THE 5th WAVE: THE ‘FLOW OF CHANGES’ - HUMANITY STUMBLES UP THE STEEP CURVE OF THE EXPONENTIAL AGE

The Perched Eye blog is 15 years old,  from 2009 with President Obama's election. Our focus has been eclectic ...  the styles and directions of American politics and culture, with an occasional comment on the impact of new technologies. Our observations sometimes attract a critical eye, but the 'pen' remains unblunted.

We are now experiencing an exponentially turbulent ‘FLOW OF CHANGES' that arguably began when human science entered the cusp of exponential technological evolution with the Quantum Science discussions and debates of Bohr, Einstein, Heisenberg, Dirac...at 1927's Solvay Conference.) Classical Newtonian Rationalism began to blur and fade after this...supplanted by 'Uncertainty' and debate about what is real, or not, or both. 

And humanity began to understand that something 'more' was coming through that opened door... things unknown and unexpected, and things came rapidly after this, and increasingly more rapidly. 

We had entered a new world of CHANGE...Dynamic Change...Exponentially Dynamic Change. (Changes change, too.) 

But, our (unassisted) brains are not equipped with neuronic speeds fast enough to cope with exponential change. The result is damaging to the individual and our societies. Humanity will have to learn how to navigate the new Age of Exponential Change.

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We are exiting the linear, gentler progression of human development that began with the Enlightenment, led us through the Industrial Revolution, and are now even exiting the cusp that leads radically upward (change-wise, if not for the better) to a near-vertical exponential-change curve where 'change' will be so rapid as to seem a day-to-day mental crisis.

Humanity is finding the post-Cusp, upward climb too steep, too rapidly changing, and increasingly confusing. Our brains are not equipped with neuronic speeds fast enough to cope with exponential change. The result is damaging to the individual and our societies.

 We are now on a difficult path...in almost all aspects of human culture, ethnicity relations, physical health, personal and social mental stability,...and especially politics.  

‘Exponential’ change has become a perceptible determinant of our lives.

America currently leads in this too-rapidly-changing race to…where? And we seem lost and near-overwhelmed by it all - mass shootings in our schools, political shibboleths that operate against the Common Good (but are phrased in clever rhyme and meter to sound comforting, group inclusive, and other ego-appealing ways attractive to the uneducated and desperate...despite being factually against their best interests (a perception Perched Eye noted in 2009.)

CAN HUMANITY NAVIGATE THESE TIMES? (Can we gain control, or at least a working perspective on our Technology and our Future…as we think we want it to be? Or should we choose to continue in our self-driven state of chaos? Or should we try something new? 

Do we have Choices?  For the new? Are there any choices as the race gets faster to keep pace on the upward curve in this new Exponential Age?

The Age of Exponentialism is the 5th Wave that builds upon the shocks to the human psyche and society by modern change since the Industrial Revolution ... notably as written about in books such as Future Shock, Alvin Tofflfer, 1960), followed by Toffler’s “3rd Wave”(1980).  

The Third Wave was followed by the ‘4th Wave's’ writings and thouhts following along after Toffler, and characterized by literary musings in Sci-Fi (e.g., "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968, Philip K Dick), analyses of psychoses, and predictions based on perceived changes and expectations resulting from the 3rd wave. 

IMO, the Fourth Wave emphasized ...technologically resultant discontinuities (Futurism, Singularity and Transhumanism (Kurzweil)); existential angst (RD Laing); and reactions to technological dominance, e.g., Expanionist Sentientcy & ‘Uber-sentiency’ (Nick Bostrom, David Pearce)

The Exponential Age difference is that changes are coming too quick to muse about one, or even one phase in particular. 

We must quickly learn to disregard momentary analyses, and simply give ourselves over to the ‘Flow of Change”. 

There will come a time when humanity will have a moment to rest (or rely on ‘Advanced Integrative Ai) and gain a perspective on our ‘state of being.’ Then, we may be able to consolidate our experience into moralities and ethics for the next steps up the Exponential Curve.

‘Change’ is now more a mental acknowledgment than an understanding.  Close-focusing is useless. Our brains are not equipped with neuronic speeds fast enough to cope with exponential change. Attempting close-focusing one minute loses sight od what is unflolding a minute later. The result is mind-bending, socially dissociating disaffect on the individual...all of which is socially disruptive.

Accelerating change is what mathematicians call 2nd (and higher order) differential change…i.e., changes in heretofore steady (linear straight line) change…with some key interspersed discontinuities (Age Defining Historicies.) 

