Aug 29, 2023 | Ramblings, Reflections and Ruminations of Daniel Giamario |
Several recent events inspired me to zoom in on this topic in my monthly Ramblings article.
AI Free Zone
I found the following at the top of the homepage of www.Spaceweather.com, a website I frequently visit to get intel: “This is an AI Free Zone! Text created by ChatGPT and other Large Language Models is spreading rapidly across the Internet. It’s well-written, artificial, frequently inaccurate. If you find a mistake on Spaceweather.com, rest assured it was made by a real human being.”
As you can see in the image here, we have been inspired to place something similar in the News section of our TOTAMS website!
AI Writes Article About “Shamanic Astrology”
The second thing that happened was that TOTAMS Astrologer Sean Imler put a number of my articles into an AI program called Reword and sent me what the program came up with.
I read it with shock and found it to be scary, as it read, at least in some ways at first, like something that I could have actually written. There were mistakes, though, and it entirely failed at grasping the essence of this paradigm! If you are interested in what was created, you can see this ShamanicAstrologyAIarticle here.
Even more recently, the same issue was discussed yet again in an interview with one of my favorite writers, researcher Elana Freeland.
TOTAMS and AI
The Turning of the Ages Mystery School will ALWAYS be an Artificial Intelligence free zone, as much as that remains possible. We value, support, and advocate for authentic human beings!
From a human perspective, even the phrase: “artificial intelligence” is an oxymoron. Human intelligence is the intellectual power of humans, which is marked by complex cognitive feats and high levels of motivation and self-awareness, including abstract concepts. AI is no more than a super-fast calculating device, run by human created algorithms, a facsimile of human intelligence.
After having hand-calculated my own charts until about 1978, I of course value computing power. I love the research features of the internet, as long as it does remain free and not rewritten by AI – as unfortunately is happening way too much nowadays, casting shades of the book “1984.”
Technology in and of itself is not “evil” – up to a certain limit. It, of course, can be used for the good of all. It’s the age-old argument. But I have always valued the work of a 1960’s icon, the Canadian visionary thinker Marshall McLuhan, who truly saw what was coming. His observation and warning was: “The Medium is the Message.”
When The Medium Becomes The Message
Following from that, here is a slightly modified excerpt of a document that is shared with TOTAMS Council Members and all our certified astrologers:
“In 1964, a book came out called ‘Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man’ by Marshal McLuhan. From this book came a well-known phrase in the 1960’s: ‘The Medium is the Message’. What was meant was that the form of the message (visual, media, advertising etc.) would become the message. This became so evident in the 1960’s with the rapid rise of the omnipresent advertising agencies, so wonderfully captured by the TV show: Mad Men, and later involving media brainwashing and cooption in the movie “Network.” I am not at all saying this movement away from factual and authentic content only started in the 1960’s. But it sure did become evident to our generation then, and it has only accelerated. McLuhan was so prescient about that. By nature, I have always had deep suspicion of flash sales techniques and following trends. I have even openly criticized NLP and its offshoots for many of the same reasons. I have spent many of my early years in the TM scene, EST, and even Scientology, to then discover the dark truth: It was always primarily about sales and recruiting. This broke my heart in so many ways. I have come to have a visceral reaction to any hint of using media, trends, sales and advertising, which would then obscure the actual message, which is the authentic content. Many of my generation have this sense, but then countless younger folks can sense this also.
Symptoms of Kali Yuga
How the word ‘inversion’ applies here: May I first remind you of the symptoms of Kali Yuga.
Kali Yuga quote from Robert Lawlor’s book ‘Voices of the First Day’, p.76:
“The Vishnu Pranas, a mythological text of the Hindu’s, described it this way: ‘Kali brought sin into the world. In the Kali Age the proper order of human relations is reversed; social status depends upon the ownership of property; wealth has become the only source of virtue; passion and luxury are the sole bonds between spouses; falsity and lying are the conditions of success in life; sexuality is the sole source of human enjoyment; religion, a superficial and empty ritual, is confused with spirituality’.
I would add here: When science becomes “scientism”; when definitions of things are altered whenever it serves the controllers; when a social media profile is more important that actual and truthful human connection; when consensus reality and utilitarianism: (‘the greater good’) attacks genuine diversity, and with it the full spectrum of organic human 1.0 possibilities. And last but not least the attack on personal sovereignty and an attempt to make an inner life obsolete.
Many more examples can be given, right up to the ultimate inversion: human evolution or ‘progress’ leading to becoming artificial intelligence, which would be the deepest possible descent into materialism, the extinction of our connection to Soul and Spirit, and the most comprehensive Kali Yuga descent ever known. It will make the Fall of Atlantis look like a walk in the park.
When the Medium becomes the message, and the authentic content is less important, altered, or watered-down, then it’s another symptom of the Kali Yuga. When the sales angle or using the current trends or styles are the leading edge, to me that is also an inversion, which I have a visceral reaction to, for which I am not alone.”
The moral, ethical and spiritual essence of human creativity
I hope that you can see how this applies to the current situation, however the situation is even more extreme. The Medium is the Message means that it’s possible that the technology, itself, not only becomes more powerful than the message or the content, but AI technology becomes more powerful than a human being. It is when the servant becomes the master.
I am old enough to remember when photography, for example, was a human art. Now, with SMART phone cameras, enhanced by photoshop, anyone can take hundreds of photos, most of which may be, at best, seen once. And who knows if they are “real.” Music by real musicians is also dying in the mainstream; I could write a long separate article about that! I particularly loath the habit of auto-tuning the creations of artists, usually without your knowledge. Soon, you may never know what the original recording actually sounded like.
The moral, ethical and spiritual essence of human creativity is in danger of being superseded by AI. Too few seem to care about this. While some may say that technology is part of the evolution of human intelligence (and I can agree with that), if the ethical and spiritual developments don’t keep pace (they have not), there are huge problems. I am reminded of the reaction of Zeus to Prometheus after stealing the fire from the gods. He may be considered the first technologist. To paraphrase: “Good on you, Prometheus, you got the fire, but remember this: do not succumb to hubris and arrogance, and do not forget justice.”
TOTAMS, for one, will never capitulate to AI generated creativity. No matter how “good” it appears to become, we will never replace the creativity of actual human beings, mistakes and imperfections as they may contain. Our total commitment is to non-AI-hybrid or “enhanced” humans. We contain in ourselves all possibilities – if we have the spiritual will to develop them. The Metaverse and artificial intelligence is the ultimate descent into complete materialism, that which can be expected to happen at the deepest descent of the Kali Yuga.
I intend in the near future to write a follow-up article about the metaverse itself. Thanks for reading.