Three points (beyond the thanks we owe Parker for covering a story so painfully grotesque that -- despite the tolerance for the intolerable imposed by a long career in journalism -- I could not bear to read the odious transcript at its core):
Firstly, this sort of manipulation of AI is obviously a deliberate, patriarchal-ruling-class attack on our sanity in that it blurs (and ultimately eliminates) the distinction between reality and fantasy -- or, to put it more bluntly, between reality and delusion and thus between truth and lie;
Secondly, the loss of our ability to distinguish between truth and falsehood spawns universal distrust, which in turn intensifies our politically fatal inability to achieve solidarity, which defines this weaponization of AI as an especially malicious aspect of neoliberalism's ever-escalating war on empathy;
Thirdly, the cause-and-effect relationships noted in the first two points are obviously intended to perpetuate tyranny and enslavement.
(Note: I was thinking this out as I wrote it with uncomfortable haste, the speediness necessitated by a pending medical appointment. Ergo, anyone who can say it more lucidly or enlarge upon it, please do. Bottom line, I think Parker has identified a test-run of a terrible new Evil the ruling class is perfecting as an addition to its psychological-warfare arsenal.)
Just from the lede I know this is one of the very few newsletters from Parker I will *not* have to read. Matt Frewer talking to Max Headroom. Better yet, "Well, that's... Okay, I mean, forget about the fact that I was mildly attracted to her, that totally goes against the Sokovia Accords. Doesn't anyone remember Ultron?" --Jeffrey Mace, Agents of SHIELD.
My lord, this is one of the most nightmarish things I’ve ever read about. Terrifying and heartbreaking on a number of levels. Left me feeling sick. Thank you for covering it Parker because it couldn’t have been easy and I say that as someone who writes about nightmarish things for a living. This is a new, terrible low and an ominous direction.
Aside from the profound and complex grief of his parents, I’m reminded of the Sandy Hook parents being told *their children did not exist* and wonder if this is a reaction to that. I mean, our standard procedure is just to move on 24 hours after a shooting now and forget.
One interesting thing coming out of this "interview" is that I am now feeling an emotion I've never felt before and don't have a word for. It's kind of a mixture of despair, grief, outrage, and rage. I haven't been religious in any way for decades, but this is unholy. Twisting something sacred like parents grieving their dead son into more content for the machine is an abomination against humanity.
Look, hear me out, I know it's unfortunate that so many children are mass-murdered by gun-totin' lunatics, but what if the parents of gun victims could be provided with AI replacements for their murdered kids? Now that's the kind of technological non-solution that America is known for!
God knows this is more likely to happen than us doing one single fucking thing about the guns.
Coming soon: Palestinians, relocated to a massive prison camp in the Negev, are each provided with a VR headset so they can finally visualize the Palestinian state of their dreams!
Sidebar question, Your Honor. It's forty five degrees off topic from the subject of this post but you made me think about it.
It's a question I wonder about every year running up to the State of the Union. You know those random guests in the studio audience the President calls out for some heroic whatever? I think Pres. Reagan started this schtick. Certainly these cameos are planned out weeks in advance and the guests need to learn a certain amount of choreography.
Simple question: Does anyone approached for one of these photo ops simply say "No Thank You. My life trauma does not exist for you to score political points. Please do not approach me or my family again."
"What 17-year-old talks like that? What human talks like that?"
Perhaps its apt that they spoke about Star Wars. Mark Hamill has talked about how he remembers one line from his Star Wars audition because he read it and thought, "What talks like this?!?"
My ultimate thought is who is this "interview" for besides those who stand to capitalize off it. The way that Joaquin's father is parading the avatar of his dead son around, even if there's an anti-gun message attached to it, feels particularly grotesque. The kid's death was bad enough. This makes things that much worse.
I’m appalled. As someone who would give anything to converse with my lost loved ones, I’m disgusted that anyone would accept an AI chatbot as a substitute for the real actual human. I’m not against using historical figures, soldiers and/or holocaust survivors in museum settings to share stories that would disappear once they die.
But as you made abundantly clear, Jim Acosta should know better. And if he does and did it anyway, shame on him.
