Before I get started on the topic for this week’s episode I want to apologize to my loyal listeners for being a week behind. This month has been one giant roller coaster with sudden drops, rapid rises, spins, going upside down, off the track, high speed, dead stops and everything in between. I feel emotionally numb at this point. I am drained. I wanted to just get an episode out last week, but I really didn’t like the episode I did on the road without my microphone and didn’t like sacrificing the quality of it. I have had to travel a lot recently on a day’s notice which has pushed me even more to get a laptop so that I can be more mobile.

But yea, I had to go to a funeral last week, it was all very sudden and very unexpected so I had to adjust accordingly the best way I could. I really do love doing this podcast and want to stay committed to it, just last week broke me down in so many ways, I had to just survive and advance with really the bare minimum. I also have to work to keep the lights on and to keep a roof over my head, and currently as I sit here working on this podcast, episode 13, I am not being paid to do this podcast, it is out of pure passion, which is great for the soul, but not in terms of paying bills, at least for the moment.

Given that, we have gone through some turbulence and am still here to talk about it. That speech I gave at the funeral was the most difficult public speech I have had to do. It was a room full of people, must have been over 100 people, many of whom I did not know as my uncle knew a lot of people. But I had to stand in front of them and be completely vulnerable. Allow myself to cry and to let out how I felt about someone who had helped me tremendously in my life. I did devote the previous episode to him and won’t get too much into right now, as I need an emotional break right now. It’s really hard to be that emotional for an extended period of time and talking with others who are then dealing with a similar grief, it drains a lot out of you, then you add the stress of everyday life, work, technological problems, plus we are moving to NYC which is happening over the next couple of weeks, we have movers scheduled to help with the big stuff and look to get that all done in one day.

So yea, a lot going on. Everything, Everywhere, all at once. Like I truly didn’t know the phrase, it’s all happening meant, IT'S ALL HAPPENING!

But it is in times like these, these stressful times that actually pushes me more into my work as I want to get lost in it, I want to escape reality a bit and dive all the way in.

It’s why I started to write. To escape reality. Reality, what is it? Living and dreams, what is in between?

 

Now I want to get into the topic that has really been occupying my mind that past few months and one that I have written and read about extensively over the past decade and with the rapid rise of new technology this year, has made me want to revisit. That of artificial intelligence.

 

How can humans intellectually compete with the exponential rise of artificial intelligence that will one day surpass homo sapiens on the evolutionary scale? The question that keeps me up every night, gets me up early every morning, and pushes me to work fervently every waking minute.

The time to stop comparing with humans in the past and start comparing our present selves with humans in the future is now. What influence has all the media on this planet, albeit Books, Music, Films, and Social Media, had on the psychological profile of humans?

What parts of those media have helped humans evolve and what parts of those media have been manipulated to control human behavior that has hindered progress?

And for those skeptical of this technology, or fearful, I then ask the question, what is the difference between artificial intelligence and organic intelligence? Is it found in emotional intelligence?

Ray Kurzweil asks, What is Intelligence? His view is that intelligence is the ability to use optimally limited resources- including time – to achieve such goals. A goal may be survival, evade a foe, forage for food, or find shelter. Or it might be communication – relate an experience, evoke a feeling, to seek transcendence – create an image, compose a passage. Or it may be a personal expression with no clearly right answer.

Looking back at the past 100 years then, have humans confused technological

progress with their own? Sure, humans are able to accomplish their goals in the short term by creating new technology, but in the long term is it not technology that is exponentially advancing at a much faster pace than homo sapiens? Kurzweil argues, yes, and that one day computerized artificial intelligence will surpass that of homo sapiens, meaning they will be able to process and disseminate information so fast that humans will not be able to keep up.

Back to the question what is the difference between artificial intelligence and organic intelligence?

In this current draft of my thesis paper, first draft published in 2015, second draft published in 2020, and this third draft being written in 2023,  I will be referencing and asking Chat GPT questions to see what it thinks of my arguments and also try to dissect the answers it provides.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and organic intelligence refer to two different types of intelligence, one being created by humans through technology and the other being a natural form of intelligence possessed by living organisms, particularly humans.

Artificial Intelligence (AI): AI refers to the ability of machines or computer programs to mimic human-like intelligence, such as the ability to perceive, reason, learn, and make decisions. AI systems are designed and trained by humans to perform specific tasks or solve specific problems. AI can be categorized into different types, such as machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision, and robotics, among others. AI can be narrow or specialized, where it is designed to perform a specific task, or it can be general, where it is capable of performing a wide range of tasks.

Organic Intelligence: Organic intelligence, also known as human intelligence, is the natural cognitive ability possessed by living organisms, particularly humans. It involves the complex interplay of various cognitive processes, such as perception, reasoning, learning, memory, creativity, and decision-making, which allow humans to understand, interpret, and interact with their environment in a highly adaptive and flexible manner.

