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Perhaps religious cult territory too. "The Algorithm" [1] is already being used to tell fortunes -- which if it just stays as a few people having fun with horos

Perhaps religious cult territory too. "The Algorithm" [1] is already being used to tell fortunes -- which if it just stays as a few people having fun with horoscopes I don't really care, it seems harmless. But I could also totally picture some cryptocoin charlatan getting revelations about The Spiritual Algorithm or something and starts selling AI for getting into heaven. --- [1] By "The Algorithm" I just mean the public colloquially reference to trending formulas used on TikTok etc, which I'm sure probably uses machine learning somewhere

mjburgess 5y ago
I agree. I have the same reactions to these guys as I did to religious zealots when I was a teenager; and later to "transhumanism". Alarm, disbelief, hostility. There is a new secular religion underneath this. "Uploading consciousness", "Aren't we all just data systems?", "We've built a neural network with as many (meaningless) neurones as the brain!" It's the same disgust and denial at being biological animals that all religions foster. Thankfully here, I think, the religion has predictions. It predicts a self-driving car, a "fourth industrial revolution", and so on. When these fail to materialise, some sanity will return. (Of course they have already failed, the question is when in the next 5-10yrs people will realise.)
- michaelpb 5y ago
  > It's the same disgust and denial at being biological animals that all religions foster. Huh, I didn't think of it that way! Good point! I love history and a few weeks ago I read passage in a history book on a period in the early 19th century dominated by "American radicalism" (a liberal movement) and "transcendentalism" [1], when many hucksters and itinerant pastors profited off of the hype of industrialization. It immediately reminded me of the modern crypto / AI hype. In both cases, it actually is simply more smoke-and-mirrors to remove culpable human elements from a changing system --- by replacing it with "AI" and "crypto" (today), or the "invisible hand" and "radical self-reliance" (the 1820s-1830s US). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendentalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendentalism - and history "rhymed" 100 years later - https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1350508420910577 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/135050842091057... and I would argue that it "rhymes" once again today with Musk following in Ford's footsteps, although with perhaps less intent than Ford

mjburgess 5y ago

I agree. I have the same reactions to these guys as I did to religious zealots when I was a teenager; and later to "transhumanism". Alarm, disbelief, hostility. There is a new secular religion underneath this. "Uploading consciousness", "Aren't we all just data systems?", "We've built a neural network with as many (meaningless) neurones as the brain!" It's the same disgust and denial at being biological animals that all religions foster. Thankfully here, I think, the religion has predictions. It predicts a self-driving car, a "fourth industrial revolution", and so on. When these fail to materialise, some sanity will return. (Of course they have already failed, the question is when in the next 5-10yrs people will realise.)

michaelpb 5y ago
> It's the same disgust and denial at being biological animals that all religions foster. Huh, I didn't think of it that way! Good point! I love history and a few weeks ago I read passage in a history book on a period in the early 19th century dominated by "American radicalism" (a liberal movement) and "transcendentalism" [1], when many hucksters and itinerant pastors profited off of the hype of industrialization. It immediately reminded me of the modern crypto / AI hype. In both cases, it actually is simply more smoke-and-mirrors to remove culpable human elements from a changing system --- by replacing it with "AI" and "crypto" (today), or the "invisible hand" and "radical self-reliance" (the 1820s-1830s US). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendentalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendentalism - and history "rhymed" 100 years later - https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1350508420910577 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/135050842091057... and I would argue that it "rhymes" once again today with Musk following in Ford's footsteps, although with perhaps less intent than Ford