"But it wasn't genuine. It was his sister deciding what her brother would say, then making a digital puppet say it."
Now please think deeply about this as it relates to the media and politics over the last decade or so. There really isn't much of a stretch it what has been the norm and this.
Jim Acosta is just a biological form of this digital puppet. He can be programmed to say anything that gets his corporate masters more clicks, likes, followers and subscribers. He will interview anyone that also gets their script to influence some outcome. He isn't a journalist; he is just a facilitator of propaganda.
Lefties are alarmed at this next phase in technology-enabled psychological and emotional manipulation, but ya'll have been supporting, protecting and demanding it for the benefit of your politics. It has been a greedy and immoral enterprise... and like all greedy enterprises the monsters grow and come back to eat the face of those greedy and immoral instigators.
Maybe learn something here... hold the line on journalistic ethics instead of supporting bad journalistic behavior only because it benefits your politics.
"Hold the line on journalistic ethics instead of supporting bad journalistic behavior only because it benefits your politics" is like, Parker's whole thing? Her entire career is critiquing the media.
Critiquing the media for failing to hold, protect, support and promulgate her political worldview.
That is not the same as critiquing the media for failing to uphold standard codes of journalistic ethics and integrity. Frankly, in the pool of highly ethical journalists, Jim Acosta has always lived in the sewer underneath.
It's not encouraging people actually believe such a thing. While AI's access to information is essentially "unlimited" (to the extent the information is in digital form) Information, in of itself, is NOT knowledge. That is a very important distinction to understand.
I don't know what Acosta was thinking when he decided this drivel was a good idea; I can only assume casting oneself as "edgy" is still a thing with so-called influencers. Sad times we live in; happily, I'm old enough to likely miss the most dystopian aspects of advanced AI. I hope.
what the literal fuck
Three points (beyond the thanks we owe Parker for covering a story so painfully grotesque that -- despite the tolerance for the intolerable imposed by a long career in journalism -- I could not bear to read the odious transcript at its core):
Firstly, this sort of manipulation of AI is obviously a deliberate, patriarchal-ruling-class attack on our sanity in that it blurs (and ultimately eliminates) the distinction between reality and fantasy -- or, to put it more bluntly, between reality and delusion and thus between truth and lie;
Secondly, the loss of our ability to distinguish between truth and falsehood spawns universal distrust, which in turn intensifies our politically fatal inability to achieve solidarity, which defines this weaponization of AI as an especially malicious aspect of neoliberalism's ever-escalating war on empathy;
Thirdly, the cause-and-effect relationships noted in the first two points are obviously intended to perpetuate tyranny and enslavement.
(Note: I was thinking this out as I wrote it with uncomfortable haste, the speediness necessitated by a pending medical appointment. Ergo, anyone who can say it more lucidly or enlarge upon it, please do. Bottom line, I think Parker has identified a test-run of a terrible new Evil the ruling class is perfecting as an addition to its psychological-warfare arsenal.)
Just from the lede I know this is one of the very few newsletters from Parker I will *not* have to read. Matt Frewer talking to Max Headroom. Better yet, "Well, that's... Okay, I mean, forget about the fact that I was mildly attracted to her, that totally goes against the Sokovia Accords. Doesn't anyone remember Ultron?" --Jeffrey Mace, Agents of SHIELD.
My lord, this is one of the most nightmarish things I’ve ever read about. Terrifying and heartbreaking on a number of levels. Left me feeling sick. Thank you for covering it Parker because it couldn’t have been easy and I say that as someone who writes about nightmarish things for a living. This is a new, terrible low and an ominous direction.
Aside from the profound and complex grief of his parents, I’m reminded of the Sandy Hook parents being told *their children did not exist* and wonder if this is a reaction to that. I mean, our standard procedure is just to move on 24 hours after a shooting now and forget.
This also makes me think about Jacob Wideman and this podcast: https://www.themarshallproject.org/violation
One interesting thing coming out of this "interview" is that I am now feeling an emotion I've never felt before and don't have a word for. It's kind of a mixture of despair, grief, outrage, and rage. I haven't been religious in any way for decades, but this is unholy. Twisting something sacred like parents grieving their dead son into more content for the machine is an abomination against humanity.
