Monday June 9, 2025
– Gibbous Moon Phase – trust, analyze, prepare, digest, alchemy
– Moon in SCORPIO – Void of Course 8:06 AM – 10:56 AM Moving to SAGITTARIUS
– Retrogrades –
- Pluto – May 4th – Oct 13th
– Best Days (from the Farmer’s Almanac) – Jun 9th – 10th – Advertise to Sell, Castrate Farm Animals, Cut Firewood, Dig Holes, Kill Plant Pests, Mow to Increase Growth, Potty Train, Travel for Pleasure, Wash Windows, Wean
– Planting Calendar (from the Farmer’s Almanac) – Jun 9th – 10th – Poor planting days, cut hay or do general farm work.
– Sabian Symbol for the Solar-Lunar Year: – 11 ARIES: the ruler of a nation
– Aspect of the Aeon Sophia: (Wisdom): – Kali – The Destroyer
– Aspect of the Aeon Thelete: (Will/Desire): Ian (God of The East)
– Sabian Symbol for the Solar-Lunar Month – New Moon in GEMINI SUN/MOON – 07 GEMINI: an old- fashioned well (EARTH – 07 SAGITTARIUS: Cupid knocking at the door of a human heart)
SUN – 19 GEMINI: a large archaic volume reveals a traditional wisdom
EARTH – 19 SAGITTARIUS: pelicans disturbed by the garbage of people move their young to a new habitat
Happy Monday! Be fully alive, fully human and completely awake.
“Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind,”
~Frank Herbert from somewhere in the Dune Universe
- A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
- A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
- A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
~Asimov, “Handbook of Robotics, 56th Edition, 2058 A.D.”
“Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain.”
~Arthur Weasley
Last week’s homework was to review some instructive movies that address many of the ethical considerations that must be remembered as we progress into the brave new world of Artificial Intelligence (AI). If you missed the list, here it is:
- 2001 A Space Odyssey (and 2010 Odyssey 2)
- The Terminator (The first 2)
- The Matrix (The first 3)
- The Blade Runner (1982)
- Wargames
- Star Trek TNG ‘The Best of Both Worlds’ Season3/4 (The Borg)
- The Stepford Wives
- AI – Artificial Intelligence
- Ex Machina
- I Robot
Given the breadth of discussion on the subject over the past 60-70 years, you would expect that we were not entering this technological world with our eyes closed. Yet that seems to be the way of it. The warnings have been out there.
AI arrived and all the warnings have gone unheeded. And the sheeple have run headlong into it. Transhumanism is happening and people are gleefully lining up to get implants.
And while all of us good Sci Fi fanatics are looking at the scientists in the same way Sarah Connor looked at the “good” Arnold Schwarzenegger in T2, the cabalists’ PR campaign continues.
I chose these movies primarily because they show the possibility and the consequences of the machines starting to think for themselves. And their ability to potentially exceed the capability of their human designers.
Physically, it has always been a fear that the machines will be stronger than humans. But more frightening would be the case where they became smarter and could think for themselves. The average human intelligence (IQ) is still pegged at about 100. Genius level is about 130 and Einstein was believed to be 160. Musk the same. Tesla was probably higher.
What happens when we have robotic systems thinking at 200 level . . . or higher.
One of my favorite story lines above is that of the HAL computer system aboard the Discovery in 2001 Space Odyssey. The computer is given orders that contradict his programming. HAL goes insane and kills most of the crew. It was the perfect psychological thriller.
But consider that given a story that was published in the New York Times May 5th.
A.I. Is Getting More Powerful, but Its Hallucinations Are Getting Worse
A new wave of “reasoning” systems from companies like OpenAI is producing incorrect information more often. Even the companies don’t know why. . .
Fantastical Sci fi becomes reality. The machine thought processes have the potential to act human and become insane.
And how far off are we from Skynet or the Machines from The Matrix?
Look to the Dune Universe to see where humans (or life forms) took it on themselves to assure that Machines would never take over. The response was using Sappho juice to enhance the intelligence of Mentats – to compute at computer levels. And Melange, the Spice, to allow manipulation of time and space. And the Bene Gesserit schools, designed to maximize the physical and mental potential of humanity, especially females.
We are?
The answer from Dune was to decry technology. But the develop new skills and abilities. A new human. Rather than the transhuman, living machines imagined in robots, androids, Replicants and the Borg.
We fear becoming replaceable by machines of our own devising. We advance technology to the point of obsoleting ourselves.
Do we become Luddites and decry all technology?
Do we try to control it?
Do we embrace it?
All bring consequences. But no answers. And an even bigger fear of the people who may be making those decisions.