https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=k0lOL5Q58Ls
Can you comment on your thoughts about artificial intelligence and what it means for humanity? The bigger the toy, the smarter you better be to use it. So that’s, and that’s worth thinking about because we’re coming up with some pretty damn big toys. And what did my friend Jonathan Pagio said again? He said recently he’s, I told you about him, this deep, deep religious thinker. He’s something. He said, we’re going to see giants walk the earth again. And you think, well, what does that mean? It’s like, well, we’re already androids, you know. Already. When you’re on Twitter, you’re an android. Well, why? Well, you know, there are lots of trolls on Twitter. Sometimes I’m one of them, by the way. But I’m not an anonymous troll. So I take my lumps, let’s say. Well, I started calling the trolls troll demons, and I had a reason for that. And the reason is, you know, maybe you’re some resentful character who’s a coward and and you’re Machiavellian and narcissistic and psychopathic and sadistic. Because that’s actually the hallmarks of anonymous trolls. And that’s been studied very well by people who study the so-called dark tetrad of personality traits. I interviewed this guy, Del Paulus, who’s the head researcher among the dark, dark tetrad research group. And that will be coming out right away. And it’s clearly the case that the anonymous denigrating trolls are psychopathic, Machiavellian, narcissistic sadists. And maybe not right to the clinical point, but enough so that you can detect it using the proper psychometric measurement instruments. And so you think you got this resentful, you know, underground character who’s carping away on Twitter, trying to do nothing but cause trouble, who’s also anonymous. And he’s bitter and he wants to hurt people and he likes to hurt people, which is what lulls means, right? I’m doing it for the lulls means I’m doing it because I positively delight in the production of human misery. And you think if you just met that guy, you wouldn’t give him a half a second of your time. In fact, you wouldn’t even meet him because he’s cowering in his mother’s basement covered with Cheeto dust under the covers, you know. And he’s just he’s just there’s nothing to him at all except bitterness and spite. But now you multiply him 10 million times and you make him electronic. And that’s an android. And that’s what happens every time he posts something on Twitter. This is not it’s he’s already a human machine hybrid and he’s a human super intelligent connected machine hybrid. And so that means all this pathology is multiplied immensely by our tech by our technological might. And I’ve thought recently that virtualization enables psychopathy. So in normal social situations, if you’re a narcissistic Machiavellian and you push it too hard, someone will absolutely hit you. And that will be the end of it. And most of the time, it’s cowards who take that route and it doesn’t take much intimidation to stop them. Just the hint of appropriate, just retaliation will keep them silent. But online, especially if you’re anonymous, that’s all stripped away. And so the psychopaths can have free rein. And part of the reason that our culture has been torn apart at the moment is because virtualization enables psychopathy. And so that’s a big problem. And so that all pertains to this question of, well, you know, when you have bigger toys, you better be a bigger boy. And that’s something Carl Jung commented on in detail in his writing. He thought that he studied alchemy, you know, thousands of years of alchemical writing. The alchemists were motivated by the idea that there was a substance that was material. And if we could investigate material and discover that substance, we would live forever. We wouldn’t be ill and we could transmute base metals into gold, which would be infinitely wealthy. And Jung’s notion was that the promise of matter was what impelled alchemy. And out of that grew science. And science is motivated by the notion that if we study matter deeply enough, we’ll prolong life, we’ll increase health and we’ll make ourselves wealthy. And of course, that’s exactly what happened. And we took this technological route there. So out of alchemy, this weird dreamlike mythology emerged science and just blew up and made us into technological giants. But there was an ethic in alchemy, too, that was allied in part, complexly, with the whole Judeo-Christian tradition. There was an ethic and it didn’t expand at the same rate. And so now we’re, you know, we’re primitive children on the ethical front with the tools of gods. And that’s very, very dangerous. In fact, it might be fatally dangerous. And so one of the things that Jung attempted to do in his work was to help people understand that it was necessary for us to take on an ethical responsibility that was commensurate with our technological power. And that that would require something like a something like the deepest of all possible religious revaluations. Right. The revaluation of good and evil, to use the Nietzschean phrase, as a what? Medication for the death of God. A very serious set of ideas. And you think we’re powerful now, man. You wait till the AI giant starts to stroll around the earth and that’s common. Like you will absolutely see that in your lifetime. You’ll probably see it in the next two or three years because that technology is moving so quickly that even those who are on top of it can’t keep up. So and I would say we better get our act together because we could make this world quite the heavenly place. But there’s a lot more pathways to hell than there are to heaven. And, you know, by the time World War Two hit, we were pretty damn technologically powerful. We could take out a lot of the world in a very short period of time, but that was nothing compared to what we can do now. So we’re we’re really at a crossroads. We could have everything we could dream of if we were careful. But we could have a nightmare beyond contemplation if we’re not. And so I would say and I would say this is all on you. Right. Because also, as we become technologically more powerful, every single individual becomes more powerful. And that means the corruption of the individual starts to become more and more a world destabilizing force. Obviously. Right. Because look how connected you are. So how could it be otherwise? Right. Because that connection means your power is multiplied. Obviously, that’s what it means. And that means your sins are multiplied. Really. Now, we already know the people who studied totalitarian states with any degree of depth figured out 40 years ago that a totalitarian state can only thrive if every single person in the state lies. Solzhenitsyn claim was one man who stops lying can bring down a tyranny, which he did, by the way. Now, not alone. You know, Reagan had something to do with that. So did so did the pope at that time and a variety of other people as well. But they were three cardinal individuals. And so, you know, you look there, look out there in the world and you see the Giants marching towards you and you think, well, what can I do? And the answer is bloody well, get your act together, because here it comes, boys and girls, and you better be prepared. So, you know, and also not just for your own sake, but for the sake of everyone. What did Dostoevsky say? Everyone is responsible not only for what they do, but for what everyone else does. And that’s that’s an insane thing to say. But Dostoevsky was an insane genius and with heavy emphasis on the genius. And it’s very weird to understand that the world might be constituted so that everything that you do matters so much that it also affects everything everyone else does. But that is how the world’s constituted. And that’s a hell of a burden to take on and a very frightening realization. You know, it’s enough to make you psychotic if it comes upon you unawares. You know, people who become manic, they get some sense of their of the potential of their reach. But it comes upon them involuntarily and it just destroys them. It’s just they’re too close to God. That’s a good way of thinking about they’ve flown too close to the sun. Sun’s still there. You need it. You can definitely fly too close to it. But you’re still stuck with the responsibility. And that’s a very daunting thought. You know, I’ve often thought if people had to choose between edge and you could choose, here’s your choice. Your life is meaningless. Fundamentally, ultimately. You know, you’re just a dust speck in a in a you’re just a grain of sand on an infinite beach. And and what you do doesn’t really matter. And that’s a very dismal view of the world. But on the other hand, you don’t have any responsibility. You can do whatever you want. And so you got to ask yourself when people make that claim is like, are they stark realists? Are they just trying to evade responsibility? And there’s all sorts of reasons to evade responsibility. So I would use that hypothesis first and foremost. And the alternative to that is an even more terrifying view. And that’s associated with the fear of God. That’s the beginning of wisdom is every single thing you do matters. It echoes and and spreads every word you say. Every word you say constitutes reality. That’s the divine word. Every word you say tilts the world towards heaven or hell. And that’s the truth. So. So be careful what you say, right? Because you’re bringing the world into being from the realm of unformed possibility and you’re making a decision whether that’s a tilt towards heaven or a tilt towards hell. And really, that’s what you’re doing. So someone’s excited about that. Someone’s excited about that. Hopefully someone who’s aiming upward.