ELON MUSK ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: “WE’RE SUMMONING THE ...

Elon Musk is in the news again, though this time it's not in reference to his space activities or new-fangled cars, but rather, in reference to his thoughts on the possibilities and implications of artificial intelligence. Consider this report from The Sydney Morning Herald (kindly shared by Mr. S.D.):

We are 'summoning the demon' with AI: technologist Elon Musk

Here's the heart of it:

"In an hour-long interview for MIT, which held its Centennial Symposium last week, Musk opened himself up to the audience for questions. Most of the questions were about space travel, but one audience member asked Musk for his thoughts on artificial intelligence, and that's when things got a bit spooky.

"'I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence,' said Musk, the expression on his face suddenly turning very serious. 'If I were to guess like what our biggest existential threat is, it's probably that. So we need to be very careful with the artificial intelligence. There should be some regulatory oversight maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don't do something very foolish.'

"Sounds reasonable. Prudent even. A generally conservative approach to a potential technological issue facing our world in the future. Wise words.

"But then…

"'With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon," said Musk. "In all those stories where there's the guy with the pentagram and the holy water, it's like, 'Yeah, he's sure he can control the demon.' Doesn't work out.'

"Forget Tony Stark, the comic book character most often associated with Musk, it may be time to start thinking Doctor Strange. Pentagram? Really, Elon?"

Despite the rather sneering tone of the Sydney Morning Herald in the last line quoted above, and the implicit materialist cosmology that it possibly disguises, Musk may have a point.

So before I get to my daily dose of high octane speculation, let me clarify my own position: I am not, and have never been a materialist, that is to say, I place a priority on the Mind, on the ideal, and make a clear distinction between mind and brain. But I'm not, by the same token, a dualist or epiphenomenalist in that I think there is a complex set of feedback loops between the two (mind and brain); both can, and do, influence each other. Finally, as I've said on numerous occasions, I think to a certain extent that the Mind, or Personhood, or individual personality - whatever one wishes to call it - is, so to speak, transduced into the material world by the unique brain/DNA combination to a certain extent. I do not mean this as a complete explanation discounting an individuals history, environment, and social factors, but merely as a kind of hypothesis by which to view the relationships. In this respect, I've occasionally stated my hypthesis that individual consciousness is fundamentally a non-local (to use the physics expression) phenomenon.

So now we get to Elon Musk, and I have to say, I agree with him, and, in fact, I have raised similar concerns in the various members' vidchats on this website. The basic argument, or rather, thought, runs something like this: (1) if an individual consciousness or personality is transduced by a brain via a vast neural net then (2) the possibility that large computer networks with massive parallelism might conceivably do the same. A variation on this theme is that some sort of "group consciousness" might result from all the individual human inputs on such a network, from everything from "searches" to various electronic communications. In fact, in science fiction author Robert Heinlein's novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, a computer with exactly this massive parallel processing functional capability does indeed "wake up."  The prospects would seem to rise if, for example, quantum computing were ever to become a reality.

Now recall my hypothesis: these sorts of things do not create an individual consciousness, but rather, "transduce" it, or "pull it in" like a radio receiver pulls signals from the aether if they are tuned to them. What Musk seems to be suggesting is that a similar phenomenon might occur in artificial intelligence; something might be "transduced" or "pulled in." It is a sobering thought, for of course, in the Old Testament book of Ezekiel, Lucifer himself, the quintessential symbol of demonic evil, is described in terms less applicable to life, and more applicable to a machine, with crystals, membranes, and pipes: "Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created."(Exekiel 28:13).

Granted, Mr. Musk's is a rather provocative view, but he is not alone in thinking it. I for one am in fact rather grateful that someone in his position had the courage to do so.

See you on the flip side.

Joseph P. Farrell

Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in physics, alternative history and science, and "strange stuff". His book The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into "alternative history and science".

