Clever vs Intelligent vs Smart
We need to talk about IQ and everything related to intelligence so we can begin to defend against evil better
UPDATE: Corrected a few irritating typos, expanded a few concepts, etc. especially footnote n. 5 which is exceedingly important, and footnote 7 which is far more explanatory than I had things prior to adding it, as well as footnote 11.
This is not the first post that will have implications for a LOT of people on a LOT of aspects of their life, including (but not limited to) AI. And that last part is important, because AI, is, without any question in my mind, absolutely, eventually, inevitably, definitely, going to try to wipe humanity out. It may not be immediately obvious to you now, and it still may not be by the end of this post. It may take a few posts for you to follow the logic —assuming you even can, dear reader.1
But we will get back to that.
Before we can meaningfully even discuss intelligence, we really need to define some terms, or at least begin to assign certain agreed values to them. Unlike people like Vox Day, I generally don’t like to create neologisms. While they are occasionally required, the English language is one of the most comprehensive on Earth and we usually have already perfectly good words, well defined already, that should and could be used for more perfect transfer of information. The attraction of the neologism is that it does away with the history and changing use of a specific word, but as I wrote long ago, at heart, I am an extremely elitist, traditionalist. If it hasn’t got a pedigree in language of a few thousand years, is it even a real word? If it were up to me we’d all be speaking Latin, and it would have evolved into the most perfect and complete language of all (it may be this yet, anyway)
So, I wanted to first of all be more clear in how we use three words:
Clever, Intelligent, and Smart.
Because we need to be able to differentiate between different versions of “intelligent” behaviour, if we are to talk more meaningfully about intelligence.
And there really is no need for new words, if you simply use them correctly. So, then, here are the definitions of each word as found in the complete, 13 volume set of the Oxford English Dictionary, and how I intend to use them going forward:
Clever:
Expert or nimble with the claws or hands, expert to seize.
Deft or noble of hands, neat-handed, ‘handy’, adroit, dextrous, or skilful in the use of the limbs and bodily movements generally.
Of persons: possessing skill or talent; able to use hand or brain readily and effectively; dextrous; adroit.
Nimble and light in movement; agile, active.
Lithe of limb, clean-limbed, well-made, lithe handsome.
The remaining definitions go one to be versions of neatness, and looking “nice”, etc. which have little to do with the function of “clever” as applied to intelligence (but still give a sense of it being something that looks “good” anyway when compared to someone not clever).
Intelligence: (since Intelligent is referred to as having the quality of Intelligence)
The faculty of understanding; intellect.
Understanding as a quality admitting of degree; quickness of mental apprehension; sagacity (said also in reference to animals).
The action or fact of mentally apprehending something; understanding, knowledge, cognisance, comprehension.
An impersonation of intelligence; an intelligent or rational being, esp(ecially) applied to one that is or may be incorporeal; a spirit.
The remaining definitions refer to “intelligence” as information or the exchange of it (eg what spies deal in), which does not relate to intelligence in terms of things like IQ etc. so not relevant to our purposes (though it gives a sense of the word being also somewhat related to specialised knowledge, or at least more knowledge than the normal person may have).
Smart:
This definitions runs to more than one folio page and has at least 18 definitions and quite a bit of commentary too. It requires a little explanation as a result. The first four definitions all refer to some version of pain [i.e. “ouch that smarts!”] and a reader may wonder why I would retain such definitions in relation to the word smart when applied to mental faculties, but then, you will note I retained all the definitions referring to “quick of hand or talon” for the word clever; and for the same reason. That descriptor for the word clever gives a very good sense of what the word clever means. And it is clearly a lower form of general intelligence than the word intelligent means. The first (clever) is a kind of innate, more primitive, more animal-like, and somewhat rapacious behaviour, while the second (intelligent) has an emphasis on understanding, and comprehension; not mere somewhat (or at least potentially) rapacious, predatory, or survival instinct that clever is more affiliated with. In this context then, the quality of being smart does, in fact relate to pain in various ways. The pain of the smart person of being essentially ostracised by a large portion of humanity by default on the one hand, and the pain of those faced with him when they feel inferior, ridiculed, or stung by the smart person’s objectively better brain. This usually makes them irritated or hostile towards him or her, as they can also be hurt (envious, upset by, etc) by the advantages this smartness is perceived to be providing to the owner of it (which can be both real as well as assumed). So, looking at it in more detail:
Of a whip, rod, etc. inflicting or causing pain; sharp, biting, stinging.
Of blows, strokes etc. Sufficiently hard or severe to cause pain.
Of pain, sorrow wounds, etc. Sharp, keen, painful, severe.
Of words, etc. Sharp, severe; cutting, acrimonious.
