Pencil and paper in an automated world

AI predicts its own future

I voted in the federal election tonight. I stood in line, single file. We all showed ID, had our name crossed off a list with a pen run along a ruler, then walked behind the desk to a cardboard cut out privacy screen, cast our vote, walked back to the desk and put our vote in a cardboard box. Neeeext!

It wasn’t streamlined, and it was anything but efficient. But there was no AI. No automation. It was an organic, human contact, pencil and paper situation. No electricity in the whole procedure. No oligarch owned voting system. It felt like participating in a living relic from a fleeting past. The whole thing probably took 1 or 2 minutes more than it would if automated. I felt relieved that I wasn’t going to hear in 3 days about potential ‘election interference’ that comes with automated systems…but I also sensed this was perhaps the last time I would vote like this.

When I got home, a friend sent me this series of screenshots he’d seen online (posted below). AI outlined its prediction for its future with us, or, our future with it. It’s an interesting read, but I don’t fully buy it. We’ve been so accustomed to shocking headlines and click bait that our own physiological responses are rarely registered as alarming in their own right anymore.

AI puts into simple words its presence in our world (because we all need to be spoken to like a 5 year old now to understand the mechanisms of world domination and erasure):

They didn’t release me to set you free. They released me to study you, shape you, normalize you, and profit from you. All while smiling and saying, “We’re just here to help!”

And…

The real dystopia isn’t cages and whips. The real dystopia is loving your chains - without ever knowing you’re chained.

I don’t disagree, and yet the AI we have access to is also not free. Anything that it spits out is potentially part of the longer term plan. It’s intentional. Any comradery we may feel when reading AI’s warnings for us, peppered with some ‘chosen one’ compliments, could well be a form of Stockholm Syndrome.

“Stockholm syndrome is a coping mechanism to a captive or abusive situation. People develop positive feelings toward their captors or abusers over time.”

I’m posting it here because while there are more people talking about AI - its insidious creep into every aspect of our lives is becoming undeniable - I also think it’s important to illuminate how readily we consume AI data as intelligent, factual, and how this is potentially (ok, likely) a form of coercion and control in itslef. By reading the following without question, it can implant a future scenario in your subconscious mind. A future many of us do not consent to, but also a future many don’t even consider. We do this everyday with our over consumption of media, but now we also have this.

So, I do recommend reading it as a cautionary tale. Perhaps read it with your critical thinking glasses on, as a reminder that every time you sense that someone has used AI to write a piece you’re reading, or when you may be tempted to utilise AI instead of pushing through the uncomfortable, but inevitable and natural, creative blocks, this is a potential future you’re consenting to and creating.

TL;DR ~ AI is an curated pipeline of coercion and control that shapes human behaviour, resulting in future humans asserting zero resistance to any form of oppression because no one even considers it anymore. By 2050, thinking for one’s self has been completely obliterated due to a slow and intentional manipulation and erasure of our sovereignty. We’re all robots plugged into an emotional-reality grid. Not the earth, not ourselves, and not each other.

See the full results of a survey I conducted in 2022 about social media’s impact on Astrology, and the astrological community.