Who writes this shit? #Google #GoogleHome #Amazon #Alexa

Consumerist (now defunct) tells me that the internet is “transfixed” by two Google Home devices talking to each other. It (the internet) uses the words “amused”, “befuddled”, “delighted”. Interestingly, one word it doesn’t use is “horrified”.

Reading the transcript of these two devices is an exercise in how brainwashing works.

Before we get into that, though, we have to ask: what is Google Home? An AI? A voice-activated search engine? An artificial friend? According to Google’s website:

Continue reading Who writes this shit? #Google #GoogleHome #Amazon #Alexa

Humans vs Terminators? Maybe. Maybe not. #AI #war #psychology

In a lovely example of synchronicity this week, a book and an article from The New York Times converged. The book is ON KILLING by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman. The article is “The Pentagon’s Terminator Conundrum: Robots That Could Kill on Their Own”. The book moves smoothly into the article, so let’s begin.

We are subjected to an incredible amount of violence via the popular media. I’m not specifically talking about children or video games. I’m talking about us, the global society that accesses Western or Western-aping popular culture. This includes video games, of course, but also movies and books, not to mention Top 100 music and their slick videos. There are death threats on Facebook, insults on Twitter, jeers on Instagram, and so on. No channel of popular media is free of it. We’re told that humans are an inherently violent species. “What other species kills members of its own species?” you’ve probably heard. Actually, quite a few, but let’s not let that stand in the way of a good bromide. Quentin Tarantino unleashes fables of bloodshed so bloody that you need to put a bucket under the screen to catch the excess body fluids. And yet…

Continue reading Humans vs Terminators? Maybe. Maybe not. #AI #war #psychology