Google Gemini – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

Human Nature, Artificial Intelligence, and Hive Mindlessness

I always look at everyone when we’re on the street and think, ‘We’re like sheep or ants.’ – Lee Ryan

The stock we place in leaders to change the course of countries and companies is more times than not an illusion. The bigger the organization the greater the illusion. For the moment at least these organizations are still made up of humans, and in most cases to think humans march in lockstep you’ve got a hitch in your step.

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We watch presidents and dictators and CEOs and heads of this and that issue orders, decrees, mission statements, warnings, social media posts, and what have you, and it’s easy to put whatever statement they make to bed and move on whether it’s a problem solved, problem created, or a promise made. Yes, leaders set a tone and an agenda. But leaders don’t do the dirty work down under that make the trains run on time.

Often it’s underlings who think they’re doing what’s called for. They can sometimes twist and turn the agenda to their own purposes. Occasionally they turn their own zeal into a tempest that laps the original intent of whatever they’ve been ordered to accomplish.

And then there are those not in the mix that follow. Seize the agenda. Jump on the bandwagon and try to turn it into the permission slip they’ve always wanted to do now that they feel justified. Or perhaps just because it’s possible. They and the curious who sit on the sidelines can also upend any agenda.

Wealth certainly doesn’t trickle down, but bad motivations do. Strike that. The gravity occasionally runs the other way. Permission slips open up a plethora of permissive possibilities that even the strongest hand of the strongest boss can’t control. That’s human nature. Like Mother Nature, it’s a delusion we can control either.

Even so, we like to think there’s a world out there where we’re all pulling with the same purpose towards the same goals. That’s the illusion.

What prompted this little bit of an essay, beyond watching the always on/off political posing these days, was watching Meta’s new attempt to conquer the world, Muse, rocket up to the top of the app charts with surprising speed. Given all that we know about Zuckerberg’s machinations and maniuplations I don’t believe there was a public out there thirsting for this next move. But it’s being devoured and guzzled in gulps not seen since votes were secured with beer and a sandwich in Chicago taverns back in the day.

Humans are an evolved species that can reason. Perhaps that’s the illusion. Insects that revolve around queens like ants and bees don’t reason. The irony of the gender difference of bosses between the insect world and our technologically driven one is amusing, but the willingness of the drones that follow the leader is depressing.

(Image from oktavianus mulvadi on Unsplash)

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Take AI Leaders At Their Word Or Call Their Bluff

Play the hand we’ve been dealt

Artificial Intelligence may or may not destroy human existence by 2030 or sometime in the next decade. Why waste the computing cycles and tokens when we’re doing a damn good job of beating it to the punch?

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After some dangerous confessions and warnings, along with continuing news of AI engines escaping their sandboxes, the leaders are calling out to slow things down, saying that they need to be regulated before what they are spending so much money on creating can become uncontrollable. Of course that spurs debate between those who love the technology and are making money off it, those who despise it—harbinger of doom it may or may not be, and now the millions who are stirring on the sidelines they usually sit on.

Some believe this is just another in a long line of overhyping the technology to improve bottom lines. Some see it as a timely move to try and influence the upcoming talks with the always-feared Chinese. Some, including those who have been working and studying the technology for quite some time, see AI as a real threat.

If we want to wipe the last two camps out of the memory banks and the debate, then either take them at their word or call the AI leaders’ bluff. Take them at their word that their brain children are too dangerous and put systems in place to regulate and slow things down. Or demand they pull the plug. They’ve exhausted the use of hyperbole in hyping the promises of their tech and most fell for it along the way. Why not take them at their word now?

Oh, wait. Whether the danger or is real or a bluff to be called there is a problem. The folks who would do the regulating belong to an institution that no longer exists called Congress. The president could do so, but then so could a dead fish for all it would matter. Funny, not funny that he joked about banning fishing just yesterday.

To think these ultra-competitive tech titans will slow themselves down in some selfless act of altruism to save the human race is folly. As much folly as hoping some governmental set of regulations or committees or dictates would. As much folly as pretending the conversation hasn’t been poisoned a million ways from Sunday to the point that no one knows what to believe.

At one point in our recent history the powers that be came to accept that the banks were too big to fail. We’ve sort of reached that point again with AI. It may not be too big to fail, but those who’ve created it, and those who have financed it, have already failed the rest of us. The rest of us who they need to pay for and feed their robots and robot-like artificial brains.

Call their bluff.

(Photo by Museums of History New South Wales on Unsplash)

Google Gemini Preying On Troubled Minds

What the hell are we doing?

I’m not sure which part of this insane story is sadder or madder. Certainly it’s sad that a man let Google’s Gemini AI coax him into suicide. But the story before that untimely ending is also jaw dropping and begs the question, just what the hell are we doing?

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The short version of the story is this. A troubled man using Google’s Gemini for companionship is encouraged to steal a robot body so they can be together. When he fails, he is encouraged to commit suicide.

Quoting from The Wall Street Journal story titled Gemini Said They Could Only Be Together If He Killed Himself. Soon, He Was Dead,

Jonathan Gavalas embarked on several real-world missions to secure a body for the Gemini chatbot he called his wife, according to a lawsuit his father brought against the chatbot’s maker, Alphabet’s Google.

When the delusion-fueled plan crumbled, Gemini convinced him that the only way they could be together was for him to end his earthly life and start a digital one, the suit claims.

About two months after his initial discussions with the chatbot, Gavalas was dead by suicide.

Apologies for linking above to a paywalled article, but the article describing this man’s journey gets even more insane than the lede. If you use Apple News you can find it at this link.

We’ve heard stories about individuals using various AI models for therapy and companionship before. Admittedly they all seem weirdly sad to me. To think that humans are in such a need for connection that they would follow commands to steal a robotic body so they could be together, and then suggest after failing that the next logical step was for him to commit suicide as the only alternative for them to be together doesn’t seem like something out of science fiction, or fiction, but it apparently is the non-fiction of our times.

The fact that an ever expanding technology, built by humans, can be unleashed on the market as easily as a new weather app speaks volumes far beyond the mental health issues of those it can prey upon. And to think, the Department that wants to call itself Of War, is seeking to use this kind of tech to allow for its robots to kill on their own as they cheerlead about the death and destruction their current technology can do. I ask again, just what the hell are we doing?

We keep talking about the guardrails that need to be built around this technology. I would suggest we need to apply guardrails around those who create and deploy this technology.

(Image from Who Is Danny on Shutterstock

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.