We’ll just call Exponential Change:

CONFLUENCES, INFLUENCES, CHANGING-CHANGE, & CHAOS: THE TIDES OF EXPONENTIAL CULTURAL EVOLUTION (The Global 5th Wave…)

The Age of Exponentialism is a non-linear, upward-accelerating curve of socio-technological change characterizing an increasingly more rapid evolution of human culture driven by technological advances that feed upon themselves (‘exponential change’)…resulting in such rapid changes that we humans have little time to learn new ‘stuff’and adjust.

Exponentialism originates from, is fed by, and supported with a mix of factors:

• ET CONTACT (& DISCLOSURE). This event (or DOD release), accompanied by potential, open-source technology transfer will blow away every expectation and prediction — further advancement upward along the now vertical exponential curve will potentially (!) be hyper-radical. Humanity’s public reaction will be either a ‘Hollywood 6-month fascination’, or a major, permanent shift in human ‘ways’ (religion especially, racism, ethics, Ai progress and codes, …)…or, will ET have it’s own xenophobic response to trusting humans, and then..either we will be resentful that treasures and secrets are withheld, or we will remain ignorant of what ET doesn’t reveal to us…until we discover things for ourselves (ET policy might be to ‘give humans just enought to advance them a bit, but…watch and monitor);
• ABSENT ET DISCLOSURE: Humanity will plot its own course up the Exponential curve.
• Accelerating Information exchange… speed and formats;
• Quantum Technologies (eg, the promise of quantum computing, (hyper-’parallelism’);
• the soon-to-come-on-the-exponential curve‘ of applied QuantumEntanglement with ‘instantaneous’ transmission of messages and physical objects (prototypes already reported);
• Artificial Intelligence — doing human ‘work’ faster and error free;
• Neuro-science & technology, Genetics and Physiology — e.g., organ and limb regeneration, brain enhancement, artificial eyes…;
• Virtual Living — as humans are freed from work, what do we do to occupy ourselves? Or, will this question become irrelevant…as we increasingly turn to virtual escapism?;
• Cultural Reductionism of ‘culture’ to the essentials, the ‘irreducibles’(e.g., food, water, sanitation, air (!)…?). BUt will even these eventually become irrelevant as humanity goes full virtual?;
• HUMANITY EXPANDS (by its own efforts): FTL space-time travel becomes a technical thing (warp drive, M-Drive, etc….and other DARPA projects currently underway, and soon to come, and completed but held secret for the ‘standard’ DARPA vault release (20–50 years).) ET Contact falls into this category.

But for humanity to survive, as it must (!), we humans have to adapt to accelerating change…hard…as we are stumblingly starting to do. (Afterall, we built this system and we can’t let it get away from us…at least not let it get away easily, without a battle (a battle for our survival.)

Humanity are like the ‘60s wave riders of North Shore’s Makaha in my second home, Hawaii, who over the years learned to surf its cross-currents, barrels and random waves…’hanging ten’ and looking good…despite it all.

The human brain, unassisted, seems inadequate for the Age of Exponentialism; and natural human evolution seems to slow to keep up. The answer seems inevitable that humanity must be assisted in the technological manner(s) listed above…which we are doing.

The big conundrum in this Age of Exponentialism is:

CAN HUMANITY HOLD ON! (To Itself, Its Technology, Its Future…as we think we know, or want it to be?)

Artificial Intelligence: the Future of Our Religion-Capitalism Paradigm, New Gods...and the Eminent ? of Humanity

A recent article streamed from the DailyGalaxy web site, "An AI God Will Emerge, Replacing Our Concept of the Divine", 102417) painted a future where Artificial Intelligence (in device or mega-cloud format) may escape from human control after passing some cybernetic threshold of uber-smartness compared to humans. This threshold is, as of yet, undeterminable but felt by a significant number of vocal scientists to be both inevitable and fast creeping up on us.

Pericles21 posits that it will be impossible to sustain human control over future Artificial Intelligence because of our mercantile-dominated Western culture that is dominated by the Capitalist Equation where nearly every item or service is price-tagged and Western (nay, Global) economies are driven to maximize profit. A break in this post is inserted to review this phenomenon:

CAPITALISM EQUATION: Maximum Profit = Revenue - MINIMUM COSTS (where the desired cost goal is ZERO)

ZERO Costs is the 21st century mantra that governs most if not all human activity in this era of global capitalism.

ZERO COSTS is the cause of global wealth inequality and is killing working humanity by its consequences: elimination of raw material costs by resource robbery in non-developed nations, outsourcing of manufacturing to lowest wage areas, the elimination or at least emasculation of unions, and increasing productivity through automation which serves to reduce labor cost(human participation in manufacturing) to a goal of ZERO!

