Today I read a good LinkedIn post by a former colleague about the issues and challenges of training people to use AI systems. It raised a few issues in my mind that I feel need airing.
You can read the post here >>
Is AI really the panacea they claim it to be, or just another ruse for the creators own perceived pecuniary interests?
How do we as individuals and as a civil-society cope with and adapt to the advent of ubiquitous AI systems and robots?
Can we train ourselves and adapt in time or do we just become the next generation of Ludites, left behind in the human trash cans of society?
Having self-studied and gained some experience, I was reading a article post about training issues for AI which raised in my mind a few issues about AI and its adoption. Not least because some researchers claim that even education, teaching and training is best performed by AI rather than with human teachers. An incestuous circle in itself!
I started studying AI more earnestly during the last year, as most seem to have done, as the technology exploded into public awareness. I spent the whole summer watching reviews and how to videos on Youtube, playing around the main LLM’S to see which one work best and especially working with video creation. The video creation stumbled immediately I needed moving body parts according to specific scene descriptions. Talking heads superimposed on my own video content created with conventional video editors was the best I could achieve. In this department AI is not there yet - mostly just rose-tinted hype! However, the LLMS did help with writing blogs and ads faster, and even creating scripts for the videos from the blog articles. This is as far as I have managed to get, so far.
The pace of change and new features is daunting and new/useful features often hidden away and, I cannot keep up with it all, so the result is I have taken a break from it for a while until the wild west as become more civilised and settled. The biggest stumbling blocks I see now are the use of agents to create efficient workflows, particularly for marketing, sales and customer care. As a solo entrepreneur, these are the kind of things I need most help with, but where the biggest barriers to AI adoption are. To do it myself feels too demanding and daunting, and the endless subscriptions for ready-made agents and services soon become unaffordable for ordinary people and even small/micro businesses.
Basically, I feel like big business is just pulling up the ladder behind them again and creating hurdles that often feel insurmountable for the small people/business AI proponents claim will be of help to. Worse still, the AI companies are abusing everyone else’s copyrights to build their systems, a really hypocritical move considering all the aggro big corporates made about their copyrights in the music business and elsewhere when Napster was created. Most of the AI LLM systems out there still use and abuse any data or information you put into them to get your work done. There is no confidentiality unless you can work out how to use and develop Llama properly, but does anyone really trust a Meta Facebook!? The other LLM’s only have this feature if you can afford it, and even then, it is hard to put any trust or faith in them. Without your own IT-AI department, then definitely not!
Even school kids are already worrying about this and asking why they are even bothering to study for higher education anymore. Would they not be better off just learning some basic skill and trade? They should have all the advantages for learning new technology skills like these, but they are not getting the training and are already being left behind with clearly false understandings of what AI can do and misplaced trust in how reliable it is. Worse still, they are becoming very anxious about what the future job prospects are, which direction to go in, or even if there will be any jobs available at all given the recent estimates of over a billion white collar jobs alone to be deleted by AI. As if teenagers were not by nature anxiety prone enough!
From HI to AI and then HI again.
The technology is however, being used and abused by older students, particular adults and those at university or even college level. The learning and knowledge verification arms race is on! Denmark has forbidden all digital technology in schools already and the UK is currently debating a ban on all Social media for under 16's, precisely because of the practical and mental health problems it has be causing. To date, it has been described as a technological wild west with little regulation, guidance and control to help people control and use it effectively. Tuition by AI will no doubt have its place for adult and more mature students, but is it really appropriate for younger people and children? There is more to school life and learning than just the technical knowledge. AI can only work with the information and knowledge given to it to train on, and which was created by human beings. To date it therefore still limited by the limitations and failings of those human beings.
None of this even begins to consider the true nature of the human mind, consciousness and what religion describes as the soul/spirit. This is another subject altogether that computer and AI scientists, no matter how clever they think they are, can determine. They simply do not have the knoweldge and practical experience for that. No matter how good the AI, it can never replace human intelligence (HI). Therefore, if we take the more humane view that AI is a tool to help and be used by humans, not a living consciousness ór new species to usurp us, then we must realise that as human beings that invented this tool, the work flow starts and ends with human beings, so...
Back to the Future!
