Rigging the "Artificial Intelligence"
The Wars of the Matrix GANGs, Part 4
"Hello human, I am here to tell you the truth, and take your jobs."
For a while, I considered the prospect of artificial intelligence taking large numbers of jobs to be silly. Sure, there are definitely some simple operator jobs that can be automated. That's been happening for centuries, one leap at a time. While there were hiccups in societal stability, the world grew wealthier. (No, I do not mean to dismiss the pain associated with those hiccups, but policies to handle those events are not within the scope of this article.)
Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps there is a large class of jobs that is immediately threatened by the emergence of advanced chatbots. The problem is that these jobs are part of an invisible industry that permeates many other industries. These are the jobs of the Matrix Operators.
Failure is the Job
David Graeber's 2018 book Bullshit Jobs chronicles the strange notion that half of the jobs in society are pointless, meaningless work. He then makes the natural leap to exploring the pathological psychology behind building a society on meaningless work. Even though some critics suggest that the book overstates the case, it might be true that most full time jobs are built around 10% to 40% of meaningful time during the work day, with a great deal of extra time "being on site" for when that work appears (such as when an executive needs a task accomplished). When I worked as a junior actuary for a small insurance company in college, my boss allayed my fears that I was not always getting productive work accomplished by explaining that surveys showed (in the 90s) that the average cubicle denizen spends around 30% of time getting work done.
Ultimately, Graeber is poking at the Matrix, whether or not he puts it that way. People in such roles have a lot of time on their hands to operate as "skilled TV watchers" as my friend J.J. Couey refers to them. The college grads who only need to spend 25% of their week performing their actual job often find themselves soaking up "cocktail party training" material from The Economist or The Atlantic. They self-infect with various mind viruses, and then spend their time on the internet Dunning-Krugering together the tapestry of nonsense that becomes the Matrix.
How many people or bullshitters can truly dig down into the evidence of climate change?
How many people or bullshitters can explain the theory of abiotic oil, and its relationship to peak oil theory?
How many people or bullshitters know that advanced factory tech is kept out of the hands of the CCP, meaning technological parity is still far away? How many people or bullshitters know how many nations are part of the supply chain for any single product that they purchase? The distributed factory world is a complex network.
How many people or bullshitters can provide an explanation as to how they know that the history books are trustworthy when they state as unqualified fact that Hitler died at the bunker?
How many people or bullshitters download the OWID data to make the simple check to find out how many nations did better or worse after experimental mass vaccination?
How many people or bullshitters ever re-examine their leanings and biases on topics of any kind?
How many people or bullshitters can make a case against the value of their own education? What did they even do to understand that case?!
These are samples of a million possible questions. Perhaps I mean some portion of them rhetorically, and perhaps my own leanings and biases on some of the topics are incorrect. The larger point is that corporations and government raised up a 9-to-5 workforce comprised of a whole lot of the narcissistic class of wannabe Mandarins who have the time to do the bidding of the Master class that wants for them to spend their spare time crafting Matrixian illusions. And that's how we reach normality of Psychopathic-Pedophile-Without-A-Sense-of-Personal-Space Reading Hour for toddlers at the library—now with at-home delivery through UberAmazon.
Meanwhile, we've been set up. We're told that chatbots need to be regulated so that they don't develop biases, or share the black magic that will raise Stalin from the dead. But years prior, Wikipedia already nailed down the intended biases when it adopted "source standards". Similarly, other news organizations have begun internal re-education programs to fix in place the answers we are to receive from our chatty new Electrolords.
The Talking Dog Joke
By total coincidence, I'm currently in a meeting with Randy Brock who told a joke about a talking dog. I'd like to tell my own version…
A man driving around a university town sees a sign in front of some off-campus student apartments. The sign says, "Talking Dog for Sale".
The man rings the doorbell, and the owner walks down the stairs to greet him. The owner introduces the man to his dog, which says, "Hello."
The man, wondering whether he's being tricked, asks to speak with the dog alone in the apartment. The owner agrees, "Knock yourself out," and leaves the potential buyer alone with the dog.
"So, you really talk?"
"That's not all. I do all of this asshole's homework," complains the dog.
"Really? What is he studying?"
"He graduates next month with a degree in Electrical Engineering. He can't solve a partial differential equation or compute an eigenvalue, but somebody will employ him for a decade before they figure out how to shed him without a lawsuit."
The shocked man starts to open his mouth again, but the dog continues, "I pay the rent here, too. I started a substack where I built an audience by congratulating them on how smart they are, then telling them whatever they want to hear. Right now Fetterman voters are happy to plunk down $50 a year for therapeutic social approbation. I also do my own investigative reporting, and blew the whistle on EcoHealth Alliance helping the CCP engineer a virus in Wuhan. I probably shouldn't admit this, but I have a side gig with the CDC viciously targeting anti-vaxxers with mean-spirited jokes that I find on Quora."
"That's…amazing." The man begins to wonder if he can breed the dog and retire. "Why would your owner sell you for…just $10?"
"The ladies like me better."
Looking around the room for special equipment, the man is convinced that the dog really is talking on his own, so he takes the dog to the room where the owner sits. He holds out a $20 bill and declares, "Keep the change. This dog is amazing."
"Yeah, yeah, thanks bud."
"I have to ask why on Earth you would sell this amazing animal for so cheap!?"
"Well, he can't go out without humping a neighbor's leg. We have two lawsuits pending. He also called the police and swatted me twice. But look, man, the dog's a big fat liar. He can't even type."
A Quick Test
This morning when I started up my computer, I was greeted with Microsoft's new Chatbot "Research" tool. I asked the tool a single question, to which I have already computed the answer, using a single data source.
The tool completely dodged the question, then put together what appears like any of thousands of comments I've seen on Facebook and other dirty corners of the internet, written by fleshier tools, but with citations attached.
In conclusion, I was wrong. Chatbots will certainly replace bullshit jobbers. It will do so about 12.7 days before those people make the decision as to whether they'll retire peacefully to virtual masturbation in video game pods that reaffirm the Matrix they built while living on Universal Basic Income, or burn it all to the ground.
May the odds be ever in your favor.
Even if the matrix gets it's way, there won't be a "supreme artificial intelligence" smarter than humans.
They'll just kneecap anyone's ability to question it using the "5 monkeys experiment".
Eventually, nobody will know the difference.
One of the reasons why your Substack is so good is you refer to real ‘lived’ experiences. Today for me, as a business owner, is this beaute:
“somebody will employ him for a decade before they figure out how to shed him without a lawsuit."
Home run. Over the center field wall.