Can we believe in AI? What does it mean to believe in AI? Is there truth in AI? Can AGI be in any sense profound, or revelatory? In many respects, AGI represents an imminent (immanent?) apotheosis in the modern liberal project: a realization of the bureaucratic, scientific model of the modern world, in automated magnificence. It heralds the potential for what Aaron Bastani calls – perhaps tongue-in-cheek – fully automated luxury communism. It appears on our horizon as a new end of history, our new Berlin Wall moment, our New Jerusalem. The State as a politico-philosophical project has intellectually been a quest for individual freedom; the most freedom, for the most people, avoiding the Hobbesian dystopia of all against all. Could AGI allow humankind to transcend the state as the fundamental organizing structure?
Continue reading “The Poverty of AI”Category: Algorithmic Governance

Modern politicians, and – if polling is to be believed – modern electorates are preoccupied with law and order. Policing, rural crime, safety on our streets are issues of grave concern to the politicians promising more and more cops, and deliverance from threats to safety and security. At the same time, spending is being reduced, and outcomes are deteriorating in visible ways through reduced sentences, and lower conviction rates. The rule of law appears to be weaker.
Continue reading “The Rule of Law and Bentham’s Panopticon”