was earlier approached by the medical establishment to sell out, which he refused to do.
I have personally researched the man, again on Julius, to find totally bogus, inaccurate descriptions of “pseudo-science” and other inaccurate descriptions. All of which has gone unchecked. I would also direct your attention to the Niagara Falls slaughter by Edison in killing elephants to prove that his form or electricity was better than Tesla’s. Public records will bare this out. So what has this to do with AI you ask? The one thing that AI is notorious for, is, it comments and reports things which it is programmed to say and to report on. Whether that information is correct or not, the truth be damned. AI databases and responses will parrot back that which they are programmed to do or what they’ve been paid to do. So if the user asks a question which is contrary to some party’s particular interests or possible financial gain, the AI agent or systems will report what it is told to do. Simple.
On a personal note Mr Amodei, I would also direct your attention to a group of people in the US. who are known as the Amish. As there is now all kinds of blow-back coming from the scientific community that Covid Vaccines have done a significant amount to damage to people. Yet the Amish, to their credit, had refused to be controlled. They outright refused anything having to do with vaccines, refused to wear mask etc. all of it. Yet now, if one looks at them as group, they survived both Covid and the ill effects of vaccines outright. Vaccine proponents will not go near them as a study group. Why is that sir? I think that you need to retract your “luddite”, antivax remarks sir.
AI INFERIORITY COMPLEX
Regardless of what is said or how its painted about ‘Super AI’ or AGI or whatever term that the AI proponents wish to use about Artificial Intelligence’, there is NO real AI intelligence yet, period. Let’s be honest sir, it does not matter whether you wish to talk about development time windows of ten or fifteen years, there are some rudimentary factors which the industry has yet to conquer and will likely not be able to conquer easily or shortly, period. It is time that you came clean Sir to acknowledge those. I am happy to identify those AI (human) shortcoming or qualities. At the center of it all are morals and emotions.
- On the subject of of morals, we need to recognize that humans gain the morals and principles they have or get by way of experience over time. Something which software and algorithms cannot duplicate or replace. One of the key elements in gaining some kind of moral guidance, is the quality of discernment and the faculty of discerning. Discernment is discrimination and acuteness of judgment and understanding. And in a lot of cases, the consideration of morals can seriously come into play. One moral factor versus another. Can one conclusion be in line with acceptable moral norms or does a particular conclusion severely go against what we would, as humans, consider to be immoral? Interesting question.
- On the subject of emotions, even we as humans can have a hard time understanding, at times, what emotions may be doing to us, and why. It is interesting that because from a subjective viewpoint, emotions can and will come to influence our decision-making process. So I’m curious sir, with that kind of interplay, how is a programmer or an engineer going to program how feelings and emotions come about? Or even how emotions can come to influence our decision-making process overall? What is going to be the logical premise upon which that programming will take place? Ah, but there’s the rub. Emotions are not usually logical at all. So using a logical model might be counter productive surely. Its enough to drive poor old Spock insane.
But while we’re here examining difficult qualities which AI engineers and scientists will have some serious challenges to face, let us, for argument’s sake, touch upon those human qualities or aspects which they will NEVER be able to duplicate or mimic.
The one human quality which those same AI development teams will not soon see is the human quality of being psychic. Knowing or knowledge in coming to a rightful decision which is based on factors which cannot be easily quantified or accounted for at all. Things which might not even be in the set or subset of alternatives or possibilities. An infinite set of possibilities which the person may not even be aware or ever comprehend cognitively yet is being influenced to take a particular decision which might not even seem relevant to the problem at hand.
It is one thing to program an AI system to the millions of possible chess moves, combinations and permutations into account so a machine can go on to beat some stupid human challenger. But programming for solutions which are very much “out of box” or even beyond understanding, is a near impossible thing. In that situation there is no set or subsets of information can come to drawn upon. The robot is in trouble. Then, who is waning now?
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
Within in the context of the essay, there are some issues that I would like to call upon, which the reader needs to draw their attention to. We’ll euphemistically call these suggestions and observations are our top ten.
A. I have written about just how power hungry the large LLMs and/or neural networks are or can be. (See the posting “Power Hungry”). These systems can be veracious in the way they can consume energy and do. Mr. Amodei its time that you, and Altman and the other AI Billionaires got off your wallets and began to invest in alternative power generation. It’s one thing that you boys want to leverage aging infrastructure, like dams, for you own purposes, that we stupid humans build and paid for. But that is not advancing the betterment of humanity. There are some technologies you and Altman need to be apprised of and get serious over, truly. Happy to help to direct you to them.
