The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

On the Luddite South End we don’t have an AI server station. Not yet anyway. Probably because our electrical grid isn’t up to the demands these data centers need. Or the vast amounts of water necessary to cool them down. One of these tech centers would require our entire aquifer. Or else the Tech Boyz could desalinate the Salish Sea nearby and cool their miles of circuits. Course the desal plant would need all the power of the entire island and maybe Stanwoodopolis too, much less the electricity to run the computers, but so far they’re content to put their server farms off island, okay by us.

You probably already know this (but I sure didn’t), AI runs these ‘farms’ partly to teach other AI’s, basically a kindergarten for young ChapGPT’s, but with a fast learning curve, say a few days or maybe even a week, then they can graduate with PhD’s in various specialties. They’re dumb as rocks to begin with, dumb as most of me and most of my cronies down here when we’ve been drinking, but quick as you can say check and mate, they’ve learned languages, mathematics, calculus, spam writing, videography, history, maybe even what we homo sapiens taste like. Me and my buddies, even sober, couldn’t learn one millionth what they learn in hours or days. Obviously they don’t drink. Yet. Probably shouldn’t give androids taste buds, although I’m betting they’ll develop curiosities and plenty of our bad habits. Woe unto them!

A good percentage of us, even us South Enders, are using AI already — and it’s just taking baby steps. Better than Google searches according to the Flatheads who use it for repair diagnostics and after market parts searches. If the car guyz are hooked on advanced search engines, believe me, we’re all doomed. Every cute kitty video ever made will be at your beck and call. All the kids growing up with AI on their smarty pants phones, they’ll be the first to snap up android friends, robot teachers, probably cyborg parents too. Why not? We made a mess of this world, give the droids a shot. Let’s face it, the Pied Piper is coming.

While I’ve been rehabbing my new titanium knee replacement, I’ve been reading a lot. Currently I’m reading ‘Careless People’, tell-all from one of the insiders back when Facebook was just getting started. If you aren’t already totally cynical about social media and the demise of democracy, this will darken your day … and any sunny expectations for the future.

These people, Zuckerberg and his very few cohorts, were setting up an internet connection service. You know, stay in touch with your friends and family, maybe your co-workers, all in pursuit of open communication. But as usual, like Dylan said, ‘until greed got in the way.’ Greed and power and egoes. Turns out you can make a lot more profit if you provide misinformation, bot fake news and click bait. You can also swing elections. Not just in third wold countries but right here in the Yew Ess Aye.

I suspect Facebook is no different than Twitter or X, the Washington Post under Bezos, Google, Microsoft, all these tech boyz with socially stunted personalities still playing video games but now the riches yahoos on earth. Adolescent geniuses who now rule the world, who control the strings of power, who mostly want more More MORE, damn the cost to society. Atlas Shrugged — bow down to the captains of industry, the job creators, the developers of Artificial Intelligence. They avoid taxes, they have no loyalty to nations, they’re above the laws of mere mortals.

Back here on earth, I live across the road from Microsoft’s head of AI. Helluva nice guy. The other morning I heard him interviewed on NPR, talking about the positives of AI, how it could create a better battery six times faster than us humans, maybe not me, which would be 1000 times faster. Plenty of folks working for these companies would tell you they’re creating a better world, a connected world, curing diseases, eliminating drudge work, dreaming the future. They’ve got their hands on the throttle. And their boot on our necks. Us mere humans don’t stand a chance.