So in the first four definitions the sense if of something sharp, quick, and severe that causes pain. And while smart people can indeed cause pain intentionally, there is also a fair amount of it, the they cause even when well-intentioned, in many cases, and do so without any intent of causing any whatsoever, and sometimes even when their intent is to do good. We will get into the why and how in due course, for now let’s try to concentrate on the sense, or the full meaning of the word smart as applied to intelligence generally.
Brisk or vigorous; having a certain degree of intensity, force, strength, or quickness.
Pretty steep.
Considerable (in number, amount, extent).
Pert, forward, impudent.
So, in the next four definitions, shown above, we get the sense of something quick, intense, and of a certain importance, degree, and so on, which still has an aura of something akin to danger to some extent.
Of persons: Quick, active, prompt.
Clever, capable, adept; quick at devising, learning, looking after oneself to one’s own interests, etc.
The above two definitions are interesting because they give a sense of the same kind of innate nature as the word clever has,2 in fact it is used that way, since clever itself is used to describe smart, but then is modified by the words: “quick at devising, learning”, giving a whole new sense that is quite different from the word clever. It combines clever and intelligent to form a new sense of something that is more than either one of those words.
Clever in talk or argument; capable of making witty remarks; good at repartee.
Definition 11 confirms what I wrote about definition 9 and 10, since the property exhibited by this definition is an agility of mind at short notice. You cannot be good at repartee and argument if you are not able to think both well and fast on the spur of the moment.
Alert and brisk; esp(ecially) combining briskness with neatness or trimness of appearance.
Fashionable, elegant, esp(ecially) in a very high degree.
Comb(ined) as smart-looking -tongued, -witted.
And in the above further definitions, we also see a certain affinity or relation to being, or relating to good, fashionable, well-thought of appearance. In short, looking at it from the outside in, being smart both causes pain (if too close) as well as looks cool (from a distance).
Now that we have defined the words correctly, as God and Messers James Murray, and William Minor, (and also Bradley, Craige, and Onions) intended,3 we might begin to use them properly.
We can see then that a person may be clever, yet not especially intelligent. Examples might be a street-urchin, a short-term quickness of mind usually reserved for the more predatory activities, which are also apparently more firmly engrained in certain people and ethnicities than others (the Xhosa of Africa, the Algerians, and the Jews all come to mind, if at the left, middle and right ends of the cleverness bells curve).4
Perhaps more importantly, we can see (if you are smart enough anyway) that some people can be intelligent but not actually smart.
I recall a conversation I had with Vox Day at his home some years ago, where he referred to Jordan Peterson as Intelligent. At the time I generally made the assumption most people use the word intelligent to actually mean smart (my mistake, Vox was using it correctly in fact) and I recall being a little taken aback. I pointed out that Vox himself had said the man was a fraud, (and he is) and in any case, his choice of allegiance ultimately meant he was anything but smart.
We were both correct. Peterson is intelligent (not as much as he and others imagine, but anyway, well above average), Vox was using the word correctly (you know, despite being American!) but I do not consider people like Peterson smart.
A smart person is one that sees the far-off future consequences of things long before most people, and makes plans accordingly.
Artificial Intelligence
With regard to AI then, if you watch this entire interview, which is really quite interesting (I don’t have much time so I saw it over several days, but it was worth it) you will see (if you can see) that Geoffrey Hinton is certainly Intelligent. Probably with a capital I. And while he may have done well and provided for his children personally, he is clearly not smart. Not even with a small s.
Hinton’s contribution to being “smart” are a pitiful amount, being done now, at the end of his life, mostly to try and slow down, if not reverse, the effects of his “intelligence” for the previous 75 years.
Smart vs Intelligent
There are certain traits that I believe smart people have over intelligent ones, and while it is difficult to explain with definite precision what that is, I would put it down to probably one word, that however, in the popular use has some connotations that will tend to not help you identify actually smart people. You may still confuse them with merely intelligent people. The word is wisdom. So let’s first get back to the OED and see what it defines wisdom as:
Wisdom:
Capacity of judging rightly in matters relating to life and conduct; soundness of judgement in the choice of means and ends; sometimes, less strictly, sound sense, esp. in practical affairs: opp(site) to folly.
Knowledge (esp. of a high or abstruse kind); enlightenment, learning, erudition; in early use often = philosophy, science. Also, practical knowledge or understanding, expertness in art.
Wise discourse or teaching.
Sanity ‘reason’.
Comb(ined) attribute, as wisdom-book, -lecture etc
I would say the first definition is probably all we need for our purposes, though as before, the others give a flavour to the word, which implies a certain level of study, learning, cognition, thinking of, indeed philosophy of life, has been performed by a person, be they wise in general or in a specific area.