Look, hear me out, I know it's unfortunate that so many children are mass-murdered by gun-totin' lunatics, but what if the parents of gun victims could be provided with AI replacements for their murdered kids? Now that's the kind of technological non-solution that America is known for!
God knows this is more likely to happen than us doing one single fucking thing about the guns.
Coming soon: Palestinians, relocated to a massive prison camp in the Negev, are each provided with a VR headset so they can finally visualize the Palestinian state of their dreams!
Sidebar question, Your Honor. It's forty five degrees off topic from the subject of this post but you made me think about it.
It's a question I wonder about every year running up to the State of the Union. You know those random guests in the studio audience the President calls out for some heroic whatever? I think Pres. Reagan started this schtick. Certainly these cameos are planned out weeks in advance and the guests need to learn a certain amount of choreography.
Simple question: Does anyone approached for one of these photo ops simply say "No Thank You. My life trauma does not exist for you to score political points. Please do not approach me or my family again."
"What 17-year-old talks like that? What human talks like that?"
Perhaps its apt that they spoke about Star Wars. Mark Hamill has talked about how he remembers one line from his Star Wars audition because he read it and thought, "What talks like this?!?"
My ultimate thought is who is this "interview" for besides those who stand to capitalize off it. The way that Joaquin's father is parading the avatar of his dead son around, even if there's an anti-gun message attached to it, feels particularly grotesque. The kid's death was bad enough. This makes things that much worse.
got actually nauseous and dizzy reading
Sick!
I’m appalled. As someone who would give anything to converse with my lost loved ones, I’m disgusted that anyone would accept an AI chatbot as a substitute for the real actual human. I’m not against using historical figures, soldiers and/or holocaust survivors in museum settings to share stories that would disappear once they die.
But as you made abundantly clear, Jim Acosta should know better. And if he does and did it anyway, shame on him.
Thx Parker!
Just another clueless hack...thank you for this
Wow. Something I completely agree with!
"But it wasn't genuine. It was his sister deciding what her brother would say, then making a digital puppet say it."
Now please think deeply about this as it relates to the media and politics over the last decade or so. There really isn't much of a stretch it what has been the norm and this.
Jim Acosta is just a biological form of this digital puppet. He can be programmed to say anything that gets his corporate masters more clicks, likes, followers and subscribers. He will interview anyone that also gets their script to influence some outcome. He isn't a journalist; he is just a facilitator of propaganda.
Lefties are alarmed at this next phase in technology-enabled psychological and emotional manipulation, but ya'll have been supporting, protecting and demanding it for the benefit of your politics. It has been a greedy and immoral enterprise... and like all greedy enterprises the monsters grow and come back to eat the face of those greedy and immoral instigators.
Maybe learn something here... hold the line on journalistic ethics instead of supporting bad journalistic behavior only because it benefits your politics.
Man, I just KNEW there was some way this could be twisted into an attack on The Left.
"Hold the line on journalistic ethics instead of supporting bad journalistic behavior only because it benefits your politics" is like, Parker's whole thing? Her entire career is critiquing the media.
Critiquing the media for failing to hold, protect, support and promulgate her political worldview.
That is not the same as critiquing the media for failing to uphold standard codes of journalistic ethics and integrity. Frankly, in the pool of highly ethical journalists, Jim Acosta has always lived in the sewer underneath.
“SWEET ROBOT JESUS!!!!” That is the most fucked up things I’ve ever heard.
"He insisted the AI's knowledge was “unlimited.”"
It's not encouraging people actually believe such a thing. While AI's access to information is essentially "unlimited" (to the extent the information is in digital form) Information, in of itself, is NOT knowledge. That is a very important distinction to understand.
I don't know what Acosta was thinking when he decided this drivel was a good idea; I can only assume casting oneself as "edgy" is still a thing with so-called influencers. Sad times we live in; happily, I'm old enough to likely miss the most dystopian aspects of advanced AI. I hope.
I think I prefer Midsommar for my "Modernity makes it difficult to handle grief" cautionary tale.