B. In your essay, you like to bandy around subjects and issues which deal with “politics”. Given the recent events of November the 5th, we stupid humans figured out, for ourselves, with no AI involved, that the system was broken and needed to be changed, and it was. For the sake of you and our peoples benefit, we’ll leave the entire matter of politics alone now. Enough said. You need to retire you political assumptions now. As mentioned, I know that we have some ways to go in creating AI. We, you and I likely have a difference of opinion on the matter, but there is no cognitive and truly intelligent system of Artificial or even real intelligence, independent on its own. We both know that that would be global news sir. No such news or system currently exists, wishful thinking or not. There is no terminator, no Sky Net and no John Connor. I have written about this year’s Noble Prize winner Geoffrey Hinton who co-won the 2024 Noble Prize for physics. We noted the concerns he has currently concerning AI which are of note. However, I would direct people to note that when he describes neural networks. He indicates that larger network has from one-half to one trillion neural connections. He contrasts that to 150 TRILLION in the human brain. So suffice to say, God is still winning. Sorry sir, but the biological model is superior to the copper one. Man has a way to go just yet.
C. Before we continue down the road of 50-year-old medical systems, it’s time to allow certain types of medical technology be allowed to breath. Bobby Kennedy is hot on that trail. AI is not going to make those old systems better. Faster maybe, but not better. Its time for a new paradigm to move forward.
D. You may not like hearing or appreciate one word I know, but that word is the is the Bible. You know, the largest selling book in the world. There are lots of examples in it of people living very long times and they did not need AI help back then in any way. Me personally, I’ll leave my fate sir in God’s hands. But given your scientific bias, let me direct you to a new phenomenon called “Med Beds”. We shall see what longevity looks like after those are widely deployed.
E. I would have enjoyed at least an honest reference to the significant motivation that governs most AI companies, money. I shouldn’t be surprised that you went totally silent on the subject yourself. Or let’s not talk about leveraging fund raising to the point of the absurd. OpenAI is expert in that.
F. The Sewell Setzer case confirms that a young innocent teenager committed suicide after being misled or even misguided by a careless chatbot. At least that is the contention of his mother. But it does appear that an AI chatbot in some measure did contribute to a needless death of the lad. Sad, truly. (See our post: AI Chatbot Suicide)
G. Sometimes it seems that the management of several AI companies think that they should be allowed to do whatever they want without any kind of guardrails or responsibility, even rules. Most people do not understand or appreciate the real power that AI has and can have on their lives. They like to minimize AI’s power as to what AI is capable of. I would characterize that as blind ignorance. As some current examples, OpenAI eliminated a team focused on the risks posed by advanced artificial intelligence less than a year after it was formed – and a departing executive warned recently that safety has “taken a backseat to shiny products” at the company. Then there’s good ole Microsoft, who disbanded the ChatGPT so-called “Superalignment,” which was tasked with creating safety measures for advanced general intelligence (AGI) systems that “could lead to the disempowerment of humanity or even human extinction,” according to a blog post last July. I cannot in fairness, not knowing what Anthropic is doing or not doing at the present time. We shall however for the moment give them the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps its CEO can enlighten us.
H. The last American election cycle showed you interesting effects or responses overall. The one thing, regardless of which side you might have been on, is what is truth? What is real? Was there misinformation or not. I raise this issue, because what an AI agent or system may tell you, must stand on “fact checking” and review. AI chatbots repeat things as they’re programmed to do. The AI companies must hold responsible for what their “Agents” say or advise. No third-party company should be allowed to just program or provide whatever propaganda they want though a machine. If anything we, the public, over even dedicated monitors, need to be able to review and correct whatever it is that an AI company’s agent says. Correction and review must become standard operating procedure, truly.
I. When speaking about driving forces, as the essay does, it is important to keep in mind, WHO EXACTLY is pushing for AI development and “control”. Many people can come to be surprised that its not evolving into the Utopian landscape as painted. Not. When you have organizations such as the WEF and the World Bank, the Council on Foreign Relations and the United Nations, amongst others, the central goal seems to be that of control. The want to know (READ: CONTORL) your carbon footprint, the money you spend, your movement or travel, where you go, the friends you have, what you do and more. AI could monitor you like nothing else. Free societies must guard against the monitoring, control and intrusion which AI is capable of.
J. Let there be no mistake or illusion on behave of the AI industry, a new “Sheriff” is coming to town, and the free reign, the lawless operations are over. The United Nations is talking about it being “ready” in 2030, but there is likely to be private or a private sector group who can and will step forward sooner. Mankind does not have the luxury of waiting and now that people, innocent people are dying, something will happen a whole lot sooner, that’s for sure. Humanity can no long just sit back idly and watch thing further deteriorate as they have been. There is real and psychological effects and damage which is going on right now. People need to take responsibility to now reduce the risks and stop believing from some commercial enterprise that a utopian world is on the way. It’s not. We need to exercise complete control and oversight now over AI before the situation gets out of hand. We’re close to the edge now, but thankfully not over it.
If you want to know more or want to find out what are the best ways to protect yourself against the AI propaganda you can write me, Stephan Randal at: ai.critic@mail.com. Its time for humans to come together and get smart