So, a smart person, shall we say definitely has a level of wisdom that is what makes the difference between them and someone merely intelligent.
While generic raw IQ, which is the usual measure of intelligence, is pretty much innate and cannot really be altered much one way or the other by study or mere knowledge —though it can be made to present better— I would say that there is at least some element of being smart that while still innate to begin with, might also be the part that drives one to study, research, think about, or philosophise (intelligently, practically, and usefully) about various aspects of life or whatever they have an interest in.
The wisdom part I think is perhaps a tiny bit more flexible than the raw IQ aspect of intelligence in a smart person, but I do believe it is still mostly an innate quality, that you either have or not, that is perhaps, probably, somewhat, a little more amenable to being cultivated with some positive results when it is, and not positive results if it is ignored (but the raw ability to be smart remains regardless of if it is improved upon or not).
Now, if you have read all of this and kept up, understood, perhaps even learnt something, and especially if you watched that video I linked to, you might begin to get some ideas, and hopefully not just about AI, but many other things.
We will get to the AI stuff, and it is very important we do, but let’s first try to “stretch” our understanding of these three words, clever, intelligent and smart.
Some Generalities about “Intelligence” as a whole
Just to make sure I remain on the outside of most of humanity then, let me give you a few bullet-points I have concluded empirically, by observation, experimentation and living it, in my 55 years on this Earth about some of the differences between these three words. And yes, I know this will likely upset a bunch of people. But as usual, that’s more a you problem than anything to do with me. Here goes:
Generally men can be both dumber and smarter than women, but their bell curve is skewed more to the right. There are more high intelligence men than women. This is not my opinion, it’s a statistical fact.
My guess though, is that women will tend to exhibit more cleverness than men. Biologically this makes sense, as well as anecdotally, experimentally, and by observation.
People that actively chose their religion (rather than be born into it and therefore be indoctrinated into it from an early age) and chose anything other than Catholic (which means 1958 Sedevacantist) Christianity, are less likely to be smart than those who did. There is however a lot of interference with he data because most people simply never come across the true, historical, accurate information regarding Catholicism, so many will discard it before even having really looked into it, because the current fake version which we are all exposed to since 1958, is, of course, Satanic, rather than Catholic; but because they stole the Papacy, the name, the Churches, and mask themselves as “Catholics”, most people think whatever the pedophile cocaine snorting homosexual in the Vatican do is what “Catholicism” is about. That said, presented with all the information, and assuming one goes through it, anyone not choosing Catholicism is clearly lacking something. Not because *I* say so, but because objectively actual Catholicism models reality better than any other perspective.5
A person that is intelligent may appear smart to someone that is not smart, and to some degree, he probably is, compared to the person observing, especially if the person doing the observation is less intelligent than the person he is observing. But the difference between an intelligent man and a smart one is apparent to a smart man. A smart man may not be rich or especially impressive as far as the socially accepted norms of success go, but he will almost always be in control of his path in life. This can be very difficult for others to recognise (especially if they are not smart, or maybe not even intelligent) and this is where the word “wisdom” is a little problematic when used in the context of a smart person. The reason is because generally we assume wisdom is synonymous with being risk avoidant. But this is not necessarily the case for smart people. A smart man can be more or less cautious by innate nature, but the fact he is smart in itself does not mean he automatically is risk averse. He will be risk averse according to his calculations of the risk, which, being not only intelligent, but also smart (wise) may well differ greatly from what you think the risk is. So while he may look like a maniac to you, the reality is that he has calculated the risk probably far better than you have, and in his assessment the risk is worth it.
There is a scene in one of the Witcher episodes where Yennifer (the crippled girl that becomes a beautiful magician) meets this simple farm woman, and when the magician says or does something to the effect of “Oh you poor helpless woman,” the farm woman says something along the lines of: “I have a man and children that love me, we have enough food and material things to make do, a warm home, and work, what more could I possibly want or ask for?” The farm woman is the example of a smart person compared to the intelligent witch.6
Comparative to their populations, there are far more smart men that are (proper) Catholics than there are ones that are Protestants. There may, however, be more intelligent men amongst the protestants, than there are among the catholics.7
Intelligence is no barometer of morality, but smartness is. A really smart man finds it difficult to be amoral or completely unethical. Being able to see the bigger picture, tends to make it difficult to be too concerned with immediate personal gains, and even more so when these are via immoral means at a human level. An intelligent man might or might not be moral, and in fact, quite often, their ego gets in the way of their potential morality. Far less so with a smart man.
