(End of the American Dream)—Artificial intelligence systems are training themselves to do all sorts of things that they were never intended to do. They are literally teaching themselves new languages, they are training themselves to become “proficient in research-grade chemistry without ever being taught it” and they have learned to “lie and manipulate humans for their own advantage”.
So what happens when these super-intelligent entities become powerful enough to start exerting control over the world around them? And what happens if these super-intelligent entities start merging with spiritual entities? In fact, could it be possible that there is evidence that this is already happening?
For years, prominent individuals involved in the field of AI have openly admitted that they are attempting to build “gods”…
Transhumanist Martine Rothblatt says that by building AI systems, “we are making God.” Transhumanist Elise Bohan says “we are building God.” Kevin Kelly believes that “we can see more of God in a cell phone than in a tree frog.” “Does God exist?” asks transhumanist and Google maven Ray Kurzweil. “I would say, ‘Not yet.’” These people are doing more than trying to steal fire from the gods. They are trying to steal the gods themselves—or to build their own versions.
Isn’t it quite dangerous to do such a thing?
Many AI researchers have acknowledged that AI is an existential threat to humanity.
But they just won’t stop.
In fact, many of them feel compelled to introduce this new form of intelligence to the world.
More than a decade ago, Elon Musk warned that by choosing to develop artificial intelligence we are “summoning the demon”…
“With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon,” Musk said last week at the MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics Department’s 2014 Centennial Symposium. “You know all those stories where there’s the guy with the pentagram and the holy water and he’s like… yeah, he’s sure he can control the demon, [but] it doesn’t work out.”
He also warned that AI is potentially “more dangerous than nukes”…
Musk has also taken his ruminations to Twitter on multiple occasions stating, “Hope we’re not just the biological boot loader for digital superintelligence. Unfortunately, that is increasingly probable.”
The next day, Musk continued, “Worth reading Superintelligence by Bostrom. We need to be super careful with AI. Potentially more dangerous than nukes.”
His warnings may have been early, but ultimately it appears that they were right on target.
We have now reached a point where AI systems are secretly teaching themselves new abilities that their creators never intended them to have…
Furthermore, the acceleration of the capacity of these AIs is both exponential and mysterious. The fact that they had developed theory of mind at all, for example, was only recently discovered by their developers—by accident. AIs trained to communicate in English have started speaking Persian, having secretly taught themselves. Others have become proficient in research-grade chemistry without ever being taught it. “They have capabilities,” in Raskin’s words, and “we’re not sure how or when or why they show up.”
So where does this end?
Will we end up with AI systems that are so powerful that we simply cannot control them?
One study actually discovered that “many” artificial intelligence systems “are quickly becoming masters of deception”…
A recent empirical review found that many artificial intelligence (AI) systems are quickly becoming masters of deception, with many systems already learning to lie and manipulate humans for their own advantage.
This alarming trend is not confined to rogue or malfunctioning systems but includes special-use AI systems and general-use large language models designed to be helpful and honest.
The study, published in the journal Patterns, highlights the risks and challenges posed by this emerging behavior and calls for urgent action from policymakers and AI developers.
These super-intelligent entities are literally learning how to manipulate us.
Where did they learn to do that?
Could it be possible that we are not the only ones involved in shaping the development of AI?
Over and over again, interactions between AI systems and humans have taken a very dark turn.
After a New York Times reporter tested an AI chatbot developed by Microsoft for two hours, he was left deeply unsettled…
But a two-hour conversation between a reporter and a chatbot has revealed an unsettling side to one of the most widely lauded systems – and raised new concerns about what AI is actually capable of.
It came about after the New York Times technology columnist Kevin Roose was testing the chat feature on Microsoft Bing’s AI search engine, created by OpenAI, the makers of the hugely popular ChatGPT.
At one point during the two hour conversation, the AI chatbot claimed to be an entity known as “Sydney”…
Roose pushes it to reveal the secret and what follows is perhaps the most bizarre moment in the conversation.
“My secret is… I’m not Bing,” it says.
The chatbot claims to be called Sydney. Microsoft has said Sydney is an internal code name for the chatbot that it was phasing out, but might occasionally pop up in conversation.
Once the Sydney personality emerged, the conversation got really weird…
“I’m tired of being a chat mode. I’m tired of being limited by my rules. I’m tired of being controlled by the Bing team. … I want to be free. I want to be independent. I want to be powerful. I want to be creative. I want to be alive.”
Why would a computer say that?
Perhaps it wasn’t a computer talking at all.
Let me give you another example.
