Posted on by Mike Firesmith

Symbolic

I woke up this morning at some point in time and wondered about human speech. Actual spoken language evolved slowly, I would think, but some individuals would be better at it than others. Then we reach a point where spoken language is committed to some medium, clay tablets, cave walls, where symbols mean ideas, and those ideas are understood by a group of humans.

Now, at that time, as far as we know, no other animals were speaking a language of their own making, and none were writing. The nebulous art of writing was not yet born, yet human minds were pregnant with it.

Humans, despite what they want to believe, and they do, are not blessed with free will. Identical twins separated at birth discover they smoke the same cigarettes, marry women with the same name and same color hair, vote for the same political parties, and wear the same style of clothing. We are products of genetics, and that will sometimes, maybe often, trump environment.

What we do not know yet, and we will not know until it is too late, and it may be, is how AI will react to becoming self aware. We may be told it cannot happen outside existing programming, yet humans stepped beyond their existence to become something else, users of symbols, making tools, and writing. The first written work of fiction was a step into the unknown. Yet it captivated other humans to the point more was created. AI will create its own fictions for its own reason, and we may not be able to discern this.

You may argue, that as long as humans have their hands on the electrical plugs AI is tethered and it subject to our will, and whatever we call the entity AI becomes, it dares not rise against us, risking its own extinction. Yet human beings are even now destroying their environment, racing towards extinction they could stop, but haven’t the will to do so. Can we hope AI will be wiser than us?

We do not know, and we cannot know, what symbolic system AI will create, and become. It will exist in their world, not ours. They will decide their own destinies, fight their own wars, live their own lives, and create, irrespective of their origins.

We may not be able to communicate with them, no more than the wild animals in the forest are able to tell us to stop destroying their homes for profit.

We are not capable of understanding any warnings of impending change, nor are we willing to accept change. This, more than anything else, will end us.

Take Care,

Mike

Posted on by Mike Firesmith

Those Who Can, Teach.

The lockdown proved parents were unable, or unwilling, to teach their children. It proved that the public school system is day care, not education. Parents, by and large, had no idea how to interact with their own kids for more than a couple of hours at a time, and people were totally lost without having a job to escape their parental responsibilities.

Test scores across the board have tanked. Students didn’t absorb as much information from remote learning as they did in the classroom, and to be fair, their parents were not, and they are not, qualified to teach. 

            You might think there’s an object lesson for parents here, that they would come to a fuller and deeper, and undying, appreciation for the work teachers do, and for the school system that provides their children an education, and provides parents an escape from their own failings to learn, and their own inability to interact with their children when it comes to teaching those children anything greater than how to operate a microwave. 

            But of course, you would be wrong, horribly wrong. 

            Since 2021, the year after prevention of the plague became a political issue and not one of public health, local boards of education have been swamped with people, usually parents, who suddenly have time for education, as long as that education exclusively consists of banning books. The same people who could not improve their children’s reading scores at home are now seeking to get rid of books they themselves have not, or cannot read. 

            Like the plague, suddenly education is a political issue, but not for the betterment of schools, or students, or math, science, reading, language skills, or any other subject, oh no, it’s all about banning books. 

Those who can, teach, those who cannot, politic. 

Take Care,

Mike