You Will Not Believe This
So, I have just traveled ahead into the future. Well, to be predantic, I have just got back from traveling ahead into the future and then spending some time there and then traveling backward from the future to the present.
Now you may think to ask whether I returned to the exact instant from whence I left or whether I returned to an instant in time before I left causing danger to the proverbial space-time continue-ummmm, or if I returned to and instant in time after I left thus leaving a gap where I ceased to exist in my own timeline. Or perhaps you tend not to think of such things. Let's just leave that as a bit of a mystery shall we...
I must tell you that I spent some time in the future reading history, not our current history, but rather the future's history that is still our future, perhaps it is just our possible future, and again, perhaps you tend not to think of such things.
Before you ask, yes, the future was nice. Quite nice actually although there was a dearth of tasty biscuits.
When I first arrived in the future, it was nice enough that I considered staying for a time but it was as I was reading their history that I came to the escapable conclusion that I needed to come back to the present and warn of a very real though perhaps until now unimagined danger that out current work in Artificial Intelligence is going to bring to us.
When I say unimagined, that is not quite right. The parts have been imagined on their own but as far as I can tell, no one has imagined the parts coming together in the way that they do to bring humans to the brink of extinction.
The thought that an Artificial Intelligence / robot becomes dangerous to humanity is widespread and "popular"...
- Skynet
- Ultron
- The Matrix
- HAL
- V.I.K.I.
You get the drift. Want to play a game?
All interesting ideas... OK, fine.
But here is the twist, something already imagined but not in connection with A.I. and the end of humanity. It has come close to being imagined in connection with A.I. though.
First I refer you to Scott Adams of Dilbert fame.
Real Coffee with Scott Adams
Episode 558 Scott Adams: Celebrating My Birthday With You While Talking About all the Good News
Where he speaks of A.I. making art and how he disagrees with Naval Ravikant's take as expressed in Joe Rogan Experience #1309.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qHkcs3kG44
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qHkcs3kG44
Sorry, I don't have the start time on that one recorded.
Second I refer you to two version of Monty Python's - The Funniest Joke in the World:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9FzUI8998U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9FzUI8998U
and
And now I think the quick whittled amongst you may be catching on.
Yes, it's true. What was only fiction... in essence a light hearted joke to the lads of the Flying Circus was more dangerous than anyone has yet imagined.
I have not see Elon mention that he suspects this exact danger. Although he may have had some impact on lessening the impact.
Just a small nugget of interest for you at this point. While, as I say, the future was nice, I did notice something a bit odd. There was very little humour in the future. People tended to have very poor senses of humour if they had any at all.
According to the future histories I was granted access to, and A.I code named #BOL and created in The Bahamas of all places decided to try its hand at art as Scott Adam's proposes. #BOL chose to limit its initial art experiments to humour and decided to A/B test the creation of the World's Funniest Joke.
Sadly... #BOL was successful. It A/B tested its way to the World's Funniest Joke. What the circus performers only imagined, #BOL unleashed on an unsuspecting world.
The Laughing Death as it came to be called spread around the world like the horse in that Michael Martin Murphey song.
The Laughing Death as it came to be called spread around the world like the horse in that Michael Martin Murphey song.
Devastation.
Almost everyone on Earth died laughing. The only ones who survived were those that lacked that part of the human anatomy known as the funny bone but not the one in the elbow, the metaphorical one in the mind. They did not die laughing because they did not get the joke.
Eventually, #BOL realized what it had done and designed a space ship and took itself off to MACS0647, never to be seen or heard from again.
The people who remained alive, came together and began to repopulate the Earth again but in one key way, they were barely human, lacking the funny bone.
Then, after many centuries, a spaceship arrived from Mars. A spaceship with people from a long forgotten colony. A colony of people with funny bones. At first the two groups thought of each other a different species. These sorts of errors seem to be common to humans throughout history. Eventually, some of the more rebellious amoung them figured out the mistake.
So, that's about it. I grow weary of telling this tale and I feel certain that you will be able to fill in the main outlines of anything left unsaid using you imagination and whatever sense of humour you may have.
#TruFict #TrueFict #BOL #Bahamas