Capitalism's goal of ZERO LABOR COST will essentially be achieved as automation becomes widespread and eventually human labor becomes fully redundant with Artificial Intelligence taking over from all labor activities.

The ascendency of this simple Capitalism Equation (destruction of Labor's negotiating powers by eleiminating unions and automation) has been a steady trend since industrialization was introduce in the 19th century, with certain halts such as the period after the Great Depression, principally the Roosevelt programs that promoted a balance of power between labor and capital. But there was also a second attempt to restore that power balance through an appeal to reason and observation that unfettered capital development was ruining our water and air quality that quite naturally deteriorated the health of workers and the general population...thus negatively affecting worker productivity. A strong voice among economists bringing attention to this need for Capitalism to support policies that acknowledged Capitalism's shared accountability in preserving clean water and air through appropriate manufacturing practices and government guidelines (regulations) was what Pericles21 calls the 'Samuelson School' of the 1980s (Samuelson, MIT). Unfortunately, after a brief popularity the Capitalism world re-established its former myopia regarding the public weal and went full out to complete the destruction of American unions and further its CAPITALISM EQUATION goal of ZERO COSTS.

This brings this discussion back to Artificial Intelligence...which will, unless managed in some way, complete the process of making human labor and humans in general, redundant!

The process of making the working human labor, and humans themselves, redundant will be unstoppable as long as Western culture is, unquestioned, shaped and ruled by the profit-driven, unbreakable partnership between Western religion's gods and modern, unfettered global capitalism, aka Neo-liberalism - all of these will allow unthinking acceleration of technologies that serve purely to promote the Capitalist Equation (ZERO LABOR COST). If not a declared partnership, the relationship between economic-corporate-society and religion has become mutually supportive, mutually protecting and mutually preserving. The first two traits of the 'Partnership' might be seen as positive or at least non-destructive, but the third trait is negative because it traps humanity into a whirlpool of its own making, greed of profit and what profit will 'buy'.

Yes, it appears human 'civilization' has beecome simply defined as 'Buy' (how much available to buy, what to buy and what next can (must?) be bought to satisfy basic urges that are not 'needs'. Humanity's real 'needs (those of the world's needy, i.e., food, clean water, clothing, housing, health care, education ...are now ignored because the needy have no money to Buy right now...and the corporate frame is short term, quarterly at best. The corporatist frame can't wait a decade for an educated and more productive, and more consuming, citizenry to appear after a social makeover!.

Given this dynamic and the increased profitability of Ai replacing inefficient human labor, the uber-Ai threshold is inevitable, approaching rapidly, and can't be stopped without some major social-economic adjustment...which is not likely.

Pericles21, secondly posits that the uber-Ai threshold for exceeding human 'smartness' is between 5-10 years (probably already here in some defense agency projects). 'We' can do nothing more than hold onto our hats and ride it wherever 'it', not 'we', goes.

The preparative signs of a coming demotion of human importance is already here, most significantly being the gross, global mal-distribution of wealth and income..where the net assets of several billion 'poor' are exceeded by the assets of only a few hundred or less uber-rich.

Humanity is stuck neck deep in our own muck and mire generated by greed, lust, selfishness and the other human frailties we know about and fret about but they are supported or preserved by that sacred partnership between what we believe in - the joining of religion and capitalism.

What is it about us humans and technical progress that seems to entrap us in our own technical cleverness where we injure our health with untested pharmaceuticals, injure our environment (and again, our health) by grossly polluting factories and our failure to conceive of consequences of letting industrial waste be dumped willy-nilly into our water and air as if it no longer is our concern if we can't see it?

Whatever 'It" is about human shortsightedness, we have been unable to learn to slow down and think about what demons technical progress might unchain. And so it seems we are faced with unseen consequences that might accompany uncontrolled development of Artificial Intelligence.

Except, there is a growing movement to try to see what might come upon humanity from super-intelligent artificial constructs.

Under the current 'religion-capitalism' partnership that seems to dominate the Western world, it will be difficult to stop Ai progress as long as economic profits appear linked with Ai. Current Western religions and associated gods are thereby doomed by human greed, selfishness, etc... the human frailties. This good for progress but bad for 'stability', i.e., the status quo. Bottom line -corporate-speak), unfettered capitalism will have to be 'made over', or go.
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An AI God Will Emerge --"Replacing Our Concept of the Divine"
October 24, 2017