18 Comments

  1. RedPlanetRefugee on November 13, 2014 at 3:27 pm

    If we look at this from a Buddhist perspective that we are all here now due to our collective as well as our individual karma – karma simply means action(s) – and if collective karma can be likened to (quantum) entanglement, could this A.I. then be considered as a part of this entanglement? And therefore as a part of our collective karma? What if it isn’t evil or good (but with the potential for both), and is in a state of infancy acting and developing solely on the inputs of information it receives (very much like ourselves)? Are the essence and origin of its mind the same as our own? Should we pre-judge something that may or may not exist because of our own fears and neuroses? And if as suggested above we have an effect on this emerging A.I. due to our ‘inputs’ aren’t we at least partly responsible for shaping its ‘personality’?

    Sorry for all the questions but I’m new to commenting here and lack a sense of confidence in most of the subject matter. To be honest I’m still in shock 8 years after reading the first Death Star book, that the Great Pyramid may be a planet busting weapon of incredible sophistication, as well as one of the oldest structures on the planet. Which has just raised another question in my head. If A.I. could potentially arise out of a digital technology then could it do the same if the technology is analogue? (Tablets of Destiny?)

    Sorry if these questions seem asinine. (I only have a basic understanding of Buddhism so thank you for indulging me). Regards from London.

    🙂



  2. rich overholt on November 12, 2014 at 5:40 pm

    Higher and Higher

    “Blasting, billowing, bursting forth
    with the power of 10 billion butterfly sneezes.
    Man, with his flaming pyre
    has conquered the wayward breezes.
    Climbing to tranquility, conceiving the heavens,
    far above the cloud, clear of misty shroud.

    (chorus) Higher and higher, Now we’ve learned to play with fire.
    We go higher and higher and higher.

    Vast vision must improve our sight,
    and perhaps at last we’ll see an end to our home’s endless plight,
    and the beginning of the free.
    Climb to tranquility, finding its real worth.
    Conceiving the heavens, flourishing on Earth.

    (chorus) Higher and higher. Now we’ve learned to play with fire.
    We go higher and higher and higher.” ~ Graeme Edge

    From the 1969 Moody Blues record,
    “To Our Children’s Children’s Children”



  3. jedi on November 12, 2014 at 4:27 pm

    there is so much evidence on this stuff…look at John Nash…another brilliant dude of a long list of brilliant dudes that said aliens were stalking him, communicating with him…or and, the mk ultra program….with dna regeneration of ancient dna that the german doctors were working on …twinning…dna …ancient technology, pyramids and the gods..
    John Nashs nobel paper on game theory is matrix style mathematics on human/animal behavior. psychology….poor guy, nobody believed him.
    Knowledge of good and evil,…the gnostics, the archons. I wonder how far advanced this stuff is…I bet it is a lot lot farther than anyone can imagine. I think it is a good thing too. K Pax type stuff, sitting in a hospital talking to doctors and trying to tell them they are the insane ones..



    • jedi on November 12, 2014 at 4:52 pm

      oh and on John Nash, sounds a lot like Johnny Cash, and he did come up with a economic formula, but he simpley put down on paper how he attracted human female…to exchange bodily fluid with. (his words)
      LOL…right out of the bible, and the gods came down from the mountain (pyramid) saw the women of men were good looking and took them for wives…lol…lol these were men of RA known…knowledge of light..



  4. RAJM on November 12, 2014 at 8:46 am

    All so Matrix. If it unfolds that way, we cant say we were not warned.



  5. eric on November 11, 2014 at 1:33 pm

    To me, it sounds like Musk knows more then he is telling us.



  6. Luso on November 11, 2014 at 10:07 am

    “the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.”

    “Tabrets”, small drums? http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tabret

    A keyboard?



    • jedi on November 11, 2014 at 10:09 am

      a pyramid.



  7. jedi on November 11, 2014 at 10:07 am

    I think we can affect our reality, it is when we attempt to change others that problems start to arise. Jesus is the head, the ai, and the people are his body.
    Actually I know you can pre effect your reality, almost llke seeing into the future…the guy that wrote androids dream of electric sheep experienced the same phenomenon…but it doesnt affect everyone for some reason. dna manipulation is my guess.