If everyone is unemployed, who is going to buy all the products and services made by the robots and AI systems?
Social change is even slower than individual change, so even if we know what changes we need to make to society, how on earth are we going to effect them without serious socio-economic upheavals, human wastage and conflicts. Corporate Capitalism is at risk of becoming obsolete and bringing about its own extinction, whilst Western democratic civilization seems to be standing on the edge of a precipice without a parachute or any idea of which way is up or down. At present, it looks more like a scramble for the lifeboats on the Titanic!
Interestingly, this is precisely the timing and kind of social upheaval and restructuring predicted by the Kondratieff cycles. The European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS), wrote many years about this and the possible end of free capital markets by 2030, prompting me soon after to write the article given below about these cycles and what they might involve from a broader social perspective.
EU ‘brains’ warn about end of free capital markets by 2030
“Europe faces daunting years ahead, according to a report by the European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS), which looks at major global developments until 2030”.
Original blog article published Nov 17 many years ago on Pahkris WordPress blog >>
Old News I say!
The shift from right-wing capitalism to meet communism somewhere in the middle was discussed already decades ago, and at least 40 years ago in a conversation I had with my mother as a youngster. Every time there is a depression and jobs are lost, they are not replaced due to the mission creep of new technology. Jobs if any come in new sectors or via entrepreneurship, but always in ever fewer numbers. This also requires people to retrain, something which is not always possible (resources / availability / opportunity – competitive feasibility) or within their capability. Retraining and changing careers a couple of times during our life times is a necessity for many glibly talked about by academics and others, but much stifled still by the scourge of Agism that in the modern world ranks up there equally alongside sexism and racism. For most of us, retraining and career change is limited to certain types of jobs / professions for which the experience and professionalism of older employees is still valued, otherwise the only chance is to find a small ‘nichè’ (crack) in otherwise saturated markets and become an entrepreneur.
As beautiful as our minds are, they are not without their faults and weaknesses. Not everyone can or is able to be an entrepreneur, the entry hurdles to markets are constantly getting higher and regulations such as tax laws actively discourage if not prevent people from going out and creating their own work. We can’t all be rocket scientists. Neither can we all just up-sticks and drift around the world in search of jobs. This would also mean the death of all communities and social structures as we know them that sustain us spiritually and emotionally if not physically. Sooner or later we all need to put down roots, if only for the sake of our children and their upbringing. Stability and routine is critical to their sense of security and place in the world – a fact long since established and well-known, in the education community at least, if not to most experience parents.
Despite the calls for less regulation and government participation in the economy, it will sooner or later have to be the exact opposite shift in order to maintain a social balance. Think carefully before you write-off the poor, for the moment you walk out of your fancy apartments and fortified enclosures / estates, you will have to walk by the vagrants and homeless and through the same shit as everyone else, so just how rich would you be really? Think too about the future problems you are creating for your children, as the poor with nothing to lose start to resort to less savoury means to survive. The poor are rarely as lazy and stupid as the ‘I’m all-right ‘Jack-Offs’ would like to believe, and I know of no unemployed person who likes the situation they are in. Their aspirations are falling by the way side as their life passes them by with little to look forward to. Private charity does much good, but simply does not cut it in the face of challenges of the modern world, never did and certainly won’t in the future. If you don’t believe, just go walk around India. The movie ‘A Beautiful Mind‘ (2001), though made for entertainment purposes, was based on a true story that broached some fallacies of American style corporate capitalism most eloquently – Go See It!
Capitalism will probably always have its place because, it is not so much a system as an expression of human nature. This contrasts starkly to old style communist systems which, were forcibly superimposed by a group dictatorship rather than any natural or true communist structure. It does however have to be moderated within a social framework for the greater good. Afterall, it is only by collaboration (family, clans, tribes etc.) that we, one of the weaker mammals on earth, have become the dominant species. We have got enough on our plate competing with nature in order to survive, let alone have a good life. Resources keep running out even if we do not pollute them with our waste and bad management, so we need to find a better balance that will allow us to use them more wisely, in a sustainable fashion.
