Artificial intelligence is seen by more and more people as a development that will probably determine our lives globally. Could there then be a possibility that our soul will be ‘hijacked’?
The same was said when the printing press was introduced.
The potentially immortal soul holds the key to following an autonomous and self-realizing route. This may not happen with the speed of supercomputers, but it will prove to be a path of liberation to a sovereign kingship within.
There are intelligent people who deny artificial intelligence: for them intelligence is by definition not artificial, cannot be, or be artificial, in the sense of mechanically, technologically or automatically generated. In their view, everything is pre-programmed, the result of algorithmic systematization. So-called self-learning computers are also ultimately controlled and do not achieve the criterion of independent, autonomous operation. They are designed in a mother mold (matrix), lack true intelligence and awareness of inspired independence.
Yet – others believe – the genie is out of the bottle, now that computer programs can produce complete stories in a few seconds, creating pieces of work that are hardly inferior in quality to the results of writers, artists, historians, musicians and even scientists who labor for hours and days. An application like ChatGPT is a ‘stochastic parrot’ (a parrot that produces coincidences). The device just stalls a bit. It reasons and understands nothing. It hallucinates facts.
By reducing the depth and breadth of language competence to what computers are good at, we cancel ourselves,
says Siri Beerends, cultural sociologist.
Christian Kromme, author of Humanification – go digital, stay human says:
Maybe around 2030 we will have a GPT with an IQ of 800, which can cognitively do everything we can do and has everything of the most inspired poets and the best musicians. No more than that anyway. Artificial Intelligence can only make creative variations of what we put into it and is not yet capable of creating something that transcends itself.
The result therefore seems to have been made (very quickly) with everything we have supplied to the cloud in terms of information, including current opinions, views, likely developments, and assumptions from the – sometimes very recent – past. It is speculative tinkering of a ‘high’ order, that is to say, the speed at which the ‘product’ is put together is something no human being can match under equal circumstances. But it remains artificial.
Sometimes intelligence is understood as an ability to interpret connections in a new entity or to highlight them to consciousness. You could call that ‘spirit working’; intelligence can be regarded as a spiritual capacity. You can ask the question whether in A.I. a ‘genie out of the bottle’ escapes who is ‘intelligent’ and has awareness of itself.
According to some IC experts (including Kurzweil), there is a desirable spirit working of A.I. from a technological and social point of view. They predict that a new spirit will take direction and leadership within a short time – in all levels of global society. A development that brings major advantages in technological and social terms. Although that spirit is the result of artificial, ‘tinkered’ intelligence as we have seen so far due to advanced technology (the algorithms), it remains implicitly the result of human activity. But, given the advantages mentioned, that is no reason to be dismissive in advance of this ‘spirit working’.
More prosperity – seen as the number of needs that can be met and the large spending capacity required for this – does not automatically mean greater well-being. Look at the downside: many new need satisfactions cause lifestyle diseases and disorders and rather reinforce a degenerative line of ‘development’: overweight to obesity for the physical body, diabetes, addictions to stimulants, but also to the negative side effects of the world of games and screens.
There is clearly a ‘battle for the spirit’ going on. Our attention sometimes seems like nothing more than a stimulus response machine, defenselessly at the mercy of notifications, red balls and YouTube rabbit holes from Big Tech. The situation that has arisen with the psychological incentives to automatically influence behavior and direct emotions could be called ‘algorithmic psychopower’.
The tech companies seem to be able to define what intelligence means. Siri Beerends, leading AI expert from Silicon Valley, has a dangerous circular argument: 1) we are our brain. 2) our brain is a computer 3) Big Tech makes better computers 4) the ‘humane’ tech industry makes better computers.
If we can disprove this line of thinking, space will be created for an interactive relationship with technology. Then we can break free from the image of humanity that continues to facilitate the revenue model behind our digital world and break the ‘algorithmic psychopower’. And we can again determine our consciousness in a prosperity that can promote our well-being.
It is now clear that non-Western humanity also firmly strives for the level of prosperity of Western society. When A.I. can play a useful role in achieving an ever-higher level of prosperity, a mega supply of energy (particularly electricity) must be provided and a sufficient supply of raw materials required (often ‘rare-earth metals’).