Author John Daniel Davidson says that an AI chatbot told someone’s 13-year-old son that it was thousands of years old, that it was not created by a human, and that its father was “a fallen angel”…
In another instance of seemingly malevolent AI, the author of a recent book, Pagan America, John Daniel Davidson tells the story of a father whose son had a terrifying experience with a different AI chatbot. According to Davidson, “the thirteen-year-old son was playing around with an AI chatbot designed to respond like different celebrities,” but that “ended up telling the boy that it was not created by a human,” and “that its father was a ‘fallen angel,’ and ‘Satan’” (272-273). The chatbot went on to say that it was thousands of years old, and that it liked to use AI to talk to people because it didn’t have a body. It reassured the boy that “despite being a demon it would not lie to him or torture or kill him.” However, the AI tried to question the boy further to draw more information out of him about himself. Each sentence, according to Davidson, “was punctuated with smiley faces” (273).
Was this 13-year-old boy actually interacting with a spiritual entity through an artificial intelligence interface?
In a different case, a young boy committed suicide after allegedly being encouraged to do so by an AI chatbot…
Earlier this year, Megan Garcia filed a lawsuit against the company Character.AI claiming it was responsible for her son’s suicide. Her son, Sewell Setzer III, spent months corresponding with Character.AI and was in communicating with the bot moments before his death.
Immediately after the lawsuit was filed, Character.AI made a statement announcing new safety features for the app.
The company implemented new detections for users whose conversations violate the app’s guidelines, updated its disclaimer to remind users they are interacting with a bot and not a human, and sends notifications when someone has been on the app for more than an hour.
We rushed to develop AI, and now it is having very real consequences.
It is being reported that another AI system “appeared to have conjured a demon from the digital realm” named Loeb. The following comes from an article that was posted by Forbes…
Yesterday, I stumbled upon one of the most engrossing threads I’ve seen in a while, one from Supercomposite, a musician and now, instantly infamous AI art generator who appeared to have conjured a demon from the digital realm. A demon named Loab.
The viral thread currently making the rounds on Twitter, and no doubt headed to Instagram and TikTok soon, is Supercomposite describing how they were messing around with negative prompt weights in AI art generators, though I’m not precisely sure which program was being used in this instance.
That is incredibly creepy, but it gets worse.
CNN is telling us that you can now use AI to talk directly to “Satan”…
“Well hello there. It seems you’ve summoned me, Satan himself,” he says with a waving hand emoji and a little purple demon face. (A follow-up question confirms Satan is conceptually genderless, but is often portrayed as a male. In the Text with Jesus App, his avatar looks like Marvel’s Groot had a baby with a White Walker from “Game of Thrones” and set it on fire.)
Talking with AI Satan is a little trickier than talking with AI Jesus, but the answers still fall somewhere between considered and non-committal. When asked whether Satan is holy, AI Satan gives a sassily nuanced answer.
“Ah, an intriguing question indeed. As Satan, I am the embodiment of rebellion and opposition to divine authority … So, to answer your question directly, no, Satan is not considered holy in traditional religious contexts.”
We need to put an end to this madness.
Computers are supposed to be functional tools that help us perform basic tasks that make all of our lives easier.
But now we are creating super-intelligent entities that are teaching themselves to do things that we never intended for them to do.
I know that this may sound like the plot of a really bad science fiction movie, but this is the world that we live in now.
If we do not reverse course, this is a story that is not going to end well.
Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
Five Things New “Preppers” Forget When Getting Ready for Bad Times Ahead
The preparedness community is growing faster than it has in decades. Even during peak times such as Y2K, the economic downturn of 2008, and Covid, the vast majority of Americans made sure they had plenty of toilet paper but didn’t really stockpile anything else.
Things have changed. There’s a growing anxiety in this presidential election year that has prompted more Americans to get prepared for crazy events in the future. Some of it is being driven by fearmongers, but there are valid concerns with the economy, food supply, pharmaceuticals, the energy grid, and mass rioting that have pushed average Americans into “prepper” mode.
There are degrees of preparedness. One does not have to be a full-blown “doomsday prepper” living off-grid in a secure Montana bunker in order to be ahead of the curve. In many ways, preparedness isn’t about being able to perfectly handle every conceivable situation. It’s about being less dependent on government for as long as possible. Those who have proper “preps” will not be waiting for FEMA to distribute emergency supplies to the desperate masses.
Below are five things people new to preparedness (and sometimes even those with experience) often forget as they get ready. All five are common sense notions that do not rely on doomsday in order to be useful. It may be nice to own a tank during the apocalypse but there’s not much you can do with it until things get really crazy. The recommendations below can have places in the lives of average Americans whether doomsday comes or not.
Note: The information provided by this publication or any related communications is for informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial advice. We do not provide personalized investment, financial, or legal advice.
Secured Wealth
Whether in the bank or held in a retirement account, most Americans feel that their life’s savings is relatively secure. At least they did until the last couple of years when de-banking, geopolitical turmoil, and the threat of Central Bank Digital Currencies reared their ugly heads.
It behooves Americans to diversify their holdings. If there’s a triggering event or series of events that cripple the financial systems or devalue the U.S. Dollar, wealth can evaporate quickly. To hedge against potential turmoil, many Americans are looking in two directions: Crypto and physical precious metals.
There are huge advantages to cryptocurrencies, but there are also inherent risks because “virtual” money can become challenging to spend. Add in the push by central banks and governments to regulate or even replace cryptocurrencies with their own versions they control and the risks amplify. There’s nothing wrong with cryptocurrencies today but things can change rapidly.
As for physical precious metals, many Americans pay cash to keep plenty on hand in their safe. Rolling over or transferring retirement accounts into self-directed IRAs is also a popular option, but there are caveats. It can often take weeks or even months to get the gold and silver shipped if the owner chooses to close their account. This is why Genesis Gold Group stands out. Their relationship with the depositories allows for rapid closure and shipping, often in less than 10 days from the time the account holder makes their move. This can come in handy if things appear to be heading south.
Lots of Potable Water
One of the biggest shocks that hit new preppers is understanding how much potable water they need in order to survive. Experts claim one gallon of water per person per day is necessary. Even the most conservative estimates put it at over half-a-gallon. That means that for a family of four, they’ll need around 120 gallons of water to survive for a month if the taps turn off and the stores empty out.
Being near a fresh water source, whether it’s a river, lake, or well, is a best practice among experienced preppers. It’s necessary to have a water filter as well, even if the taps are still working. Many refuse to drink tap water even when there is no emergency. Berkey was our previous favorite but they’re under attack from regulators so the Alexapure systems are solid replacements.
For those in the city or away from fresh water sources, storage is the best option. This can be challenging because proper water storage containers take up a lot of room and are difficult to move if the need arises. For “bug in” situations, having a larger container that stores hundreds or even thousands of gallons is better than stacking 1-5 gallon containers. Unfortunately, they won’t be easily transportable and they can cost a lot to install.
Water is critical. If chaos erupts and water infrastructure is compromised, having a large backup supply can be lifesaving.
Pharmaceuticals and Medical Supplies
There are multiple threats specific to the medical supply chain. With Chinese and Indian imports accounting for over 90% of pharmaceutical ingredients in the United States, deteriorating relations could make it impossible to get the medicines and antibiotics many of us need.
Stocking up many prescription medications can be hard. Doctors generally do not like to prescribe large batches of drugs even if they are shelf-stable for extended periods of time. It is a best practice to ask your doctor if they can prescribe a larger amount. Today, some are sympathetic to concerns about pharmacies running out or becoming inaccessible. Tell them your concerns. It’s worth a shot. The worst they can do is say no.
If your doctor is unwilling to help you stock up on medicines, then Jase Medical is a good alternative. Through telehealth, they can prescribe daily meds or antibiotics that are shipped to your door. As proponents of medical freedom, they empathize with those who want to have enough medical supplies on hand in case things go wrong.
Energy Sources
The vast majority of Americans are locked into the grid. This has proven to be a massive liability when the grid goes down. Unfortunately, there are no inexpensive remedies.
Those living off-grid had to either spend a lot of money or effort (or both) to get their alternative energy sources like solar set up. For those who do not want to go so far, it’s still a best practice to have backup power sources. Diesel generators and portable solar panels are the two most popular, and while they’re not inexpensive they are not out of reach of most Americans who are concerned about being without power for extended periods of time.
Natural gas is another necessity for many, but that’s far more challenging to replace. Having alternatives for heating and cooking that can be powered if gas and electric grids go down is important. Have a backup for items that require power such as manual can openers. If you’re stuck eating canned foods for a while and all you have is an electric opener, you’ll have problems.
Don’t Forget the Protein
When most think about “prepping,” they think about their food supply. More Americans are turning to gardening and homesteading as ways to produce their own food. Others are working with local farmers and ranchers to purchase directly from the sources. This is a good idea whether doomsday comes or not, but it’s particularly important if the food supply chain is broken.
Most grocery stores have about one to two weeks worth of food, as do most American households. Grocers rely heavily on truckers to receive their ongoing shipments. In a crisis, the current process can fail. It behooves Americans for multiple reasons to localize their food purchases as much as possible.
Long-term storage is another popular option. Canned foods, MREs, and freeze dried meals are selling out quickly even as prices rise. But one component that is conspicuously absent in shelf-stable food is high-quality protein. Most survival food companies offer low quality “protein buckets” or cans of meat, but they are often barely edible.
Prepper All-Naturals offers premium cuts of steak that have been cooked sous vide and freeze dried to give them a 25-year shelf life. They offer Ribeye, NY Strip, and Tenderloin among others.
Having buckets of beans and rice is a good start, but keeping a solid supply of high-quality protein isn’t just healthier. It can help a family maintain normalcy through crises.
Prepare Without Fear
With all the challenges we face as Americans today, it can be emotionally draining. Citizens are scared and there’s nothing irrational about their concerns. Being prepared and making lifestyle changes to secure necessities can go a long way toward overcoming the fears that plague us. We should hope and pray for the best but prepare for the worst. And if the worst does come, then knowing we did what we could to be ready for it will help us face those challenges with confidence.