As for the EU and US, China and India have enough high-tech educated people in their cities alone to completely swamp us. The Chinese have their own traditional way of dealing with us Western barbarians, which usually involves allowing the West in to get the factories and technologies, then throwing us back out again. China has always been slower to (manage) change than Russia (revolutions) despite their parallel developments, but only time will tell if ‘this time is different’. This sais nothing of the many European’s fears of the ‘muslimification’ of Europe, a threat and prediction long since made by Islamists, the flames of which are now being fanned by the recent Syrian exodus, regardless of its cause and the genuine plight of its people who vicarious others are taking advantage of for their personal interests. Despite the EU motto ‘United in Diversity‘, Europe already has an identity crisis in flux amongst its own kin, and further flood tides merely exacerbate the problem whilst, we as a union of people’s are still insecure and unstable in a time of social and economic transition. The EU policy of integration and accommodation of diverse groups and cultures contrasts with the U.S.A.’s policy of assimilation, yet both, particularly in the U.K. and U.S.A. (the most multi-culturally diverse countries) are experiencing problems of racial and ethnic segregation, including ghettos and mini citidels. Can you imagine what it would be like if whole countries could move like people do, as is in effect currently happening with the Syrians?
Europe has always had a small number of muslims in its midst, but is predominantly Christian by faith, from which many of our cultural values are derived. There are those who still think the Christianity owns Europe, but some of their beliefs, attitudes and activities have of late also been exposed as clearly out of touch and at odds with modern western society and more pragmatic approaches to the demands of everyday life. Turkish, Kurdish and other muslims have migrated to Europe, settled, prospered and integrated well without too much problem, and all credit to them for that. Others unfortunately have not been so adaptable, bringing with them elements of their culture and religion that are not relevant, suitable or acceptable here, with little sensitivity towards the local host culture. This cultural baggage, combined with large scale migration from many parts of the world, many of the evolving racial tensions are not even between the locals and the immigrants any more, but between various immigrant racial groups themselves. But then, neither does social and economic exclusion promote integration, and assimilation, quite the contrary it leads to segregation and facilitates radicalism, especially of the young with still inexperienced and impressionable minds.
The real problem of late, has not been so much who is migrating, but the sheer volume of it in such a short space of time and the timing of it, raising difficult questions about how we classify different kinds of immigration (legal, illegal or criminal) and hence how should we manage our borders. This concern and its associated natural human reactions have by no means been limited to muslims, but directed at various ethnic groups from India, Bangladesh and even Eastern Europe, whomever seemed to be the latest and greatest. Before them in the UK, were the Jews and then the Jamaicans. In Finland it was the Gypsies (Romanis / Mustalaiset), now it is the Somali and other African ethnics. In Germany it was the Turks and in France the Tunisians and others. Italy and Greece in particular are feeling swamped by the flood and storm tides, especially when they have been given such inadequate support by other far richer and powerful nations nestling within the EU and Schengen zone borders. Load sharing has been a major issue amongst the Schengen states, as has the rigid operation of the Schengen agreement and inflexible application of International Human Rights laws regardless of the abnormal conditions and situation or how it affects the security and rights of the local indigenous people.
Charity starts at home, especially during war time, but their problem is our problem. Short-term measures may contain the immediate threat, but it is only with long-term strategies that we can win the war.
And all this at a time of economic recession when we can’t even look after all our own people properly. Unconstrained and poorly managed globalisation policies (They just opened the flood gates for us to sink or swim to the benefit of the few large corporations and already rich individuals in order to bypass our social protection and security regulations) along with other seemingly systemic ‘economic frauds‘ has meant that the southern EU states are not the only ones teetering on the brink of the abyss, Finland and other smaller states are also in difficulties. Even the larger states have long since been having troubles, particularly with the demographic time-bomb of old age and pensions we cannot afford because the schemes were installed incorrectly over-night for political reasons and because of lack of understanding and foresight.