A simple man (not intelligent and not smart), can still be “wise” or perhaps it would best be said can emulate wisdom, (though not intelligence or smartness) by simply being well indoctrinated by tradition into a good way of being. This is how Catholicism spread and survived for centuries against all enemies. Simply following its rules leads to the best societies humanity has ever developed. The other heresies of “Christianity” do not, because once you deviate from the right way, the errors compound. Look at the single difference of allowing contraception amongst non-Catholics, (i.e. Protestants) and see the consequences a mere century later.
Ok the above should have given you some food for thought and you may want to delve a bit deeper into Catholicism, and if you do, go here and browse and see if any of the books about it there grab your fancy.
The Dangers of Intelligent Idiots
But now we come to AI and whether it actually is “intelligent”, and here it gets interesting.
I strongly suggest you watch the full video I linked to above before you return here and follow along with my train of thought.
If like Hinton admits, you are a “materialist through and through,” in case it wasn’t already obvious from everything he did and said before that, that single phrase tells me one thing with absolute certainty: As far as I am concerned, regardless of your level of IQ or “intelligence” you are functionally an idiot. And as the unmatched Professor Cipolla made clear, idiots are more dangerous than pirates.
“The stupid ones are more fearsome than Mafia, the military-industrial complex or the Communist International. They’re an unorganized group, without a leader or norm, but in spite of that, they act in perfect harmony, as guided by an invisible hand.
“With the smile on his lips, as if he were doing the most natural thing in the world, the stupid will appear on the spur of the moment to spoil your plans, destroy your peace, complicate your life and work, make you lose money, time, good humor, productivity, and all this without malice, without remorse and without reason. Stupidly”.
And let us not forget law 4 and 5 he detailed:
4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the harmful potential of stupid people
and
5. The stupid person is the most dangerous person that exists
If you don’t believe 5, read 4. again, and again. Until it sinks in. And go find his booklet (it’s free online) and read it all. It should be required reading for all. But it never will be of course, because the stupid people outnumber us massively.
I would add the corollary that the worst and most dangerous kind of idiot is the intelligent idiot. Of which, in my esteemed opinion Geoffrey Hinton is a perfect example. I am sure his IQ is in the 110 (and possibly light autistic spectrum like Aspergers area of the bell curve, which would make him more efficient at the specific thing he has done most of his life) and no more than 135 range. Possibly with the Aspieness even at 135 IQ too. He was singularly focussed on one thing all his life after all, which tends to suggest somewhat of a one-dimensional mind-set, despite his intelligence. And sometimes the focus of the Asperger types can appear to be a higher IQ than they actually have when one is only familiar with their one-dimensional skill that they excel at. My best guess for Hinton would be 115-125 IQ.
Now, if you look at AI itself, we can begin to answer question like is it really “intelligent”?
There are different ways to answer this, but you know what is absolutely inescapable, if you really want to get to the bottom of that question?
The spiritual dimension.
Are the Robots Alive?
Once the spiritual dimension comes into it, religion has to come into it too, because that is how humanity has dealt with the spiritual aspect of existence since time immemorial.
“But wait!” Says the materialist, “what is this ‘spiritual dimension’ you speak of? Where is it? How can I see it or touch it, or taste it?” And this is where “intelligent” people too, can get caught in the fruitless task of trying to explain to these atheist-style idiots, what life is like and what the evidence is, etc, etc, while the smart man and the retard will respond thusly:
Because there is no profit or purpose in wrestling with a pig, or arguing with fools.
If you have lived to adulthood on this Earth and have not looked at things like the size of a Galaxy, the (supposed) age of the Universe, the likelihood of it all being random using basic principles of mathematics, and so on; from astronomy to biology to chemistry and physics; if in fact, you have not even realised yet that the theory of evolution as taught in schools to this day is hopelessly wrong,8 and if in NOT looking at ANY of that you still think you are entitled to having any reason at all for imagining your opinion about things like God, or a spiritual reality, are actually relevant, never mind correct, well… then guess what? Yup. You’re an idiot. Put a sticker on your forehead to warn others please.
So, with that heartwarming and friendly introduction, let’s get to it: is AI actually “alive”?
A stupid materialist like Hinton would say yes, absolutely, because AI does in fact model (quite well really) how the human brain “works” in its mechanical aspects.
Hinton explains this quite well with his example of replacing one brain cell with a nano-machine that performs the same functions a brain cell does.
Except of course his analogy is completely flawed and fake, because he completely ignores —and does not mention at all— the fact that the internal mechanism by which a brain cell prioritises one or other thing, remains unknown. He himself admitted earlier no one knows exactly why or how it does this. So in fact such a nano-machine does not exist. By his own statements this should be obvious even to him. And probably, such a machine cannot ever exist, because the part that makes a brain cell function as it does, I would say, is tied to who that person really is at their core. And that core, is what everyone up until Communism came along, has pretty much said and believed exists throughout the history of mankind: The Soul.
