Your Saturday Cartoon
by Noah
Those who know me well enough might have picked up on my belief that Homo Sapiens, ie. us, the species we belong to, is a genus of humanoids that, at best, has gone as far as it's going to go in its development. Eons from now, there might be a newer, better evolved branch of the human tree that will look back at us in the same way we look back on Australopithecus, Homo Heidelbergensis, and other branches of the tree that either met a dead end or actually managed to evolve up to us. Then again, there's probably a bigger likelihood that the whole damn human tree dies and becomes nothing but food for termites that helps them evolve into the Zanti Misfits. Either that or the entire Earth becomes a barren wasteland ruled and populated only by Ai robots and machines; a Terminator dream for real. So the question is: Do the Terminator bots kill us off? Nah, we're doing a fine job of that ourselves. Or... To look at it another way, Ai was designed by us so what's the difference? And, in case you think Ai will have a long, long rule also telling itself how smart it is, don't worry, it has a fatal flaw in that we created it. Therefore, it is doomed.
We had a nice run, although that depends on what the meaning of 'nice' is. We achieved a lot but, way too often, we used our technological achievements in an effort to kill each other or the planet itself in increasingly more clever ways; a fatal flaw in ourdesign, I suppose. So yeah, now it's Ai, aka the god of our darkest psyche. Garbage in, garbage out. We went from making flints to be used as hand held scrapers and choppers to attaching them to axe handles and then spears to attaching all too similar devices to rockets and raining them down on cities. Progress. We went from cave paintings where we depicted our prey and the things we worshipped, even stencils of our own hands; all three often the same, to journalism of varying quality where people wrote about all three. Same with commercials, with political commercials adapting their evolution down to soundbites and catchall phrases. Just take it in. No thought required. Say dumb da dumb down. Try that out for yourself with various ominous tones. Next: Behold the totally Ai generated candidate! But really, with all those scripts and handlers, haven't we already been there for decades? Can you even tell the difference? We already had a Biden sound-a-like robocall in the New Hampshire primary, so... yeah, anyone with an IQ over, say 110 can see where this is going, but, of course that's nowhere near to the number of people who have critical thinking and perception abilities that are needed. Ai is already a trough of semi-rancid gruel meant to poison minds, not just bodies. Get down on your knees and lap it up suckers. Imagine a near future world where half the people you pass on the street are Ai generated holograms. "Hey! Where'd everybody go??!!??"
We used to have newspapers but they went over the horizon, one by one and two by two. Big cities would have ten or more, some with both a morning and evening edition. People actually read them. Now, in just the last two weeks, one of the best of them, the Baltimore Sun, has been bought by a typical brain-challenged billionaire crap artist and Sports Illustrated is waving goodbye. In their place, if any place at all, will be what today's cartoon is getting at; what I will call Jiberish Journalism, a perfect match for 21st Century humanoids. 50,000 year old cave paintings which we can still see to cell phones that last 3 years. (Get a load of this: As I write this, my computer is objecting to my writing "to cell phones" and suggesting that I say 'on' cell phones! Kinda ironic.) Anyway, as I was saying before the primitive Ai of my Mac interrupted me, we've gone from cave paintings through actual journalism (good and bad) to commercials to soundbites. Soundbites often received now through little hand held flint knives that we can even use to blow up something, or just ruin someone's life. I mean, well c'mon' isn't that what social media is often used for. That's us. Now it will be even worse and even more destructive. Yes, the next step is "All Jiberish, All The Time" and we'll sign up with a contract for it; a contract on us. Suicide for the species. (By the way, my Mac wants me to say "a contract for us." It's everywhere, folks. Run for the hills!
Yes. That's what the "Terminator" franchise got so totally wrong. If the machines wanted humankind to die, the first thing they'd have "learned" is that all they need to do is nothing... and just wait a while. we're doing it ourselves.
I also find it hilarious that people who are seemingly incapable of "learning" from mistakes (or accidental successes) are afraid that machines that WE MADE will learn better than we do.