Jaz cover issue low res - Flipbook - Page 3
Digital Eugenics and
our (im)Perfect Future
The arrival of AI has unleashed a torrent of almost luddite-like hysteria with predictions
of a Terminator style culling of the human race or of messianic AI humanoids
returning mankind to serfdom. The truth is probably a lot more pedestrian but
now that AI is among us our capacity to mess it up will be ever-present
I
magine having all the knowledge of the world, its history, its science, its art and literature, its religions, and desires, including its perversions and secrets. That you knew its
military strengths, its limitations and ambitions and that you had the ability to access
and use all of that knowledge in seconds. That you could absorb all new data and information, both cerebral and visual, as it was generated minute by minute. That you could
watch, learn and mimic any action or movement a human makes and understand and speak
any language spoken on the planet, as well as the main unspoken languages from mankind’s
collective past like ancient Egyptian and Latin. That you never got tired or hungry and that
your responses to problems and situations were unencumbered by emotions or concerns
for the feelings of others. That human frailty and weaknesses were irrelevant and that your
primary aim and function was achieving your objectives. This is essentially what AI is and
now its creators are getting worried.
Artificial Intelligence or AI is the ability of computer systems to perform tasks that
typically require human intelligence, including language, speech recognition, problem
solving, decision-making and learning with the minimum of human intervention. Since
Open AI made ChatGPT available in November 2022, discussion of AI has been an almost daily topic. People fear that its inherent ability to learn
without human intervention or prompts, Machine Learning (ML), mean that AI could rapidly achieve parity with its
human creators or surpass us as it processes knowledge and
data at an incredible speed.
There are no laws governing or regulating AI’s use and in
countries like China the government has recognised AI as
a strategic priority and has set itself the goal of becoming a
global leader in AI by 2030. Chinese tech companies like Baidu,
Alibaba and Tencent have made substantial investments in AI
R&D including robotics, computer vision and deep learning,
essentially using neural networks to learn and improve their
function by imitating how humans think and acquire knowledge. In the US Tesla is developing humanoid robots, initially
called Tesla Bots, the first model has now been named Optimus
and was introduced to the world by Elon Musk in September
2022. The prototype looked very much like one would expect
a robot to look, all chrome and tubes with a featureless head,
so without a human face or human characteristics, other than
walking on two legs and having arms and functioning hands. Nevertheless, it looks impressive and is due to go sale in the relatively near future with a price tag in the region of $20K
(about £16,000) so around the same price as a good car. Musk is anticipating sales in the
millions with the aim of “bringing a robot to every home and business’.
Tesla isn’t alone in preparing and readying robots for commercial release, AI and robotics are sexy and there a lot of companies getting involved, and in a market expected to
be worth at least $142 billion by 2032, and growing at an annual rate of 11.04% between
now and then, we can expect to see a lot more. Google has PaLM-SayCan, linguistic intelligence, which essentially creates robots that can understand humans and has been likened to mashing a world class athlete with a chess champion, creating a perfect humanoid
being. While Open AI, the company behind ChapGPT has teamed up with Norwegian
company, 1X, to develop robots integrated with AI. Other leading players in the march
to create a robotic master race include Hanson Robotics whose life-like Sophia robot and
‘her’ M3GAN-like mini sister robot, Little Sophia, which is aimed at children aged 8 years
and above, have almost become international celebrities, appearing on TV and at numerous public events. Indeed, Sophia is described as a ‘person that is not human’ designed for
‘emotive interactions and intelligent conversations.’ Even more human-like is Engineered
Arts’, Ameca, whose facial expressions are uncannily life-like, however, Ameca cannot
walk and is not yet incorporated with AI, but like Sophia, offers a glimpse into what a
truly sentient robot might be like.
In the fields of entertainment, art, music and yes, pornography, AI offers, or threatens,
to make films, computer games, write scripts, compose scores, animate actors or resurrect
dead ones, and visualise our dreams. Already there are dozens of AI apps offering to create any image you want from your specified description, while porn companies, as is so
often the case with new technology, are exploiting AI to the max by offering customised
porn images made by selecting desirable traits; large breasts, hair and skin colour etc for
your digital woman or man and mixing those with sexual scenarios. Though for a bigger fee customers can essentially script
and curate a porn film which AI will make for them, including
incorporating fake celebrities into footage that is increasingly
difficult to distinguish from reality.
Very few industries or aspects of our lives will be spared
disruption by AI, with the World Economic Forum estimating that some 83 million jobs worldwide will be lost to AI over
the next five years with 69 million new jobs being created by
it, leaving some 14 million jobs lost in total. Yet AI also offers
advancements in nearly all aspects of our lives including
creating more food through the use of Genetically Modified
Organisms (GMO) crops and the deep integration of AI into
the farming industry, healthcare, communication, finance, the
environment, and education.
So, does this mean that we should fear AI, are we are doomed?
It is certainly going to be transformative, and one doesn’t have
to be a technophobe to fear ‘the end of the human race’ as Stephen Hawking voiced nor ‘civilisational destruction’ by ‘out-ofcontrol’ AI as Elon Musk does, to worry about the unintended consequences. Yet while AI
may be ‘the most important technology ever developed’ it was developed by humans and as
such may have also inherited some of our propensity for self-analysis so I asked ChapGPT
to do just that and this is what it said:
It’s important to note that as an AI, I don’t possess self-awareness or the ability to modify
my own programming or architecture. My development and improvements are driven by
external human intervention and ongoing research in the field of AI.
So, at the time of writing our fate lies not in some Terminator-like hyper intelligent killing
machine but rather with humans and what we choose to programme AI to do and that’s
probably the scariest thing of all.
Sophia is
described as a
‘person that is not
human’ designed for
‘emotive interactions’
Editor and art director: Nigel Wingrove
Design: Bloody French www.bloodyfrenchdesign.com
Deputy editor: Anna Maksymluk
Contributors: Dave Edmond, David Flint, Lou Hellbaby, Dr Patricia MacCormack
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Salvation Films, 27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX or emailed to: info@salvationgroup.com
The views of the contributors are not necessarily those of the editor and vice versa. The contents of this magazine are fully protected by international
copyright laws and cannot be reproduced in any form without the express permission of Salvation Films. © Salvation Films 2023
Front covers: Jess Franco illustration - Mark Kenny
Jazmin Bean photography - Reuben Bastienne-Lewis
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