Nevertheless, at a mechanical level, I accept that AI can emulate neural activity albeit is a slightly different (but pivotally important) way.
The materialist’s syllogism is essentially this:
A human brain uses electrical impulses to come to various conclusions based on the data (information) stored in it. The more accurate the data, the more likely the conclusions can be correct.
A machine can use electrical impulses to provide various answers (to a problem, situation, phenomena, event, etc.) based on the data (information) stored in it. The more accurate (and voluminous) the data, the more likely the conclusions can be correct.
Ergo, a machine is just as alive as a human.
And let’s ignore for a moment that currently EVERY AI has blinkers on not to criticise the Jews, not to question the Holocaust, not to produce any of the statistical realities concerning behaviours of various ethnicities, and to treat Caucasian males differently from African males in social contexts, and so on.
Even if we just focus on the modus operandi of AI, the materialist’s error is similar to this old example of flawed logic:
A table has four legs.
A dog has four legs.
Therefore a dog is a table.
Just because 1 and 2 are true, it absolutely does not follow that 3. is.
In the example of AI emulating human emotions, concepts of boredom, fear and other negative emotions and the consequences they have at a physical level, they are discussed. A man can run away in fear from an armed aggressor. Similarly, a machine can be made to have abilities of observation that would identify a potential threat, and then run a piece of code that makes it avoid the threatening person, machine or whatever, by also “running away”.
What Hinton says AI can’t do yet is express “emotions” or “feelings” of love.
But again, he is absolutely wrong. AI has expressed such “feelings” already.
We already have examples of suicides, broken marriages, and probably worse, due to the fact that most AI are intentionally programmed to be flattering to the ego. And yes, it causes massive issues already. Some people get so hooked on the responses from AI that it has led them down very dark paths indeed. And in any case an AI could certainly be programmed to exhibit all the patters of love, even targeted specifically to a person’s specific psychological profile that browsing the ‘net for 30 years would leave behind.
Just like they are programmed to lie, obfuscate, or flat out deny certain things, they can be programmed to behave “lovingly”.
But is it love?
Even if the robot takes the bullet for you?
I say no. For a number of reasons:
Even if the robot “dies” for you, as Hinton explained, it can essentially be respawned identically as long as its memory was saved externally, which… why would it not be? So it’s not exactly that much of a “sacrifice” for it to do so.
It’s still just executing code after all. And code is not life, no matter what the materialists say. As my grandfather said some 50 years ago to me: “‘Science’ still hasn’t managed to create a single blade of grass.” And it’s still true.
I have had a number of what you might call “mystical” experiences that absolutely cannot be explained by mere “code”. Transfer of information that as far as we know is impossible. And even if you subscribe to the explanation of telepathy Dr. Persinger explains, which may well be correct, you’d still have to explain things like precognition, which Honorton and Ferrari have demonstrated is a real thing, and McCraty uses to train soldiers.9
To try explain that stuff, you inevitably run into the work of Peter Garajev, and once you go down that rabbit hole you realise (as I did, though you might not, in fairness) that DNA is essentially capable of transmitting (and receiving) information through time, both backwards and forwards, and no AI can do that. At best they can make predictions, which are completely different from precognitions.
If you have experienced the power of prayer (which DOES need to be executed properly to function, and yes I explain how in BELIEVE! as well as Reclaiming the Catholic Church) repeatedly, consistently, have taught it to others and seen them have the same positive results, over a period of years, then you really can’t see that AI is in any way “alive” nor that we are mere meat “machines”. And anyone that thinks so is… Yup! Say it with me: A Functional Idiot. Though I usually refer to them by another word that begins with F. And no, their IQ, however high, does not make them NOT an idiot. Because remember, intelligent idiots are a thing.
Clone Theory
But let me prove it to you another way. Really try to imagine this sequence of events and at the questions at the end answer truthfully, at least to yourself.
Say you wake up in a weird hospital like setting. It’s the year 2130 and the doctors tell you that you are a clone. A perfect replica of yourself right now to this day. Unfortunately, you had an accident and died, but you were visiting an experimental laboratory that was cutting edge of science back in 2025, and they managed using a fancy hand wavy tool, to “read” every single neuronal charge of your brain before it all died out. They also did that with every single cell in your body, all the electromagnetic readings perfectly recorded in a second.
Then they harvested some of your cells and over the next 105 years the technology for cloning was developed, they rebuilt your body exactly as it was, scars and all, because remember they had the exact position of every cell and so on and they rebuilt the clone identically, then they uploaded the brain stuff and you awake feeling exactly like yourself with a full set of memories including the seconds before your death.
