The Rise of The Machines….From ‘Emergence’ Magazine….
by Bernie Bell - 08:36 on 10 September 2024
The Rise of The Machines….
There are a lot of Science Fiction stories based on the idea of …’What if the machines take over?’
I recently attempted to post a link on the Orkney Wildlife Facebook page for folk to report stoat sightings to the Orkney Native Wildlife Project, but some AI controlled machine somewhere wouldn’t let me - said that what I wanted to post went against their ‘community standards’.
Yesterday, the Editor of The Orkney News attempted to post a Yellow Weather warning for today, on TON Facebook page – and some AI controlled machine somewhere responded that the weather forecast was against their community standards.
Both of the posts were prompted by people trying to be helpful.
It’s happened – the machines are telling us what we can and can’t do, and there’s very little we can do about it. Isaac Asimov would be having as field-day…..
https://theorkneynews.scot/2020/05/03/i-discover-isaac-asimov/
We both got round the ‘ban’ by using human ingenuity – something which AI lacks.
These systems may be able to impose rules according to how they’re programmed, but they impose those rules too rigidly, with no understanding of what they are dealing with. They are not truly conscious and don’t actually think.
But they can be annoying and make life more difficult, which is not the idea behind why they were developed and continue to be developed.
I rage against the machine!
http://www.spanglefish.com/berniesblog/blog.asp?blogid=16526
If you don’t like swearing- you can do a bit of censorship yourself here….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWXazVhlyxQ
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From ‘Emergence’ Magazine….
“Memory, Praise, and Spirit
A talk by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee
“Let me seek, then, the gift of silence, and poverty, and solitude, where everything I touch is turned into prayer: where the sky is my prayer, the birds are my prayer, the wind in the trees is my prayer.” ––Thomas Merton
Dear Friends,
In June, I gave a keynote talk at a conference on spiritual ecology and peace building at St. Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace in London. Many of us feel deeply the sorrow of living in a culture that has collectively forgotten that we are part of the Earth; that has forgotten we are as inseparable from Her as the breath of wind and the silhouette of mountains. In this talk, I speak to how spiritual ecology, while a framework for understanding and navigating the spiritual dimension of the polycrises we are in, is, at its very root, a memory—a memory of living in kinship with the Earth, and of the ancient truth that She is alive. One of the most essential questions of our time is: How can we reawaken this memory and live an embodied connection with the Earth? For me, praise and prayer are one of the primary ways that can return us to a recognition of this most primordial relationship. An act of remembering and honoring the Earth as sacred, prayer sweeps the dust of forgetfulness that has enveloped our ways of being, and holds the Earth in our hearts with love. Whether offered from within a spiritual or religious tradition, or outside of one, prayer and praise bring the self into relationship with the mystery that not only unfolds around us, but also lives within us. When we remember that we are connected with all that exists, the ever growing divide between spirit and matter can begin to heal.
Thank you for listening,
Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee
Emergence Executive Editor
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