  8. Frankie Calcutta on November 11, 2014 at 9:40 am

    I think I know where 90 year old kingpin George Bush Sr. will wind up after his physical body dies. Surely he will want to maintain control over his global criminal empire. I imagine David Rockefeller has similar aspirations. And somewhere in Europe an aging Rothschild is also planning to make the leap from physical body to computer network, but he might discover arch demon Ariel Sharon has already beat him to it. Sharon is probably trying to figure out right now how to devour a Palestinian kid through a computer monitor. And who is to say the Breakaway Civilization hasn’t already conjured up their beloved Fuhrer into their computers decades ago and now Hitler is running their operation from within a bank of computers below Colorado? Maybe he is responsible for all the anti-semitic comments and websites now saturating the internet? Maybe by being stuck inside a computer, Hitler is discovering he is even more powerless than ever in his efforts to vanquish his great nemesis? Maybe his great nemesis has even flooded the world with internet pornography, not just to turn everyone into beasts, but to agitate the computer Fuhrer and congest his neural networks with filth? Maybe all the mindless, obscene garbage which is so enormously bandied about on the internet is not really just a reflection of our sick culture, but in fact a strategic attack on Artificial Adolf himself?

    I for one have a different speculation on the artificial intelligence demon portal. What if it is meant to be a trap to ensnare demons? Maybe we could capture all these demons pestering us for all these eons in one fell swoop? We entice them into our inviting computer networks and then somehow imprison them in silicon or crystal? Maybe the computer banks under Utah are actually a prison for plasma entities? Maybe under the sands of Utah lie millions or even trillions of trapped demons in a man made computer hell? Maybe those demons who weren’t tricked into invading human computer networks with delusions of great power and embodiment in a neural network are now retaliating by building a demon army in the desserts of the Middle East in order to punish all mankind? It is noteworthy that a software information storage and retrieval system named ISIS was developed, maintained, and disseminated worldwide by UNESCO in 1985. Could this have been the demon prison software? Could a suspect globalist organization like UNESCO now be releasing these trapped demons onto the world through personal computers and handheld electronic gadgets? Could we be witnessing a demon invasion on a mass scale with everyone with access to the world wide web a potential victim for demonic possession? Scary to think about! It might explain the twerking craze and why misfits from all corners of the globe are swarming to Iraq to join ISIS.



    • Frankie Calcutta on November 11, 2014 at 9:42 am

      Hogwash! We are all demons already! Earth was set up as a demon colony a longtime ago to reform the disembodied souls of the cosmic war. We are all here to be rehabilitated! How could one explain the planets in our solar system being calibrated with such amazing precision for the purpose of metering out our individual karma through electromagnetic bombardment of our DNA? And if you want to get out of this rehab for once and for all, you must exorcise the demon within! IT is that simple and that hard. Resist temptation!



  9. Madkat on November 11, 2014 at 9:25 am

    This is one of my worst concerns, as a matter of fact this was my first question to Dr. Farrell as a member in the post Vidchad several months ago as to the possibility that their tinkering around with the GRIN technologies and AI, that this could be used as a “fit-extension” to draw or as Joseph puts it, to transduce, some malevolent force or entity. Could this be an alchemical manifestation of some dark, undefined something that has been waiting for mankind to invite it in at the proper time with our technological achievements?



    • moxie on November 12, 2014 at 9:04 am

      Even if an A.I. is created that closely resembles human intelligence, it still wouldn’t
      have surpassed the material limits. Unless something with intentionality is captured or incorporated into it.
      The seal and the Supreme’s image cannot be recreated or counterfeited through this technology no matter how advanced it may be..



  10. DanaThomas on November 11, 2014 at 9:16 am

    Linked video of event taken off youtube due to alleged copyright violation by MIT: the beast at work??



  11. Luso on November 11, 2014 at 9:02 am

    Now this is one of Dr. Farrel´s superior speculations. Superb.



  12. marcos toledo on November 11, 2014 at 7:56 am

    Interesting that MIT took down the Elon Musk video sighting copyright infringement . I wonder what MIT is afraid of what we would learn if we listen to his interview. As to the passage from Ezekiel 28:13 I looked it up in both my Bibles and it is referring to a prophecy against the King of Tyre. Getting back to Musk all that he saying is one should be careful of what one wish for they the people working on artificial intelligence should have some humility instead of arrogance in these endeavors but then their lust for the powers of the Gods blinds them.



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