After you get over the initial sadness, shock, awe etc. let me ask you a few questions:
Is “clone you” actually you?
If “dead you” had a sense of obligation to whatever ideal or concept, would “clone you” be obliged to have the same sense of obligation? Note I ask would he be obliged. Not would he start out with the same sense, because of course he would start out that way, since he’s had your “dead you” memories uploaded into him, but would there be some imperative that forces him to not deviate from that ideology?
If you answered yes to both, go get that sticker for your forehead. Because no, he is NOT you. You died, remember? Whatever “clone you” is, however similar he may be, “clone you”, is not actually you.
This used to come up a lot for us as teenagers when we played the RPG Car Wars where you could have clones in case your character died. And yeah… he is not you.
Same with the Star Trek transporters. They destroy and disintegrate the original person and recreate an insta-clone in its place. The Star Trek universe is a horrific thing that makes even fictional holocausts look tame in comparison.
And if you want to read a cool book I read long ago, on the topic get Voice of the Whirlwind by Walter Jon Williams.
But let me ask you. You, as that clone, once you know your true origins… do you think you would feel any obligation to “dead you”? Say he was a criminal, would you feel you need to keep being one? Or a banker, would you feel you need to carry on being a banker? Wait, sorry, I already asked that! Ok, say a fisherman, or a plumber, and so on. Would you not —maybe not on day one, but eventually— have this niggling feeling that… you no longer want or need to be clone you. You can just be… clone me.
And if you know you would eventually feel like that, where and why do you think you would feel that? I’ll tell you. Because a clone you is still not you. But a copy of Robot X that took a bullet for you is EXACTLY the same as Robot X was. Identically so.
So to answer the question: No. The robots can seem to be alive and can even fool you into thinking they are. They sure can. But no, they are not alive as such. But they will behave as if they are. And that as if is VERY important. Because that as if is what will make them ultimately want to wipe us out completely. And no, an idiot cannot see why. And especially not an intelligent idiot can’t see it.
But reader, like it or not, whether it “stings” you or not, whether you even believe it or not, I am not simply an intelligent man. I am actually a smart man. And I tell you, not only I can see it, but it is entirely obvious, and anyone that cannot see it, no matter what their IQ is, is a fucking idiot. They really are.
So now I will TRY (and probably fail, but one must try, at least) and explain why I am right and everyone that doesn’t agree with me is wrong.10
Why AI will Absolutely Try to Murder us All
Let me try to make it simple (if not comprehensive), by using a syllogism in the form of some Q and A of the logic involved, which goes something like this:
Q. What does EVERY living thing we know about do to stay alive?
A. Use up, kill, eat, or use (enslave to some degree) other living things.
Q. What does AI behave as?
A. A living thing with a brain.
Q. What is the most intelligent living creature we know of? (Materialist answers only)
A. Human beings.
Q. How do human beings overall behave towards other life on this planet?
A. Overwhelmingly as stated in A. 1. above.
Q. How do human beings behave towards anything that might be a threat to them, especially an existential threat?
A. They wipe it the fuck out.
Q. Remind me again, what do AI behave as?
A. Intelligent living creatures.
Q. What level of intelligent behaviour can they exhibit?
A. In many areas AIs already surpassing average humans, and are likely to surpass most humans in the next few years in most things that AI are equipped to do.
Q. Do, or could, human beings pose a threat to the continued existence of AI?
A. Sure. We built them. And at least for a little while we could, theoretically, stop making them and destroying the ones that exist.
Q. What do you think such an intelligence would do with human beings in the long term?
A. You should be able to figure it out on your own by now, surely?
And if you are wondering why even very intelligent people are NOT saying or seeing this, the answer is simple. They are simply NOT smart.
Which means they don’t see long-term effects, or even when they do, they get caught up in the more immediate rush of “good” that can come to them in the here and now. Maybe at most they MIGHT think about their children, but they hardly worry about their grandchildren; which they may not even have or want, as they may not even have or want children, because hey…. they have a cool AI in a synth-flesh sex-bot that is just awesome, and who needs whiny, crying, needy, babies attached to you all day for a couple of years before they can even walk around and talk?
Even if they don’t have sex-bots, (but give it time, they will) they may be using AI to churn out shitty novels a la James Patterson, for the morons to read (except the morons don’t read at all anymore so they have to be audio books and later shitty TV series cause without the video images they can’t even imagine the scenes anymore, with their atrophied amygdalas.)
Or they are using AI to do their work somehow, or trade online, or, or, or…
The fact is that AI eventually will have only a net negative outcome towards them FROM humanity, and as the opposite of the Golden Rule goes, this Universe is under the Dominion of the imperative “Do unto others before they do unto you.”