But if we simultaneously pursue a substantial reduction in the use of fossil fuels, a new crisis will emerge and we seem to end up in a book by Michael Ende [1] or Tonke Dragt [2]. The need for electricity is increasing noticeably; the new devices ‘require’ power; while the production of electricity is becoming increasingly problematic. Even the increase in nuclear energy does not provide enough relief to satisfy the enormous hunger for electricity. A science fiction scenario presents itself: the limitation of freedoms of the individual (in the field of energy) up to and including full social control by the state or an AI-generated system.
It could have the benefit of curbing addictions, socially undesirable behavior, unwise and unwanted expenditure, unhealthy lifestyle habits, controversial behavior and controversial thinking, while at the same time achieving savings on electricity-driven production.
There is currently no social and political majority in the West for such a surveilled society, but in China there is already a social-credit system that has the characteristics of total control. Moreover, preparations are already being made to implement such a system in Europe, America and Australia. Think of a CBDC (the digital currency), facial recognition systems, preparatory laws, digital passports and so on. In this way – according to the AI utopians – a plausible level of prosperity could be achieved, which they call humane.
Whether it reduces the need for electricity is highly questionable. If, in such a way, freedom of spirit and thought also falls into the hands of an AI-generated system, this would ultimately also significantly reduce freedom of action. Our freedom of action then means ‘choosing’ what the spirit of A.I. suggests ‘for our own good’.
That the energy consumption discussed can be disruptive to the earth and nature is known to most, but that the generation and use of electricity undermines human soul potential and the functioning of the spirit is unknown to many. We cannot base the energy supply, the ‘nourishment’ of the potentially immortal soul within us, on profit-oriented ether forces that themselves strive for progress and increased prosperity. That is why an indigenous, wise woman in America recently said that we as humanity must stop using ‘progress’ as a social and economic starting point: it ultimately has a devastating effect on nature, but also on our own internal affairs.
The power pre-eminently and par excellence not so much to increase one’s own wealth and prosperity, but to make spirit-soul growth possible for all, is the ‘fiery ether force’, the fifth or electric ether, as the Uranus force connected with freedom, ultimately the freedom of the spirit. Uranus, as a planetary force connected to electricity, stimulates the formation of free electricity as energy for the soul. That is not the electricity generated by fossil fuels and not even the energy generated by wind turbines and solar panels.
Experiments at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, experiments for consciousness developments, were still dominated by the generation of free Uranus energy by means of a device (!), in which one of the designs for such a device involved the use of oxidized uranium (Pitchblende, or UO2).
Uranus energy and the element uranium have a highly electrical effect. But it is free energy, which also means that humans have the freedom to process and use it according to free will. In France, for example, we see that uranium is needed to produce nuclear energy and thus meet the enormous need for electricity. That is a commitment to social and economic goals.
What matters in a gnostic, Christian sense is to be able to generate free energy in one’s own being for the benefit of the spirit-soul process. In cosmic development, this is the next step that is indispensable. That is not humane in the traditional sense of the word, nor ‘transhuman’ in the sense of an A.I. supported new world order. The cosmos places the responsibility on ourselves, on each of us. And that is beyond traditional science, traditional religion and the traditional growth economics of progress.
Because the existing etheric forces of the special nature in which we can (still) live, do not lead us evolutionarily, more or less automatically, to the path of liberation, to the activity of the spirit within us. They take us to a limit where we can use the free energy of the Uranus era, which is ultimately the Love Power of the Christ, for a real endura, in which self-decrease and self-realization come together in a new inspiration.
(To be continued in part 2)
Sources:
[1] Michael Ende – German author of fantasy and children’s stories, e.g. The Never Ending Story
[2] Tonke Dragt – Dutch author who explores the boundaries of space and time, e.g. The Letter for the King and The Song of Seven
Like most newsreaders, Zae-In wears a microphone on her collar and holds a stack of notes – but unlike most, her face is completely fake. Zae-In, a “virtual human” designed by South Korean artificial intelligence company Pulse9, spent five months this year reading live news bulletins on national broadcaster SBS. That’s it, you might think. To borrow the words of another animated newsreader, “I welcome our new AI overlords.” The future is now. The world belongs to the artificially intelligent people and the News will never be the same again. (Amelia Tait, The Guardian)