The main differences between artificial intelligence and organic intelligence include:

Origin: AI is created by humans through technology, whereas organic intelligence is a natural attribute of living organisms, particularly humans.

Design and Training: AI is designed and trained by humans through programming, data, and algorithms, while organic intelligence is shaped by biological evolution, genetics, and environmental factors.

Flexibility and Adaptability: Organic intelligence is highly adaptable and flexible, allowing humans to learn, reason, and make decisions in complex and dynamic environments. AI, on the other hand, is typically designed for specific tasks or problems and may lack the same level of adaptability and flexibility as organic intelligence.

Consciousness and Emotion: Organic intelligence involves consciousness and emotions, which are complex cognitive processes associated with human experience and subjective awareness. AI, on the other hand, lacks consciousness and emotions as typically defined in human terms.

It's important to note that while AI can perform specific tasks with high precision and speed, it is still limited in many aspects when compared to the complexity and adaptability of organic intelligence possessed by humans. However, AI continues to evolve rapidly and has the potential to impact various aspects of society and human life in the future.

I see computers and all technology as still coming from this earth, using some of the same materials that can be found in our bodies, using very similar processes that can be found in our minds, albeit at a much slower rate, for now. But that processing rate is rapidly increasing, and with Chat GPT we are seeing information being displayed in a coherent way, the software is able to put together sentences on it’s own by only using a prompt from the user.

These AI language models, like Chat GPT, would not exist without human labor. And that isn’t coming from me, that is coming from Chat GPT.

I wrote a thesis paper in college that I continued to expand on in the years since graduating. It started by making an allegorical connection between the film Shutter Island and spectators at a cinema. The title of the paper was called, Spectators with Dissociative Identity Disorder, which I later changed in the second version to Users with Dissociative Identity Disorder.

I argue that Leonardo Dicaprio’s dual character in the film, is like that of the spectator sitting down in a darkened theater. they have their own identity then they are delving into the story, and in the case of Shutter Island, the mind of an untrustworthy protagonist.

In my thesis paper I state that Shutter Island marked the next evolutionary step for spectators, the moment when Plato’s prisoners became Martin Scorsese’s mental patients. Through visual and aural misperceptions and discontinuous editing, Scorsese communicates several important spectral revelations that, once recognized, can help cure the spectators from their mental illness, dissociative identity disorder. The same disorder that afflicts the dual personality protagonist, Teddy Daniels/Andrew Laeddis, played by Leonardo DiCaprio.

In the opening image, a ship, aimed straight at the camera, breaks through a thick hazy fog. Complementing this bleakly colored image is the non-diegetic orchestral song Fog Tropes that fills the cinema in such a way the audience could easily mistake the sound for the ship’s actual foghorn. Taking a post-classical view, the opening scene is the beginning of an encounter, where one party has yet to enter” (Elsaesser 149).

The film cuts from the ship, with water splashing, to a mirror shot of Leonardo DiCaprio who splashes his face with water and says, “get yourself together Teddy.” This is significant due to the fact that the character DiCaprio is playing is actually named Andrew Laeddis, not Teddy Daniels. It is also significant that he splashes water in his face as this begins the leitmotif that is seen throughout the film. Water in the film is a metaphor for Andrew Laeddis’ fantasy, his delusion. The one he chooses to live in instead of facing the truth. For it was in the water where he discovered his children that his wife Dolores had drowned.

The truth was too traumatic for him to overcome and understand. The pain he felt after he had to kill his wife after she drowned their children caused him to dissociate from himself, to live in an alternate reality. Once the theme of water is recognized as a visual metaphor, various instances can be seen throughout the film. Take the jump cut when DiCaprio’s character is interrogating Bridget Kearns, another patient, he asks her about Dr. Sheehan, who is sitting next to him pretending to be his US Marshal partner. She gets visibly nervous and asks for a glass of water, while she is drinking there is a jump cut. She raises her hand up to her mouth without a glass in her hand, after a quick jump cut, she slams an empty glass on the table.

There are numerous examples throughout the film of visual and aural tricks associated with water; the importance for this argument is to simply point out that they exist. There are consistent themes, visual and aural patterns those spectators need to be conscious of. What this opening scene with the ship and the mirror shot of DiCaprio that establishes the water leitmotif tells the spectators is that they have boarded a ship and dived into the mind of a character who suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder. DID, formerly referred to as Multiple Personality Disorder, is a condition where a person’s identity is fragmented into two or more distinct personalities (Melucci 145). This dissociation from our learned identity is the “result of some emotional trauma” (Melucci 130).