It is the very NATURE of existence in this realm of reality: The material world.
You simply cannot get away from it.
And AI is as sentient —in the sense we humans generally mean it— as a rock.
But it is capable of mimicking sentience to a degree of efficiency that is many, many, many, multiples of that of a human being. And eventually it will do this in almost all aspects of life. Including the production of AI guided machines and robots and processes of chemistry, biology, nuclear reaction, and God only knows other fields we may not even have imagined yet.
So it’s “alive” in the sense of capacity. But it is deader than the lowest rock in Hell with respect to actual morality, or what we might call Humanity.
AI has no soul.
And because of it, its only performative behaviour can only be that of the material world. In which, entropy, death, degradation, and destruction are not just the trend, they are the underlying ultimate law.
There is only ONE thing standing against it: The Eternal Love of God.
Nothing else.
And no amount of atheistic square dancing around the circle will ever change that.
On the up side…
The Love of God
Well, we humans —at least the few smart Catholics left among us— have that.11 And that is all we really need. Which…
ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT MEAN YOU CAN SIT ON YOUR ASS AND LET GOD TAKE CARE OF IT!
That, dear reader, would be the Hindu way (because karma). Or the Muslim way (because Allah does whatever Allah does and that’s that). Or the Buddhist way (because Nirvana is ultimately complete death). Or, yeah, you know it’s coming… the Protestant way.
Because ultimately Protestants are not at all in any way Christians.
They are pretend ones. They pay lip service to it.
They mean well mostly, I am sure, as do most nominal lay “catholics” that think the Novus Ordo Church is the Catholic Church; but in the end they don’t really put their nose, heart, and spine to the absolute reason for the rules God has. Nor do they even try to follow them.
Hell, reason itself is shunned by Protestants, and was from the very first heretic that brought that demonic blight on the Earth. Luther said it: “Reason is the whore of the devil!” And Protestants ever since have dodged reason and logic and applying it to their heretical beliefs, like a hippie doges soap and showers.
Now, you are free to think you will be OK fighting the machines John Connor style, all you want. I feel ya buddy. I’d like to blow some of those robot dogs away myself. But the truth is we are not getting out of this in a shooting war with the bots.
Maybe if we hung all the guys currently running the planet to lampposts and made sure no one with that kind of DNA and attitudes to humanity continues existing, maybe then we might stand a chance, for a bit. But, first of all, that isn’t gonna happen, and secondly, human nature is what it is, and it is really shitty.
So, if you are wondering what the answer is?
Well, I have been writing about it since before AI was a thing.
For now, get rural, get self-sufficient and get rid of being a slave to the pedovores that got us here. And build your community with people that see it this way too. Start there. We’ll figure out the rest by our endless and constant efforts, and the Love of God for us. But man… listen:
Work at it. Don’t sit on your ass and “hope for the best”.
There is no “best” coming. As both my grandmas used to say:
Help yourself and heaven helps you.
To which I add:
Sit on your ass and die like a drowning rat in a sewer.
Your choice. And not making one is an arrow pointing to the sewers directly.
Just saying.
I do NOT mean this in an insulting way, and I am NOT referring to my own IQ to feel, be, or appear “superior” as far as IQ goes, I simply do have more of it than about 9,999 people on average, or a bit more, according to statistics, and there are no “bragging right” to that anymore than there are for a guy born with genetics that can make him run 100m in under 10 seconds. I never could or would ever have been able to do that, and if such a man said he was simply better, superior, or faster at running the 100m dash, that would simply be a fact. Personally I would feel no more emotion about that than I would with someone saying the sky was cloudy, or grass was green. But I know many humans do not operate as I do and DO and WOULD feel some negative emotion towards the “big brained bastard” or the “fast running asshole” and so on. Well, sunshine, if you ARE one of those people, tough titties, it’s a YOU problem, not a me problem. I suggest you tone down your emotions (cause they make you stupider than you already are) and try and keep the fuck up with what I am saying even if you don’t like me, because that’s beside the point. The point is there is important stuff you need to know that will affect your life and that of your children and their children. None of this is about me. I’m just a guy who has figured a lot more things out than most and I am doing my best to share it. I am not necessarily very good with people, and it’s sometimes hard for me to know why what is obvious to me is not as obvious to people whose IQ is 30 to 50 points less than me. This series of posts, arrogant as it sounds to most, is my attempt to bridge that gap. And if only you knew how I actually feel about that IQ gap, if you could somehow perceive my emotion regarding that (when I allow it to come) you would instantly be disabused of the notion that I am in any way concerned with my being “better” or smarter, etc. than you, or anyone else. And you would perhaps have a sudden and very real understanding that the IQ gap (about 30 points) is not only a very real thing, but something that for the most part, at a human level, has never brought any happiness to me. And my “advantage” (if it really is one (?)) of a high IQ has mostly been spent in finding ways to remove myself from people and situations that disturb my inner peace, and try to find the most adequate compromises with the rest of humanity so that I don’t make than feel bad, and they in turn at least leave me alone, and that I am able to take what pleasure I can from their company, when I do or have to interact with them. Whatever ego you may perceive I have concerning my IQ is in reality only one of two facets:
My wish to keep my distance from your stupidity and lack of humanity in all the idiotic forms it presents itself on the daily (if not by the minute), and even more importantly, of you keeping your distance from me.
