Re: <nettime> rage against the machine

[Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi@gmail.com>]

The basic issue is complexity crossing the threshold that humans cannot.

So far, at least in the last few thousand years or so, mental abilities 
were one of key factors for individual 'success' (the other, likely more 
important one, was class and heritage.) We appreciate smart people as 
much as the rich ones. In the last few decades there was acceleration of 
cognitive stratification, as the class of more-than-average smart 
technicians was needed to tend to more and more complex computing machines.

Today it's obvious that the system of controlling capital/power, the 
Roman Guard of technicians, and computing machinery itself is 
practically ruling the world. Yet we can see smart people behind it so 
at least we can map the new order into familiar space, where smart 
people, evil, good, or just sociopathic, are at the helm.

What happens when the machine complexity surpasses the human cognition? 
Skynet aside, the most dire effect is that the smart Roman Guard becomes 
redundant. Instead, it will be the inbred, semi-retarded ruling 
oligarchy, some 30-40,000 families on the planet, that will have this 
miracle machinery in its lap. Like a chimp that got hold of unlimited 
supply of AK-47s. It's not going to be sophisticated, it's going to be 
ugly. The final disintermediation. The heritage becomes the sole factor. 
Smartness is out.

These things, societies optimizing themselves out of existence, happened 
before in different forms. Easter Island rulers liked those statues so 
much that they depleted all natural resources in building them, 
destroying the whole society in the process.

The chimp logic is dead simple. It's a total waste of time theorizing 
and philosophizing about it. All that just buys them more time.




On 3/28/19, 08:38, tbyfield wrote:
> That's why criticisms of the 'complexity' of increasingly automated and
> autonomized vehicles are a dead end, or at least limited to two
> dimensions. I liked it very much when you wrote that "the rise in
> complexity in itself is not a bad thing"; and, similarly, giving up
> autonomy is not in itself a *bad* thing. The question is where and how
> we draw the lines around autonomy. The fact that some cars will fly
> doesn't mean that every 'personal mobility device' — say, bicycles —
> needs to be micromanaged by a faceless computational state run amok. Yet
> that kind of massive,

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