{"id":7867,"date":"2018-09-30T18:00:34","date_gmt":"2018-10-01T00:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/?p=7867"},"modified":"2024-09-23T22:58:17","modified_gmt":"2024-09-24T04:58:17","slug":"assange-end-civilization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/assange-end-civilization\/","title":{"rendered":"Assange: Today\u2019s Generation Last to be Free; Technology May End Civilization"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2014 Published with Permission of TheNewAmerican.com \u2014<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Is despotism our descendants\u2019 destiny? Are they fated to live in a \u201cMarxtrix\u201d? And will rogue artificial intelligence put us out of our misery before any of this is too far along? These are good questions now with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange\u2019s assertion that \u201cthe last free generation\u201d is upon us and that \u201ctechnologically advanced civilization\u201d is \u201cunstable\u201d and may not \u201cgo on for long.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assange (shown), now in his seventh year living at the Ecuadorian embassy in\u00a0London, made the remarks in an interview \u2014 the last one before the Ecuadorian government terminated his Internet and telephone \u2014 during the\u00a0World Ethical Data Forum in Barcelona, Spain.<\/p>\n

As\u00a0habaricloudtoday\u00a0<\/i>reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The Wikileaks founder said that within a year of being born, children are now known to \u2018all major world powers\u2019 thanks to their parents posting on social media.<\/p>\n

\u2018This generation being born now … is the last free generation,\u2019 he told Russian state-funded network\u00a0Ruptly<\/a>. \u2018You are born and either immediately or within say a year you are known globally.<\/p>\n

\u2018Your identity in one form or another \u2014 coming as a result of your idiotic parents plastering your name and photos all over Facebook or as a result of insurance applications or passport applications \u2014 is known to all major world powers.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

RT.com provides some more detail,\u00a0writing<\/a>, \u201c\u2018A small child now in some sense has to negotiate its relationship with all the major world powers…. It puts us in a very different position. Very few technically capable people are able to live apart, to choose to live apart, to choose to go their own way,\u2019 he [Assange] added. \u2018It smells a bit like totalitarianism \u2014 in some way.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe capacity to collect and process information about people has been growing exponentially and will continue to grow fast,” he stated. “With advancements in applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) to big data, the next logical step is coming,\u201d the site continued (full-interview video below. Note: Assange is a very interesting man).<\/p>\n

https:\/\/youtu.be\/_4XhiPSVYzI<\/p>\n

Even more worryingly, Assange also predicted that a global cyber war would erupt, in the near future, as soon as AI is trained to adequately automate hacking attacks. \u201cThere is no border [online],\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s 220 milliseconds from New York to Nairobi. Why would there ever be peace in such a scenario?\u201d<\/p>\n

Elaborating, he stated that while online entities \u201care creating their own borders using cryptography,\u201d he doesn\u2019t \u201cthink it\u2019s really possible to come up with borders that are predictable enough and stable enough to eliminate conflict. Therefore, there will be more conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet most ominous is what has received little attention: Assange apparently believes man\u2019s end times could be near. There\u2019s \u201csomething very unstable about technologically advanced civilization that means it doesn\u2019t go on for long,\u201d he said in the interview. He believes this destabilizing factor concerns the \u201cvery rapid competition \u2014 if you like, the light-speed competition \u2014 that occurs when you wire up the world to itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a nutshell, Assange said that the competition commercially and geo-politically in AI \u2014 between the United States and China and the states backing them, for example \u2014 would lead \u201cto an uncontrollable desire for growth in AI capacity.\u201d It would be the AI version of the nuclear-arms race \u2014 the difference being that ICBMs don\u2019t think for themselves and autonomously decide to incinerate man for the good of machines.<\/p>\n

So just imagine a\u00a0Terminator<\/i>-like scenario where a Skynet becomes \u201cself-aware\u201d and then resolves to exterminate the human infestation \u2014 except with one difference.<\/p>\n

While warnings about totalitarian dystopias or usurpative machines have long been the stuff of fiction and futurists, the technology portrayed is generally quite primitive. For example, the book\u00a01984<\/i>\u00a0well depicted a hopeless future, but author Orwell didn\u2019t foresee a possible time in which hundreds of nanorobots could be around you at any moment collecting information; or what\u2019s already on the horizon, flying robots disguised as insects that could do the same. He couldn\u2019t envision a day when a computer chip could be implanted in every newborn\u2019s brain, controlling his behavior, rendering him a puppet of the state and hence obviating punishment.<\/p>\n