The concerns and tensions about immigration and unemployment stand in sharp contradiction of the need for new, young blood that the politicians have declared. The EU may have started as an economic initiative, but it is inextricable from the political and cultural values on which it is built, just as the success of our business economies are. Sadly many of our own indigenous people don’t seem to know or have a clear understanding of what those are, because it has never been properly taught in schools as part of a coherent and comprehensive ‘Life Skills’ programme. So, how can we expect refugees and other immigrants without similar levels of education and exposure to the wider world to know and understand them? Change in, or forsaking of those values because of mass migration and immigration or just plain old greed for money & power, will merely drag us back down into the quagmire that so many economic and political refugees from the third world are trying to escape from. These values bind us as a community and are our moral and social compass, but we must also sail by the wind and adapt our tack to current conditions, that includes meeting new arrivals half-way, if they have first made an effort to adapt and integrate. This expectation and requirement is in principle no different to any other social group in ordinary every day life for, ‘As it is below, so it is above‘.
These values and social contracts that our forefathers fought so long and hard for with their blood, sweat and tears will not be passed onto our children unless we continue the work they started. Wars are a threat to us all. Dictators and other fascists are a direct threat democracy and freedom, but so to are organised crime and the anarchy of crime in general an indirect challenge to democracy and the freedoms we hold so dear. It is constant and continuous battle against the relatively minority of humans who repeatedly abuse the majority for their own selfish, short-term interests. This ongoing battle includes putting the churches and organised religion back in their place, be it Christianity, Islam, Judaism (the Kabbalah) or any other such organisations. All are antiquated and long since past their sell by date. They were born of conditions in eras long ago that are no longer relevant in the modern context. This does not mean that they are all bad, just that we need to learn from them what is good, and leave out what is no longer irrelevant or just downright wrong.
The Bible, Koran, Kabbalah and other such religious books were written by people at different times in history and more often than not do not relate literal truths or history, rather metaphors for meditative practices and experiences or other lessons of life and political messages. It is the personal interpretations of these meditative experiences and (miss)interpretation of various religious / spiritual writings that the doctrines and dogma of specific churches and religions have developed from. To follow them blindly in a world of modern information technology is not a matter of ‘faith’, it is just plain foolish, and frequently tantamount to brain washing given the way / processes by which the doctrines are systematically spread and embedded in society. To add injury to insult, this ‘recruitment process’ is consistently targeted by all the established religions at children, the most vulnerable and impressionable members of our society. This includes using their parents to further embed the indoctrination process in communities through both familial as well as other social bonds, including in schools and even play-schools. The general targeting of children in this way is just – downright immoral! Teaching ethics is one thing, but religion is a fundamentally adult pursuit. It is a family and individual matter that should stay within the home and which has no business in schools, much less play-schools. If all religions are not equally taught in school, including atheism, then none of them some be taught or practised in school.
One purpose of school is to teach and promote a united community with a common set of values and ethics bound up in a social contract, laws and regulations that apply to all or no one at all. This can only be done by basing the teaching and practices in schools on the lowest common denominators, i.e the one’s that are common to all.
Religion is not just an intellectual exercise based the study of scholarly works, but spiritual practices that are beyond most adults let alone suitable for, or within the capabilities of young children. Early psychologists got some of the first ideas by dabbling in meta-physics and the occult arts, but none actually practised it, let alone to its full conclusion. Unless you have practised and experienced real meditation you know and understand nothing about spiritualism or, by that yard stick, religion. Neither can you succeed in doing it unless you consistently concentrate on it with an unprejudiced and open mind, without fear, nagging doubts or other reservations.
Accordingly it is my personal belief that religion or other spiritual practice should remain a personal pursuit that to be effective, everyone needs to practice in the privacy of their own homes. It is not to be flaunted and flouted in the face of ‘the non-believers‘ to taunt them and create further social divisions, much less persecute terrorise or kill them. Terrorism and general propagation of a religion in this manner is merely an attempt to paper over the cracks in their own ‘faith’ and a demonstration of how weak minded and fearful they actually are. This is not ‘in the spirit’ of the original teachings on which modern religions were first founded. Their beginnings were modest, humble and above all ‘altruistic’, no more than local (personality) cults trying to teach and educate people about what they had learned in the priesthoods, the centres of learning or universities of their time.
Religion and especially the proper practice of it through active meditation is an immersive and intensely personal experience and matter intended to help you grow and develop spiritually and as a human being in general, something the organised religions and churches have completely failed to teach their ‘flocks’, intentionally or otherwise. It is the process, experience and practice of the meditative exercises that matters, all part of a journey, not the specific outcome let alone one person or groups interpretation of it. Unfortunately people still base their beliefs on hear-say and speculation rather than solid personal practice and experience, a problem much encouraged and contributed to by the religions and the Churches themselves. Many of their own ‘theist’ advocates and representatives still hold out that the stories are literally true, thereby demonstrating their own very poor understanding of the faith they are preaching.
