Mike's papal message leads me to this observation, along with a vid my wife showed me this morning of a rescue of a snowy owl entangled a snow-fence; very heartwarming with the kind human giving first aid to the owl's abrasions to the obviously calm and grateful owl while her chick watched in thankful admiration. Beautifully done and a complete fabrication.

The excuse is rather Machiavellian; the ends justifying the means. Indeed, the owl film does say in the description (after ferreting it out a bit) something to the effect the film was made using AI, but it is the message of kindness to all living things that is important, that justifies the use of this rather frightening new imagery with all it's power to convince the gullible and not-so-gullible of it's "reality".

But who determines the importance of the message such that deliberate fabrication of that which will become part of the visual body of knowledge for all time is justified?

Easily, it can be those who control the technology, the American "tech-bro" plutocrats who protest their good intentions for all humanity as they build huge data-centres to process and generate this, an infrastructure of lies supported by the stated policies of the holders of the government reins. For both, the power potential is unlimited once unleashed for real on a population soothed by heartwarming owl vids and a kindly pope.

First, we all got hooked together in a collective, the internet. Then, it was social media and the all-too-human desire to be able to be heard by all. Here we are, ready to be fed whatever message is to be fed and the vast majority unable to tell what is real and what is trickery to manipulate you, me, us.

AI is in its infancy, yet "we" already have the ability to hypothetically create an individual, have that individual be seen working tirelessly and virtuously for a cause, a (virtual) beloved celebrity, then one day broadcast to the world his or her brutal "murder" by the hand of our movement's enemies, a virtual martyr to rally "us" to kill all the "thems", and kill them for real. Is that faint laughter we hear during the ensuing bloodbath?

If you thought the internet and the social media was a death blow to humanity on a social level, you ain't seen nothin' yet. AI is a death blow to the body of knowledge, to the human record of history, and to humanity's ability to discern reality using the senses.

Our senses are all we have, after all.