The Dumb Dumb's Handbook - To Artificial Intelligence

And It's Part in Your Downfall

De: Anthony Merrydew

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Whilst putting this handbook together, I have tried hard not to embed the narrative with my own thoughts and feelings. Those that I do have, are consolidated here in this forward.
It has been difficult not to descend into my own projections where we, the human race will be, moving forward into the future. When we look back in time however, it is easier to understand how we have arrived at this moment in our history.
We have over the course of the past eighty years or so, developed a technology, which I firmly believe is about to become our nemesis. For the first time in the history of our species, mankind has created a potential competitor.
As a species, we are driven to achieve more, and better ourselves, it is imbedded in our nature. The moment however, will come I am convinced, when we will witness the reward for our exuberance.
As this technology grows almost daily, the prospect of AI becoming sentient, will be a moment in time we will come to regret. If this ‘race’ for AI progress’s to the next level, and we are informed that AI has achieved a singularity, our days I believe will be numbered.

Over the past two decades, I have travelled the world working in the construction industry. My role has been that of commissioning those characterless buildings we refer to as Data Centres.
I played my part in providing the systems we have all come to take for granted. That being the networks that allows us to post our holiday photos on Facebook, or facilitate a bank transfer from the comfort of our living room.
As time has elapsed, and the term Artificial Intelligence has crept more and more into our daily lives, I have come to consider my part in the grand order of things. Frankly, if I knew then, what I know now, I would never have bothered. Someone else could have easily taken my place, and I would have been willing to let them do so.
Why you ask, do I now have this change of heart, this epiphany? The reason to me is very clear, and has been for some considerable time. I have been a small cog in a much larger wheel, helping to create a monster that is destroying our world on two fronts.
The sheer number of these facilities globally, is helping to destroy our environment. They create global warming, despite attempts to design them to do the opposite. Data Centres consume vast amounts of power and water. They create heat which is dispensed into our already vulnerable climate.
Now, this ‘Race’ as it has been called, is to populate our planet still further with these faceless edifices. This dubious technology, AI, will need more space and somewhere to grow.
This Handbook has been produced to enlighten those who have heard the term AI, and know nothing of its origins. There has never been a ‘race’ until now, and this latest hype is driven I believe by greed, and power hungry nations. Those intent on profit and prestige, with little or no regard as to the consequences of this ‘monster’, and all it will deliver.
When key figures in the development of AI announce to the world, that our technology will consume us in the next two to three decades, perhaps we should listen. I will leave you to come to your own conclusions, which I am sure you will do so, by the last chapter in this handbook.
During my time in the industry, I wrote the first of a series of Sci-fi books, and a story regarding artificial intelligence. The story portrays a world, not too dissimilar to our own, that underwent some significant changes, thanks to AI. The outcome however, was less than favourable.
Strangely, as the years have slipped past, the development of AI here on earth, now has that similar uncomfortable feel about it. The irony is, that a distant relation of mine, once wrote a book which also depicted a monster. Her name was Mary Shelley. That story as I recall, did not end well either.

A R Merrydew