A.I. can be friendly

if you're a small-timer dissident like me

Hyper-eloquent, Idaho-based journalist Michael Hoffman’s latest stack is entitled AI is not what you think it is (paywalled article). In it he asserts that AI itself is not necessarily the monster that will destroy us, but we must be very wary of the artificial AI/human-brain interface.

AI alone, without the chip-in-the-brain insanity, can and should be used for good, says Hoffman.

A similar phenomenon is operant in the computer world where our fear and loathing prevent us from making a contribution to this exhilarating world of heuristic invention and discovery. The digital is a tool for good or ill. I don’t make the mistake of believing it is neutral, however. It tilts toward the unnatural because of its enormous potential for catechizing us into a utopian futurism that generates a simulacra of reality which we will mistake for the real world.

As an example of the fact that AI can be an instrument for good, Hoffman offers this:

Here’s a surprise: profiles of my work compiled by '“Artificial Intelligence” have generally been fair and more positive than what I’ve encountered in the controlled media. On AI, first there is the usual pro forma nod to the absurd allegations it gleans from Wikipedia, after which it recovers its perspicacity.

I decided to see what AI had to say about DW Shumway, on the Brave search engine. I was pleasantly surprised too. The Brave AI was downright laudatory. It had no access to Wikipedia defamation because shockingly enough, there is no Wikipedia page for me! I guess what’s the point of slandering people who are still in the bad-publicity-is-better-than-no-publicity phase?

Anyway, I had to laugh a bit at the description of this DW Shumway character. It reads like I paid a college student to write a hagiographic mini-bio for an application and interview with Reuters or something.

I bet you didn’t know that kla.tv has an American editor and a North-American editor, both with the same name!

Below that description, AI suggests some further questions you might ask about me. I clicked on this one: How does DW Shumway's affiliation with KLA TV and JAFA influence his editorial decisions and content creation? (man, thanks AI! I’m starting to feel like a somebody!)

Holy Red Heifer! I’m gonna print that out and drop a resume off at the local FOX/ABC affiliate in Missoula. They can’t say no!

pinkish-blue brain chip image- from Michael Hoffman’s Revelation of the Method substack account.