AI World: Past, Present, and Future.

I'm of the firm opinion that we already live in an "All AI, all the time" world. Typically, my default position is that all technology of any importance, at the point it's introduced to the public, is not new. It is only new to us. Just how old "new tech" is, is debatable, but that it isn't new is not. On that basis, and in this particular case, because of AI's tremendous potential to be used as an instrument of deception, I argue that "AI" has been in use for far far longer than we've been led to believe. Equally, I'm of the view that this tech's very well documented shortcomings-which are a bit too blatant to be accepted as either unintentional or an honest portrayal of what the technology is actually capable of-no, it's neither intelligent nor self aware, nor will it ever be, but it is formidable-serve a critically important purpose, which is to concretize our perception of AI as a relatively recent technology whose (too well advertised) flaws are being worked out in the present. To put something like a fine point on it, my firm bias is that what we're told is the state of play regarding "AI" is yet another bright, shining lie.

On that note, have you noticed any of the recently rolled out on social media, fake 9/11 reveals? I'm referring to video clips that are showing up on platforms like X, with blurbs along the lines of: "Never before seen audio/video of the twin towers moments before they were struck." It's my view that such promotions have little to no chance of being effective if the viewer thinks AI isn't a wholly new tech. Equally, such promotions lose a great deal of their potential motive force if some substantial number of the public don't believe themselves capable of discerning AI fakes from non AI footage. I think much of the public has, in fact, been successfully primed to consider itself capable of discerning when something is AI and when it's not, and it's crucial that the identifiable brand of AI appears to be "cutting edge" so that we don't ever entertain the possibility that "Never before seen audio/video footage of_____" (audio/video footage that seems to match footage from a time before AI) might, itself, actually be AI. 

With respect to the 9/11 footage that's purported to be "new", I'm put in mind of how very difficult it is to accept that plane crashes might, somehow, be faked, but, most importantly, how, ultimately, as is so often the case, such concerns fall under the heading of misdirection, where one is led to perseverate on something that is a red herring. The answer to statements that "airplane crashes and attendant deaths on such a scale are just too big to be faked" is that it's trivially easy to do an end run around these ostensibly compelling claims by observing that, absent one or two key elements, the entire narrative is a soup to nuts fiction. We don't need to worry about the disposition of alleged weaponized jet liners and their victimized passengers, because there were no jetliners and passengers to begin with. Thrown into the bargain, we don't need to worry about victims in the twin towers if the buildings were mostly, perhaps even entirely, unoccupied. The same can be said for the gleefully cheer leading Israelis on rooftops, and the slew of disparate individuals offering testimonials about what they allegedly saw, heard, or personally experienced, etc. The destroyed buildings, courtesy of some internally placed explosives, were real, but just about everything else was an extravagant fraudulent tapestry woven for avid T.V. watchers, because, unbeknownst to the viewing public, they've had the tech to run rings around reality for far longer than we've ever been led to believe. 

We can, at least partially, test this thesis by monitoring the progress of AI technology. My view is that, going forward, they aren't going to roll out "vastly superior AI" but only marginally better AI, and that will be over a fairly longish time frame, because they don't want us to ever cotton to the fact that we already live in AI world, and have been for who knows exactly how long. In keeping with the general thesis, one is, of course, duty bound to ask if famous figures like Biden, Trump, Putin, Musk, Gates, etc. are real? Did they ever actually exist? To the latter question I'm guessing the answer is "probably", but do they now? Of that I'm dubious, and, ultimately, they are, in my view, practically speaking, more fiction than fact. While it seems evident that, here and there, actual events are held where the likeness of the aforesaid individuals are obligated to make an appearance-albeit at a remove from the public, see 2024's Butler, PA fakery-that, absent what are relatively infrequent events, "the show" is amply carried out via pixels/AI. I posit that the powers that be only need the occasional physical spectacle in order to preclude us from ever entertaining the idea that maybe, just maybe, we don't already exist in an AI 24/7 world, where the actual AI is far more capable than we're led to believe. Consider that this is the reason why perception management/"social media" platforms feature a plethora of video clips of various "mask" fails related to the likes of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. It's because they are quite content to have us subscribe to a litany of masks, body doubles, etc. since they manage to attest to the existence of a demonstrable physical reality. This is quite analogous to the Covid theatrical. In that instance, the Overton Window was meant to protect the foundational falsehood that a deadly, globalized, pathogen was running amok. In this case, the Overton Window is set up to preclude us from coming to the realization that, save for just the occasional smattering of that which is real, what obtains, overwhelmingly, is 24/7 all encompassing fakengheyeye.

For years, I've pondered the absurdity of infirm and doddering seniors- individuals who quite often were/are octogenarians-holding public office, let alone holding high visibility public office. It's never made much if any sense to me. The best I could come up with was that such individuals were either so compromised they had no choice, or that they were the sort of abjectly pitiful people who lived entirely for their jobs and pretty much everything else could go hang. The problem with the former idea is that being compromised doesn't confer the ability to perform as expected, if one is badly diminished. Such a person simply can't say or do what's required of them on cue, assuming they even want to. In the latter case, just because one desperately wants to hold on doesn't mean one will be gifted the opportunity. If someone is severely impaired then, typically, they're replaced by a younger, more able bodied individual. It's just how things are. So, how does one best explain this very odd state of affairs? My considered view is that, by far, the most elegant explanation for this peculiar phenomenon is that, practically speaking, such individuals don't really exist. On those rare occasions when such persons must present themselves to the public-at a distance, of course-there is an ample pool of talented thespians available to draw from who can perform the job to a sufficiently high standard. I'm sure you've seen many such individuals on this or that electronic platform doing spot on impersonations of a host of celebrities. Trust that some number of them have long since been pressed into duty. The rest of what's put on display for public consumption, which, I repeat, constitutes the vast majority of the sum total, is just AI pixels.