The point, however, is not just that the future could be worse than predicted. It\u2019s this: What don\u2019t\u00a0we<\/i>\u00a0foresee today? Futurists and doomsayers generally\u00a0have a poor prognostication track record<\/a>; after all, we can\u2019t accurately know the future because it hasn\u2019t happened yet (from our human perspective).<\/p>\n

Thus, predictions about how there\u2019d be mass world starvation by the late 20th<\/sup>-century (or earlier) came to nothing precisely because actual advances in technology weren\u2019t foreseen. And is this surprising? As late author Michael Crichton\u00a0pointed out<\/a>\u00a0brilliantly in a 2003 Caltech lecture, people in 1900 had no good concept of what the real problems would be a century hence.<\/p>\n

Now here\u2019s the real question: Do we?<\/p>\n

The point is not that we shouldn\u2019t ponder and prepare for the future, but that we should proceed with humility. Tomorrow could be worse than we think \u2014 or better.<\/p>\n

Yet more tragic than assumptions about future technology we can\u2019t wholly know is the ignoring of age-old truths we can. For they inform that the \u201csomething\u201d Assange spoke of that destabilizes civilization has a name: sin.<\/p>\n

Tools are just that, tools \u2014 they are used, or misused, by people. A gun in a good man\u2019s hands will just facilitate goodness; when wielded by a barbarian it can become a murder weapon. This principle doesn\u2019t change just because the technology becomes more formidable; it just means the misuse has greater consequences.<\/p>\n

As for liberty, British philosopher Edmund Burke put it well, saying, \u201cIt is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.\u201d Ben Franklin concurred, observing, \u201cOnly a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, are we moving closer to or further from being people \u201cof temperate minds\u201d? If we don\u2019t master ourselves and tame the best within, we\u2019ll invite masters from without. Yet because too many want the latitude to sin, this necessary self-mastery is out of style.<\/p>\n

This is why moral relativism permeates society today: \u201cHey, it can\u2019t be wrong \u2014 and\u00a0I<\/i>\u00a0can\u2019t be wrong \u2014 if everything is perspective!\u201d Our primary mistake is making the main focus whether our fetters are forged low or hi-tech, instead of why they\u2019re forged in the first place.<\/p>\n

Delving yet deeper, this growing immorality is a function of godlessness. No, that\u2019s not opinion but a matter that can actually be called \u201cphilosophical fact.\u201d Why? Because if God doesn\u2019t exist, morality (properly understood) cannot; all that\u2019s left are man\u2019s opinions, perspectives, preferences, tastes. And then who is to say? It then all boils down to occultist Aleister Crowley\u2019s maxim, \u201cDo what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moreover, if there\u2019s no God and the material world is all that exists, we cannot have souls (which are spirits). We\u2019re then nothing but some pounds of chemicals and water, organic robots. And what could be immoral about altering a robot\u2019s software (social engineering) or wiring (genetic engineering)?<\/p>\n

For that matter, what could be wrong with terminating a robot\u2019s function \u2014 or that of a large population of robots? What\u2019s the problem with their being replaced, in survival-of-the-fittest fashion, by stronger, more intelligent, more durable AI robots? \u201cDo what thou wilt,\u201d remember?<\/p>\n

Having said this, it\u2019s possible that only angels could responsibly wield the demigod-like power tomorrow\u2019s technology may bring. But for sure is that technological rise and moral regression are a deadly combination \u2014 one that can put a brave new world in barbarian hands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2014 Published with Permission of TheNewAmerican.com \u2014 Is despotism our descendants\u2019 destiny? Are they fated to live in a \u201cMarxtrix\u201d? And will rogue artificial intelligence put us out of our misery before any of this is too far along? These are good questions now with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange\u2019s assertion that \u201cthe last free generation\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":7875,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[780,275],"class_list":["post-7867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-julian-assange","tag-wikileaks","cat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7867"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17148,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7867\/revisions\/17148"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}