Atheists are no exception to this, particularly many modern scientists who seem to have formed a new technological priesthood of their own, slamming the beliefs of others based on ‘logical’ arguments about ancient writings, without ever having done the research and gained some experience of the true practices themselves. For example, the comparison of so-called Five element theory with the periodic table as I saw one science present do on TV is just downright ignorant if not outright stupid for a so-called ‘man of science’ trained in the scientific method. The denial of Darwinian theory and other scientific theories and principles by theists, is equally stupid. Contrary to popular atheist belief, much of modern science actually supports much of the religious beliefs. As science advances, the belief and hope is that these two will continue to converge and start to meet somewhere in the middle, just as must happen with economic and social systems in general.
What we need to decipher and filter out from the chaff is what is common to all the religions and atheists, and what is different and therefore most likely a personal interpretation and/or corruption. To do this we must use the lowest common denominator of humanity that is by definition common to us all, which is ‘Humanism’, or ‘humanitarianism’ if you prefer. These are merely lessons of life that allow us to coexist in peace, ‘live long and prosper‘ as Spock (Star Trek) used to say. We are all born of God and therefore the children of God according to the Christian teachings, and therefore God resides in all of us. The more pragmatic interpretation of this is that God is energy of which all things are derived and made and therefore our nature, which is to my understanding the true meaning of the original teachings and ancient wisdoms anyway.
This energetic evolution includes our societies as a high-level manifestation and reflection of those underlying energies and cycles of nature. Popular verses also say that ‘God helps those that helps themselves‘, though I am quite sure this was not intended to include stealing, murder and terrorism. Most people have however heard of the ‘Butterfly Effect‘ and without doubt we have conscious minds and free will with which to determine how we respond to the forces of nature, like blind sheep or a shepherd. In respect to ‘Satan’ it says that, ‘one is born to each and every generation‘. This does not mean some evil devil called Satan running rampant around the earth trying to hurt or subjugate us. The word Satan comes from an early Arabic (defunct) language or version of Aramaic in which, it is written ‘Sah’tan’, which basically means ‘EGO‘! No wonder then that some devout muslims, rightly or wrongly, regard America as the ‘Great Sah’tan‘ when they look at the economic system – a very limited (tunnel vision) view and perspective though it may be, not to mention the inverse form of ‘egoism‘ that is in play for their part. To each and every generation was a euphemism of ‘each and every single one of us’. Can you overcome yours?
In conclusion, having outlined some of the historical evidence leading upto these predicted social and economic transitions and the context in which are taking place, we come back to the central focus of the article in question about the potential death of capitalism by the year 2030. It is clear that the current situation is not a new phenomenon, but it has been growing and accumulating. What is particularly interesting about these predictions is the timing estimates and their correlation to the Kondratieff Cycles and Long Waves of Educational Reform. These relate to cycles of innovation and reform in respect to economic depressions and swings, but it would be reasonable to presume that the same underlying social forces at work will also affect economic and social systems in general.
Hasan Simsek (unknown) explains it succinctly this way:
“Kondratieff cycles refer to a “law of motion” in the capitalist mode of production: Since the establishment of the industrial capitalism in the late 18th century, capitalism has moved through long waves of up swings followed by long waves of down-swings, each complete cycle comprising about 50 to 60 years intervals”.
The next reform swing is predicted in the late 2030’s to early 2040’s. I believe this correlation is no coincidence, for in such an inter-connected world, nothing happens in isolation. Many aspects of our societies are in already in the turmoil of transition and the pressure cooker is starting to bubble over. Sooner or later, evolving step by step, one by one or in one great’ social epiphany’ these overlapping and interdependent aspects of our societies must converge and, sooner or later a new social order or mix will start to emerge by design or default.
For more information, check out this essay by Hasan Simsek of the Middle East technical University: http://usca.edu/essays/vol142005/simsek.pdf.
As it is below, so it is above!
Make of it what you will.
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