West Coast Action

The Way It Is There's a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn't change. People wonder about what you are pursuing. You have to explain about the thread. But it is hard for others to see. While you hold it you can't get lost. Tragedies happen; people get hurt or die; and you suffer and get old. Nothing you do can stop time's unfolding. You don't ever let go of the thread. - William Stafford

Resignation letter of Anthropic Safety Lead Mrinank Sharma

"The world is in peril. And not just from AI, or bioweapons, but from a whole series of interconnected crises unfolding at this very moment." 

Interestingly, based on the date of Sharma's release of this letter, he resigned and left Anthropic the same day of his announcement.

"When someone leaves an AI tech job, they say 'i've stared into the abyss'."

“We were recently entertained by a naïve fable of the happy arrival of the 'end of history,' of the overflowing triumph of an all-democratic bliss; the ultimate global arrangement had supposedly been attained. But we all see and sense that something very different is coming, something new, and perhaps quite stern.” — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

In any case, we would all have to become, to some degree, specialists in behavior control in order to maintain London’s “awareness.” What about those people who just don’t happen to be attracted to that kind of science, or to any science? It would be agony for them to have to spend long hours studying behavioral technology in order to maintain their freedom. Previous Page Next Page

With the vast expansion of knowledge in the behavioral sciences, biochemistry, cybernetics, physiology, genetics, and other disciplines which have the potential to affect human behavior, it is probably already impossible (and, if not, it will soon become impossible) for any individual to keep abreast of it all. Previous Page Next Page

Similarly, if a man of the future has a complete knowledge of behavioral psychology it will not enable him to escape psychological control any more than the possession of a machine gun or a tank would enable him to escape physical control. The resources of an organized society are just too great for any individual to resist no matter how much he knows. Previous Page Next Page

London refers to “awareness” (of sciences relating to the mind) as the individual’s “sword and buckler” against manipulation by the establishment. In Roman times a man might have a real sword and buckler just as good as those of the emperor’s legionaries, but that did not enable him to escape oppression. Previous Page Next Page

London regards the wide dissemination of behavioral technology among the public as a means by which the people can protect themselves against psychological manipulation by the established powers. But if it is really true that people can use this knowledge to avoid manipulation in most areas, why won’t they also be able to use it to avoid being made to abhor violence, or to avoid control in other areas where London thinks they should be controlled? London seems to assume that people will be unable to avoid control in just those areas where he thinks they should be controlled, but that they will be able to avoid control in just those areas where he thinks they should not be controlled. Previous Page Next Page

It is one thing to know what must be done, to accept what must be done is the real challenge.

Wifi - along with Cell - is a radio wave operating at a specific frequency. These waves, while capable of passing through solid objects, still fluctuate in response to this passage, as well as in response to movement around them. Using systems like Wifi DensePose, Your location, body movement, pose, even your breath and heart rate can be detected and turned into a complete image of you, where you currently are, and what you're currently doing by having an AI program analyze the phase and amplitude distortion of wifi frequencies passing through your body. Technology like DensePose is hilariously touted by the system's proponents as being "more privacy friendly" due to it not requiring a camera or a clear view of you to see you.

As long as any behavior is permitted which is not in the best interests of the collective social organization, there will always be the temptation to eliminate the worst of this behavior through human engineering. People will introduce new controls to eliminate only the worst of this behavior, without intending that any further extension of the controls should take place afterward; but in fact they will be indirectly causing further extensions of the controls because whenever new controls are introduced, the public, as it becomes used to the controls, will change its conception of what constitutes an appropriate degree of control. In other words, whatever the amount of control to which people have become accustomed, they will regard that amount as right and good and they will regard a little further extension of control as a negligible price to pay for the elimination of some form of behavior that they find shocking. Previous Page Next Page

When London proposes to us systematic psychological controls over certain aspects of the personality, with the intention that these controls shall not be extended to others areas, he is assuming that the generation following his own will agree with his judgment as to how far the psychological controls should reach. This assumption is almost certainly false. The introduction of psychological controls in some areas (which London approves) will set the stage for the later introduction of controls in other areas (which London would not approve), because it will change the culture in such a way as to make people more receptive to the concept of psychological controls. Previous Page Next Page