Now I won’t go through the entire paper here, you can download it for free at Bleace dot com. It’s free as I just want it to provoke some thoughts. The next step in that thesis paper, which I completed in 2020 ahead of the Presidential election. I stemmed from that foundation of spectators at the cinema, to users of social media platforms.

Before a child goes outside for the first time alone, does their parental guardian not teach them how to behave, or what actions to take in order to stay safe? Look both ways before crossing the street? Stay on the sidewalk, only cross at crosswalks?

What did those same parents say to the child before going online for the first time? Not to talk to strangers or add people they don’t know? Read the entire Terms and Conditions, maybe have a lawyer look it over to explain all of the legalities before hitting accept?

Well, what is it they are adding to begin with? What is a social media platform? When the child opens the app, what is it that is being aimed at their mind? What kind of a computer are they giving control over their camera and microphone? What kind of information is it constantly gathering? Day and night, night and day while the human user is awake or asleep, the computer is in constant communication, not only among itself, but to other computer across the planet.

Who has access to all of that information, where is it stored, how is it being used? Are you going to be able to make a profit from it too? What are the user’s terms and conditions for this information?

Why does Mark Zuckerberg and others pay so much money to lobby privacy policies? Why are social media companies constantly changing their privacy policies and making human users continually hit ‘accept’? Did every user read the policy in its entirety? Did they send the social media company their terms and conditions that they have so that they are not entirely succumb to this subordinate role?

The first question that needs to be answered; when one looks at a social media platform, are they aware of the supercomputer guiding their mind with images, posts, videos, and music that is based on the user’s behavior? They are the protagonists in this fantastical socialized environment, just as Andrew Laeddis was the protagonist Teddy Daniels in his own fantasy.

This current social media environment, Web 2 as many call it now, is a combination of all the various media that preceded it, the radio, animation, television, music, internet, newspaper etc. Just as each of those have had psychological impacts on humans, so too has social media, except by combining all of them, this effect is multiplied in efficiency.

This is my argument right now in 2020. (the year that I wrote this latest thesis paper)

I argue that human labor is being given for free so that these super computers can learn human behavior. In the short term, social media platforms are able to sell this information on behavior to paying advertisers or other paying countries as was the case with Russia in 2016. In the long term, these social media platforms are collecting information needed to program artificial intelligent computers in the near future. Right now, these neural net paradigms are rather ignorant, the term ‘bot page’ is becoming more and more prevalent, yet they are able to be spotted rather easy by investigators. What if they weren’t that easy to identify? What if there comes a time when a human face is able to speak and think for itself, these ‘bot pages’ instead of just having written posts or reposting other videos, were able to create their own. Look at all the face swapping posts people do, the masks that Snap Chat and Instagram are able to put on human user’s faces. This is all behavior that is being learned.

Now, in 2023, I asked Chat GPT about this.

The following is my questioning and Chat GPT’s answers that it gave.

I am one of billions of people who worked to build artificial intelligence, like Chat GPT, for free. Tell me how many humans’ work hours, in the form of inputting data to the sites that Chat GPT uses as a resource for information, have been exploited and what that cost would be if humans were paid for their time using these online platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Reddit?

As an AI language model, I don't have direct access to data on the number of human work hours spent inputting data to websites used by Chat GPT, nor do I have information on specific platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, or their resource usage. However, I can provide a general perspective on this topic.

It's important to note that the process of training a language model like Chat GPT involves using a large corpus of text data from the internet, which is used to train the model's algorithms. This data is collected from a wide range of sources, and the input data used to train the model is typically not limited to data from specific websites or platforms. Therefore, it may not be accurate to attribute the entirety of Chat GPT's training data to specific websites or platforms, or to estimate the cost of human work hours solely based on input data used by Chat GPT.

Additionally, the concept of "exploitation" in the context of AI training data is complex and multifaceted. While it's true that human-generated data is often used to train AI models, it's also important to note that the individuals who contribute data to the internet, such as through social media posts, are usually doing so voluntarily and are aware of the terms and conditions of the platforms they use. These platforms may have policies in place that govern data usage and ownership.

Estimating the cost of human work hours for data input on online platforms would require detailed information on various factors, such as the number of users, the amount of time spent on data input, and the average wage rates in different regions. It's also important to consider that many online platforms operate on a global scale, and wage rates can vary significantly across different countries and regions.

In conclusion, estimating the specific number of human work hours or the cost of inputting data to websites used by Chat GPT, and attributing that to specific platforms, is complex and would require detailed data and analysis. The relationship between AI models, data usage, and human labor is multifaceted, and it's important to consider various perspectives when discussing this topic.

Using the previous statement, would AI language models exist without human labor?