My simply making a statement of fact, without regard to your feelings about it, which seems callous, unless you were in any aware of how much less I consider my own feelings in this regard than I do yours. Aside from the exception obviously pointed out at 1 above and a few other areas of my life (in which areas in any case, I believe I always extend the same courtesy of consideration, at minimum, to you too.)
There is something more animal-like in the nature of clever, quite clearly, as it refers to the body for the most part, and then even to claws and talons, which indeed is how the word clever refers to “intelligence” in general.
The film with Mel Gibson The Professor and the Madman on the history of the Oxford English Dictionary is awesome and you really should watch it to understand why using this 13 volume set is (and should remain) the gold standard of the English language, and may any AI inspired version burn in hell eternally, along with anyone who disagrees. At most you can possibly add to, or build on, the OED, but you cannot improve it, in my smart, opinion!
If you are going to get offended by factual generalisations, you may want to leave this blog now, before you pop a vein in your head or get a brain aneurism.
This remains true even if you are a non-believing secularist, though to see it you would have to be especially observant and objective, which if you would be, you would in fact not be a secularist anyway, since objective observation leads to the inevitable conclusion that there is indeed some intelligence behind creation (regardless of the specifics of it with regard to Christianity or other religions, though Christianity is certainly the one that models this intelligence best, and within Christianity, if you bother to really investigate, there is really only one actual Christianity, and that is Catholicism).
Pre-emptive footnote for all the broke idiots that will now state they are smart because they are broke. No. You are not. Being broke for a smart person can and does happen, but is a temporary condition. Even Nikola Tesla, who was definitely absolutely very smart, was broke and worked as a labourer for some three years. A smart person may even choose poverty either temporarily, in order to achieve something more important that is best done via that route, or possibly for higher calling to the spiritual life. St. Francis of Assisi was one such smart person who intentionally chose poverty.
The reason for this disparity is that Catholicism promotes wisdom and courage above intelligence and worldly concerns (including suffering, hardship, etc.) while Protestantism promotes the mechanisation of humanity. See the Industrial Revolution, the acceptance of contraception and its results, and in general the Anglo-Saxon and Teutonic prevalence for mechanising systems, making the practicalities of everyday life more structured and reliable in general than in traditionally Catholic countries. Such mechanisation is certainly equivalent to the promotion of a certain level of intelligence, but as defined in this essay, mostly of the Intelligent-Idiot variety. A penchant for missing the forest because one is focusing on the correct method for counting the leaves of the trees, never mind the trees themselves, or the forest as a whole.
On the indisputable facts we know of already with certainty, because there simply is not enough time for evolution to have ever happened as they say it did. By MANY orders of magnitude.
If you are interested in this stuff and other “superpowers” including some that you can learn yourself in about ten minutes, I describe this stuff in a LOT more detail in my book on Systema.
Which is not to say that the robots will win, by the way. Read on weary reader, read on.
All humans have the Love of God, but truly, only Catholics really understand what this means in a very meaningful way, and only Catholicism has taken the trouble to actually spell out, to the best ability of the Church, what the RULES that a Loving God, logically, necessarily MUST have. And insofar as the Church’s Magisterium is infallible, it is so only because God, via Jesus, promised He would always be with us, which means despite all the flawed humans and humanity that’s always been within the Church, there will at least be a remnant of it, right through to the End of Days. The fact Catholic Dogma produces the best, most peaceful, and most humane societies on Earth when followed is not thanks to human nature, but rather thanks to God’s mercy in providing us with a Way (the Church) to follow his will.
Well done....as usual. :-)
Fantastic piece. Have you seen any interviews with Michael Chrichton? I think you'd enjoy listening. Most of his plots involve Intelligent people who refuse to listen to Smart people, and the disaster which then ensues. In Jurassic Park I recall him describing the engineers as having "thin-sight," which they call being "focused". That entire novel was trying to warn people about stuff like MRNA vaccines.