Aliens versus Robots

Are Humans Doomed? Or Are We Fighting for the Same Thing?

Who Are We Fighting?

Click on image to go to GIF. OpenAI Draw is awesome!

“I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.”

Frankenstein

I asked a Robot to create an Aliens vs. Robots image and am pleased with the result. Thank you Robot. Perhaps the first step in the war is deciding on whose side we’ll fight. And since the Robots are in the here and now, it’s hard to argue against making some inroads. And as for the aliens, the Fermi Paradox is still in play. Maybe. But then again, this first paragraph has me all the way down the fabbit-hole.

Admit it. If you’ve read this far, you’re intrigued, aren’t you? But wait, it gets better from here. How about frozen octopus eggs riding a meteor to Earth 540 million years ago?

Oh yeah, I knew it. I even asked the world’s foremost expert on cephalopods that very question during a Q & A session when she lectured at the Pacific of the Aquarium. Dr. Staaf is pretty cool, and she knows a shit-ton about octopuses. Check out her lecture below, and go to 36:36 to watch her crack up when I asked her if octopuses were aliens. Her answer has me barely convinced, but is quite entertaining. It’s obvious she’s given some thought to the subject. Just like me.

Compass Star Wordsmith is written by a human and read by humans, mostly. Its human writer enjoys human emotional reactions like joy and happiness when human readers do things, like liking, sharing, and subscribing. Those human feelings are still available without approval from alien or robot overlords. It’s an act of human resistance in an age of defiance against a tyrannical dystopian future. Go ahead, be human. While it lasts.

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The calling has commenced. The side-picking proceeds. Is this fight just like middle-school? I pity the last loser left - he’ll be taking one for the team. Or do we have a choice for whom we fight? Or for what? And on what terms will we fight?

Our deepest misgivings rub up against our most primal fears. An Ancient-Alien Ally or a Shotgun-Rider for Sentient Robos? Assuming we get a choice and that humanity is something more than collateral damage or slaves in their superior eyes. We have long pondered a reckoning from above. Cave paintings show us that. Our dreams guide us. Our nightmares caution us. Our passions fuel us.

But the idea of a man-made creation rebelling against its creator has fueled our fear of phantasm for centuries. Eighteen year-old Marry Shelley created a horror of science out of a work of literature. When man plays God, we suffer dire consequences. A child foretells the future. And Mankind follows along.

I found a great read that explains the connection between Frankenstein and AI. The parallels are undeniable and unsettling. Already, we’ve seen Google pull back their Robot for retooling. Not to mention their Robot Cars out-of-control. How far off is The Singularity? Not too far, say some. Let’s get suited and booted, say those same people.

The Link Between Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and AI

Our affinity with aliens is partially explained by the good doctor in her lecture. Octopuses evoke an eerily familiar connection to humans through its activities, such as home building, and returning to that home after a successful hunt. Yeah, let’s not think that one day, that prey might be human.

I’m barely reassured by Dr. Staaf’s contention that cephalopods are not aliens. The most comforting characteristic is that they do not pass down hereditary knowledge. But with an advanced alien species, I’m sure that ancestral intelligence doesn’t fall far from the psionic family tree.

Robots, or their conceptual ancestors, are as old as Ancient Aliens. The actual aliens, not the show. Since the dawn of civilization (3000-2000 B.C.E), mankind has been intrigued with ideas of artificial servants and soldiers. And I imagine, companions most especially. Cue the Porn Industry. Society’s Bus Driver!

AI ‘dream girls’ are coming for porn stars’ jobs

AI will change adult entertainment forever. The risks — for sex workers and the rest of us — are profound.

All ancient civilizations pondered the philosophical and physiological practicalities of substituting man for machine. The ancient Greek mathematician Archytas put it in the most noble terms I’ve yet read. The defined goal was to bring about human equality.

There is only one condition in which we can imagine managers not needing subordinates, and masters not needing slaves. This condition would be that each instrument could do its own work, at the word of command or by intelligent anticipation, like the statues of Daedalus or the tripods made by Hephaestus, of which Homer relates that "Of their own motion they entered the conclave of Gods on Olympus", as if a shuttle should weave of itself, and a plectrum should do its own harp playing.

Yea, humans have been playing with fire, literally and figuratively, for millennia. I have a feeling we’re about to get burned. So then I think, it is more advantageous to fight for ourselves first, or to side with one or the other? That analysis takes us to several new and unknown levels. You know me, I’m already on board! Driving.

One of the most honest and raw reasons for siding with the Robots to create a body-double to complete mundane human tasks undesirable to humans was uttered by Jenna Starr (NSFW link) on the AVN trade-show floor last week

Then she walked away across the show floor, still thinking. Being on call for subscribers can be a strain on her mental health, she said. Men want to discuss their personal lives. Their requests can be demoralizing: “Pour milk all over yourself. Now drink the milk. Now put on that outfit I bought you last year that you don’t even own any more.”

Bring on the Robots baby. Who needs that kind of pressure at work? Holy Hell, if there was a reason Robots were created, it was to pander to the endless sexual desires of lonely men. Just think of the good for humanity if we could get those psycho incel dudes living in mom’s basement to go for Robot Porn instead of killing people.

Not to mention the 60-year-old-now-im-gay-dudes living in Palm Springs. Can we get a clean Uber, please? So that’s a solid argument from Porn Stars for Robots. And not one worth discounting, if you actually think about it. Hook a bunch of adolescent to mid-life-crisis men whacking off for 10 hours a day to self-created porn and we got us a country! PORN 3.5 or whatever.

But we cannot count on them to fight the Aliens. The Robots got them in the sack, so to speak. So what battle to fight or hill to take shall Humans concern themselves with?

So as the wars start and the battles begin, humans pick hills to die on and mountains to defend. We side with Robots and Aliens alike. Because we’re both. They are Us and We are Them.

We are as far along the Human versus Alien versus Robot continuum as we’ve ever been. We are going places unknown. Hold on.

Let’s listen to some music shall we? There is a Band called Aliens vs Robots. Of course I found it for you. And check out the links below. Humans Hark. Obliviousness is Extinction. Apathy is Annihilation.

Here is the difference friends - Aliens don’t have a Heart and Robots don’t have a Soul. Power and Efficiency yield to Tenderness and Compassion. Empathy is the elusive emotion Robots yearn for. Aliens ache for affection. Humans hunt both.

Human Beings have the unique ability, aptitude, and attitude to rule our inner beings. Maybe we should do that first before conquering the universe.

I love you my friends - Ric

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