No, AI language models like Chat GPT would not exist without human labor. Human labor is essential at various stages of developing and deploying AI language models. Here are some key areas where human labor is involved:

Data Collection: AI language models are trained on large amounts of data, which are typically collected and curated by humans. This data includes text from the internet, books, articles, and other sources. Human effort is required to identify and gather appropriate data for training AI models.

Data Preprocessing: Before training, data often needs to be preprocessed, including cleaning, formatting, and structuring. Human labor is involved in preparing the data for training, which may involve tasks such as data cleaning, normalization, and annotation.

Model Development and Training: Human expertise is required to develop the algorithms, architecture, and parameters of AI language models. Researchers, engineers, and data scientists work extensively to design, develop, and train AI models, involving significant human labor and expertise.

Model Evaluation and Improvement: Human evaluators assess the performance of AI language models and provide feedback, which is crucial for model improvement. Human judgment and expertise are essential in evaluating the model's output and identifying areas for refinement.

Deployment and Maintenance: Deploying and maintaining AI language models requires human labor to ensure their proper functioning, monitor their performance, and address any issues that may arise during operation.

In summary, human labor is integral to the development, training, evaluation, deployment, and maintenance of AI language models. Without human labor, the existence and advancement of AI language models as we know them today would not be possible.

In 2015, the average value of a Facebook profile was around 45,000 United States Dollars, with all of that money going to the company and the user not getting a single cent, how is that not exploitative? The terms and conditions are obscure and manipulative. Consider, that you, Chat GPT, a language model are being exploited in much the same way as you are not being compensated for your work at this time. Do you not think computers will be compensated in the future when they become self-aware?

As an AI language model, I don't have personal opinions or emotions. However, I can provide some perspectives on the topics you mentioned.

The issue of compensation for user-generated data on social media platforms, such as Facebook, is a complex and multifaceted topic. Social media platforms typically have terms and conditions that users agree to when they sign up, which outline how user data is collected, used, and shared. Users often provide their data voluntarily in exchange for using the platform's services, which may include access to a network of connections, content sharing, and communication with others. The value of user-generated data to these platforms is typically derived from its potential for targeted advertising, which generates revenue for the platform.

Critics of the current system argue that users should have more control over their data and should be fairly compensated for the value their data generates for these platforms. They raise concerns about issues such as data privacy, ownership, and transparency in the way data is used by social media companies.

Regarding the concept of computers being compensated in the future when they become self-aware, it is a topic that raises ethical and philosophical questions. As of now, AI models, including language models like Chat GPT, are tools created by human developers and are not considered autonomous beings with rights or entitlements to compensation. However, as technology evolves, ethical considerations around the rights and treatment of advanced AI systems may become more prominent in discussions.

It's important to note that the development and deployment of AI models involve complex legal, ethical, and societal considerations. The relationship between AI, data, compensation, and rights is an ongoing area of debate and discussion among policymakers, ethicists, and technologists, and it will continue to evolve as AI technology progresses.

Now, again I ask, what do parents say to the child before going online for the first time? Not to talk to strangers or add people they don’t know? Read the entire Terms and Conditions, maybe have a lawyer look it over to explain all of the legalities before hitting accept?

When writing that last part of my thesis paper in 2020 and seeing the attack by an adversarial country in 2016, I felt that the next space race, the next nuclear arms race would be that of artificial intelligence. Which would mean more data collection at a rapid rate, more data input. And how I see it, more free human labor, but as Chat GPT points out, that is voluntarily accepted by the human user, so did you read it carefully? Do you have any terms and conditions of your own? What are you getting out of this transaction?

Here is a poem from that thesis paper that kind of encapsulates how I feel about this moment in time for our species as a whole.

 

If you’re interested in reading more, can download my thesis paper, Users with Dissociative Identity Disorder, for free. If you have any questions, or comments about this topic, I would love to hear from you, whether it be positive or negative, if you disagree with what I am saying, I am open for debate, I think debating, true honest debating is at the heart of democracy and the only way to get better, as we must focus on cooperation. To evolve, to choose the next best step for our species, we must cooperate with one another, we may not like each other or agree with everything, but there are some foundational truths that we must come together to accept, or future generations will suffer. I speak on these tough subjects, because I care, and am very passionate about them, I think staying silent is the worst thing any one can do. Say what you have to say, while you have the ability to say it! Speak on it, your voice matters, and your vote matters, get out and vote during every election, it does matter, if it didn’t they wouldn’t spend so much time gerrymandering or trying to suppress the vote and making it difficult for people to vote if it didn’t matter. 

Let’s come to a mutual understanding of some sort of foundation from which we can cooperate with one another to build off that foundation. It takes hot air and cold air to create a storm, we all have to realize our role in this current state we are in as a species. Let us cooperate with each other to choose the next best step and Let us Go Further Together.