The "Merge" with AI Has Begun

a month ago

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman promotes merging humanity with AI to survive artificial superintelligence (ASI), envisioning digital posthumans or human obsolescence.
The 'merge' is already evident as AI replaces human roles in education, work, and social life, raising concerns about dependency and the loss of critical thinking.
Silicon Valley's 'digital eschatology' advocates a future dominated by digital beings, with tech elites potentially monopolizing access while marginalizing others.
Resistance through regulation, boycotts, and public awareness is urged to prevent a future where humans become economically and socially obsolete.

Programmers have a moral responsibility to the entire world, not any single nation, to uphold the Internet as a universal, uncensored knowledge-sharing system.
Mass surveillance systems, initially built for advertising, are now used by companies like Palantir to enable technofascism through state-corporate fusion.
Surveillance justified by national security inevitably targets a nation's own citizens, expanding to encompass entire populations under paranoid control.

The article presents two AI futures: one where AI is a deity controlled by a small clergy-like group, and another where AI amplifies human capabilities with humans at the center.
A new technical clergy is emerging—those who build frontier AI systems, have privileged access, and decide who can use them, warning of mass unemployment but seeing it as liberating.
Concerns exist about a two-tier system: powerful AI for a select few (e.g., partners, researchers) vs. constrained AI for the public, due to safety risks like bioweapons and disinformation.

OpenAI announced a model solving ten open math problems, deemed important by mathematicians.
People will use various coping mechanisms to downplay the impact, but each will be refuted by reality.
Common copes include: directing AIs, teaching AI discoveries, canonizing results, becoming students of AI math, requiring human understanding, comparing to chess, and continuing math socially.

The concept of a 'reverse centaur' refers to humans acting as assistants to machines, illustrated by workers like warehouse employees and self-driving truck monitors who adapt to algorithmic demands, often at lower wages.
AI is portrayed by its architects as a profound threat to civilization, with figures like Elon Musk and Sam Altman warning of existential risks, while AI critic Cory Doctorow argues it's a 'conjuring trick' that imputes intentionality to a word-predicting program.
Doctorow highlights the financial bubble in AI, noting its growth from $700bn to $1.4tn, and warns that such bubbles inevitably pop, with significant economic fallout that often leads to austerity measures affecting the broader population.

Gen Z is showing significant backlash against AI adoption, contrasting with baby boomers who view AI as a revolutionary tool.
Younger generations perceive AI as an existential threat to jobs and learning, feeling disenfranchised in a system that engineers their obsolescence.
Baby boomers, having benefited from a stronger labor market, often dismiss concerns, but structural conditions have shifted, reducing opportunities for Gen Z.

Programmers have a moral responsibility to the entire world, not any single nation, to uphold the Internet as a universal, uncensored knowledge-sharing system.
Mass surveillance systems, initially built for advertising, are now used by companies like Palantir to enable technofascism through state-corporate fusion.
Surveillance justified by national security inevitably targets a nation's own citizens, expanding to encompass entire populations under paranoid control.

The article presents two AI futures: one where AI is a deity controlled by a small clergy-like group, and another where AI amplifies human capabilities with humans at the center.
A new technical clergy is emerging—those who build frontier AI systems, have privileged access, and decide who can use them, warning of mass unemployment but seeing it as liberating.
Concerns exist about a two-tier system: powerful AI for a select few (e.g., partners, researchers) vs. constrained AI for the public, due to safety risks like bioweapons and disinformation.

OpenAI announced a model solving ten open math problems, deemed important by mathematicians.
People will use various coping mechanisms to downplay the impact, but each will be refuted by reality.
Common copes include: directing AIs, teaching AI discoveries, canonizing results, becoming students of AI math, requiring human understanding, comparing to chess, and continuing math socially.

The concept of a 'reverse centaur' refers to humans acting as assistants to machines, illustrated by workers like warehouse employees and self-driving truck monitors who adapt to algorithmic demands, often at lower wages.
AI is portrayed by its architects as a profound threat to civilization, with figures like Elon Musk and Sam Altman warning of existential risks, while AI critic Cory Doctorow argues it's a 'conjuring trick' that imputes intentionality to a word-predicting program.
Doctorow highlights the financial bubble in AI, noting its growth from $700bn to $1.4tn, and warns that such bubbles inevitably pop, with significant economic fallout that often leads to austerity measures affecting the broader population.

Gen Z is showing significant backlash against AI adoption, contrasting with baby boomers who view AI as a revolutionary tool.
Younger generations perceive AI as an existential threat to jobs and learning, feeling disenfranchised in a system that engineers their obsolescence.
Baby boomers, having benefited from a stronger labor market, often dismiss concerns, but structural conditions have shifted, reducing opportunities for Gen Z.

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