Essays:AI and cyberpunk
We actually live in the era of Cyberpunk. Most people don’t even know about it, and they don’t even know the term - maybe they heard about the Cyberpunk 2077 game, and put a confident equal sign on it [to define the term with the game].
In short, Cyberpunk is a dystopian world of the future, where IT, AI and Cybernetics have developed to a high level, but only mega-corporations and state bodies own them. In combination with totalitarianism and kleptocracy, this means there is even greater social inequality, poverty, misery. People don't have jobs because AI can do everything for them, and only a select few, who get richer and only further corrupt society, own this AI.
Doesn't it remind you of anything?
This world belongs to mega-corporations. AI watches us on social networks, reads our messages, looks at photos, analyzes videos on the streets. Also, with the help of AI, huge amounts of data are studied, the mood of the strata of society is determined, and then management decisions are made: what to show in advertising, what a politician should say in order to satisfy personal interests.
Now there is an arms race of neural networks that allow you to create without human help. Vivid examples are DALLE-2, Imagen. Kandinsky makes only the first successful attempts. Corporations do not want to share, only a select few own the technology and create social superiority. Artists, writers, musicians are already actively collaborating with corporations and government to use AI for their creativity. Many do not advertise this, because they are ashamed to admit it to their audience. But that's the reality, I'm familiar with it.
Over the past 10 years, AI has come a long way. I, as a direct developer, can subjectively estimate that no more than 50% of developments reach us through scientific articles, no more than 10% through a full open source implementation, no more than 1% to the general public.
Why is it important? Cyberpunk == capture and subjugation of the whole world, it never led to anything good, you see. If you do not provide Resistance with the help of developments available to everyone, then at some point it will simply be impossible to avoid the social inequality of Cyberpunk - society will turn into a useless mass, because. did not have time to prepare to overcome the technological abyss, and new professions did not appear.
I am now preparing to free float from corporations, created a personal non-profit brand shonenkovAI and became part of a small yet anonymous team, and also actively get acquainted with strong AI developers from all over the world who are willing and able to resist. Of course, I thought about where to get resources for open research in order to share developments with society.
If you also think that Cyberpunk is bad, want to become part of the Resistance, and also know how to be useful in this, then do not be silent and act, we are already in the world of Cyberpunk.
All the best!
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By Alex Shonenkov from Shonenkov AI (Telegram) 27/06/2022
Original in Russian:
