There was a time, not that long ago, when speech was proof of intelligence. Whales and dolphins had a special place in our hearts because they talked to each other. Now we have virtual assistants and Large Language artificial intelligences (AI) that can chat... but not think. Chomsky calls AI a "parlour game," referring to the automatons, the lifelike clockwork machines that were the rage of the drawing rooms of Paris a couple of centuries ago. To fool us into believing it is thinking ChatGPT requires enough electricity to power a small Californian town. To actually think the human brain uses about 15 watts.
You know that joke about the guy driving along in his car, who asks his phone:
"Alexa, where is the nearest pizza parlour?" His phone replies, "Who is Alexa?" "Oh, sorry," the man continues, "Siri, where is the nearest pizza parlour?" Siri replies, "Why don't you ask that bitch, Alexa?"
Fooling us was for decades the unattained gold-standard of computation. The ability to carry on a conversation where the computer could make the user believe that he was conversing with a human being, the Turing Test, was the long-standing challenge in the computer world. Recently met, the Turing Test is already a relic of the past, left in the dust. (Watch the major motion picture about Alan Turing, The Imitation Game.)
The American Psychological Association just filed a lawsuit against a company whose online chatbots pretend to be, and charge like, human therapists, violating existing laws that forbid acting as a mental health professional without proper licensing. I think that they should do a comparison of who gets better therapeutic results, the human therapist or the chatbots.
Of course, simulations are not a new phenomenon. Long before the internet, people were playing at life, pretending to live; maybe all the way back to the cave paintings at Lascaux.
Cinema has always been a fantasy world. Movies offer us an escape into an as-if world. As soon as we buy our ticket we suspend belief. Still, today, videos generated by AI have taken this make-believe to new heights.
I don't know about you, but I scroll past any content once I realize that it has been generated by artificial intelligence. It sometimes takes a moment to snap out of the spell. So gulled, I did linger over a video of toddlers paired up and walking along with (sometimes wild) animals. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/S0ymvUsYRyI) Maybe, on this, I just need more time; I've always been resistant to new technology. I used to be an antiquarian, and now I am an antique.
Regarding this imitation of life, there have been a lot of studies, and a lot written about how social networks, online pseudo-communities (Facebook, Tiktok...) play on our need for actual community: to have friends, to be liked...
I have a very intelligent, real-life friend, J, who is a biologist and an ardent environmentalist. He's highly articulate, a great writer. His writing focuses on the intricacies of plant chemistry, presenting those intricacies in a very poetic way.
J is of the same school as another friend of mine, Alyssa, a radical environmentalist, a violinist I dated for seven years. (I am sure that the NSA collects your information every time someone visits this page, but, if you dare, click Derrick Jensen.) I myself have some environmental bona fides: Alyssa paid me the compliment, "You are the most ecological person I know."
But as partial as I am to poetry and environmentalism, I can't publish J's writings. People have enough trouble with poetry, let alone poetic chemistry.
I have asked J repeatedly to make himself better understood, to write for Lokkal, but he hasn't yet brought his lofty ideas down to the ground, which is a shame, because they would greatly fertilize the soil.
My violinist also didn't have her feet on the ground, spending 10-14 hours each day practicing, playing, "communing with the spirit of Bach," while refusing career offers from Eugene Drucker (the Emerson String Quartet), Yitzchak Perleman and Mark O'Connor.
J is a crusader for life. But his crusade is more than a bit Quixotic, as if the life he is crusading for is on another planet, in an ideal dimension, in a world of his own. I believe he does have the answers, but he's not explaining those very well. Having been granted some access to his private world, I attest, it is a wondrous place. But for now, unless and until he comes down to Earth, you'll have to take my word for it.
Years ago I read a relevant critique, "Posting images of needy children on your Facebook account might make you feel good, but it does not help needy children." As Diogenes said about masturbation, "I only wish that rubbing my stomach would alleviate my hunger."
When it comes to imagining themselves as warriors for one cause or another, a lot of people are imitating reality, posting on Facebook, rubbing their anatomy.
Me, I'm very earthy, in the trenches, dug in, working day and night. Mr Practicality, I've stumbled upon the configuration that is going to set everything right. The intelligent, active community we have right here in San Miguel is what the world needs generally.
Forget Biden, Obama, Trump, Harris... I'm sorry, but besides making you feel good, all your posts on Big Tech platforms don't make a bit of difference. They make you feel righteous, but, in the real world, they don't change anything. Grassroots community organizing does. It always has.
Lokkal, a local social network, like Facebook or Instagram, but (for now) just for San Miguel, is a platform that facilitates community organizing. Lokkal, a digital town square, like the Yellow Pages reborn for the new millenia, makes it easy to connect, to come together: Building Community, Strengthening the Local Economy.
Facebook, Instagram, Google, Tiktok... are all agents of totalitarian globalism, telling us what to view and think. Lokkal is localism, democratic, of, by and for the people. Getting involved is as easy as joining. Press the top right Start button to make a page and post or, even easier, press the donate button below.
Make a real difference in the world. Everything depends on it.
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Dr. David Fialkoff presents Lokkal, our local social network, the community online and off, Atención robustly reborn for the digital age. If you can, please do contribute content, or your hard-earned cash, to support Lokkal, SMA's Voice. Use the orange, Paypal donate button below. Thank you.
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