6.17 Technological Totalitarianism and Digital Fascism
125
These developments are not by coincidence, however. They started shortly after
World War II, when Nazi elites had to leave Germany. Through “Operation Paperclip”
and similar operations,
75 they were transferred to the United States, Russia and other
countries around the world. There, they have often worked in secret services and
secret research programs. This is, how Nazi thinking has spread around the world,
particularly in countries that aimed at power. By now, the very core of human dignity
and the foundations of many societies are at stake. Perhaps the world has never seen
a greater threat before.
6.18 Singularity and Digital God
Some people think what we are witnessing now is an inevitable, technology-driven
development. For example, it comes under the slogan “The singularity is near”.
76
According to this, we will soon see superintelligence, i.e. an Artificial Intelligence
system with super-human intelligence and capability. This system is imagined to
learn and gain intelligence at an accelerating pace, and so, it would eventually know
everything better than humans.
Shouldn’t one then demand that humans do what this kind of all-knowing superintelligence demands from us, as if it were a “digital God”?
77 Wouldn’t everything
else be irrational and a “crime against humanity and nature”, given the existential
challenges our planet is faced with? Wouldn’t we become something like “cells” of
a new super-organism called “humanity”, managed by a superintelligent brain? It
seems some people cannot imagine anything else.
In the very spirit of transhumanism, they would happily engage in building such a
super-brain—a kind of “digital God” that is as omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent as possible with today’s technology. This “digital God” would be something like
a super-Google that would know our wishes and could manipulate our thinking,
feeling, and behavior. Once AI can also trigger specific brain activities, it could even
give us the feeling we have met God. The fake (digital) God could create fake spiritual experiences. It could make us believe we have met the God that world religions
tell us about—finally it was here, and it was taking care of our lives…
Do you think we could possibly stop disruptive innovators from working on
the implementation of this idea? After digitally reinventing products and services,
administrative and decision processes, legal procedures and law enforcement, money
75 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip and https://web.archive.org/web/202012
12222020/https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-ofintelligence/csi-publications/csi-stu
dies/studies/vol-58-no-3/operation-paperclip-the-secret-intelligenceprogram-to-bring-nazi-scient
ists-to-america.html.
76 Kurzweil [20].
77 Of course, not. If the underlying goal function of the system would be changed only a little (or if
the applied dataset would be updated), this might imply completely different command(ment)s…
In scientific terms, this problem is known as “sensitivity”.
125
These developments are not by coincidence, however. They started shortly after
World War II, when Nazi elites had to leave Germany. Through “Operation Paperclip”
and similar operations,
75 they were transferred to the United States, Russia and other
countries around the world. There, they have often worked in secret services and
secret research programs. This is, how Nazi thinking has spread around the world,
particularly in countries that aimed at power. By now, the very core of human dignity
and the foundations of many societies are at stake. Perhaps the world has never seen
a greater threat before.
6.18 Singularity and Digital God
Some people think what we are witnessing now is an inevitable, technology-driven
development. For example, it comes under the slogan “The singularity is near”.
76
According to this, we will soon see superintelligence, i.e. an Artificial Intelligence
system with super-human intelligence and capability. This system is imagined to
learn and gain intelligence at an accelerating pace, and so, it would eventually know
everything better than humans.
Shouldn’t one then demand that humans do what this kind of all-knowing superintelligence demands from us, as if it were a “digital God”?
77 Wouldn’t everything
else be irrational and a “crime against humanity and nature”, given the existential
challenges our planet is faced with? Wouldn’t we become something like “cells” of
a new super-organism called “humanity”, managed by a superintelligent brain? It
seems some people cannot imagine anything else.
In the very spirit of transhumanism, they would happily engage in building such a
super-brain—a kind of “digital God” that is as omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent as possible with today’s technology. This “digital God” would be something like
a super-Google that would know our wishes and could manipulate our thinking,
feeling, and behavior. Once AI can also trigger specific brain activities, it could even
give us the feeling we have met God. The fake (digital) God could create fake spiritual experiences. It could make us believe we have met the God that world religions
tell us about—finally it was here, and it was taking care of our lives…
Do you think we could possibly stop disruptive innovators from working on
the implementation of this idea? After digitally reinventing products and services,
administrative and decision processes, legal procedures and law enforcement, money
75 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip and https://web.archive.org/web/202012
12222020/https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-ofintelligence/csi-publications/csi-stu
dies/studies/vol-58-no-3/operation-paperclip-the-secret-intelligenceprogram-to-bring-nazi-scient
ists-to-america.html.
76 Kurzweil [20].
77 Of course, not. If the underlying goal function of the system would be changed only a little (or if
the applied dataset would be updated), this might imply completely different command(ment)s…
In scientific terms, this problem is known as “sensitivity”.