Towards the Happy Moron and Human 2.0

Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Power: 5 Battlegrounds.

Author: Rajiv Malhotra

Look at God and His invention from a philosophical angle. God created all beings, including Man. From a simpleminded simpleton, he evolved to develop a brain complex enough to tap the secrets of the Universe. His intelligence found new frontiers and was able to create and modify new lifeforms. Pretty soon, Man thinks he is better than God. He sometimes thinks God/Universe does not exist. Man is the centre of the Universe, and everything revolves around him.

In self-discovery and expansion of human intellectual capacities, he discovered artificial intelligence (AI). From a tool to aid Man in his day-to-day mundane and repetitive jobs - help him around the house and then help in factories, AI slowly began, through Man's astute observation, that many of our actions and problem can be broken down into algorithms. 

Over time, these algorithms were created for AI to be creative and responsive independently. The point of no return must have been reached when the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov in a game of chess. Many modern AI programmes are said to have come close to passing the Turing test, the instance when machine response is indistinguishable from a human's. 

Creative artistic compositions and even emotive responses have been broken down into algorithms. So, for example, AI can compose music pieces and paintings.

Will there come a time when consciousness be broken down into algorithms? What happens after that mirrors the many scenarios of innumerable dystopian sci-fi movies. AI does not need its inventors and can work independently and against its creators. Man will be redundant, an annoyance or irrelevant enough to be disposed of. 

That is the course of things. AI is here to stay. The author looks at five areas (which he refers to as battlegrounds) that may need intervention by the powers that be. The mentioned areas are economics, geopolitics, loss of agency or psychological control of the public, metaphysics of consciousness and human capital.

There is a palpable fear that the rapid replacement of jobs by AI. Even though historically, industrialisation did cut jobs, this time around, the loss of employment could be too fast and too widespread. The disparity between the haves and have-nots will be more prominent as the middle-class shrinks.

Geopolitical dealings will hit a more extensive frontier. If previously, the loss of human lives was the impediment for nations to go to war, with AI and fighter machines, the only thing that would prevent them is the ability to finance wars. Countries with more enormous AI-based military-industrial complexes will likely rule the world.

As most of us are aware now, the internet and social media have turned us into automatons. Our personal information is public domain. We had willingly signed off our right to privacy. Like dogs in dog shows, we are easy pacified with serotonin-inducing likes and approvals in our comfortable echo chambers. Virtual reality and augmented reality devices, wearables and implants will put us in a constant state of psychedelic euphoria. Our social behaviour is analysed and gamified to influence us to dance to the tunes of the webmasters.

Augmented Reality glasses

It seems that everything can be coded. Scientists have algorithms for everything, including possibly our consciousness. The average human being would be a moron as all thinking processes can be outsourced to AIs, which would be essentially Human 2.0.

The world will be divided into two categories - the 1% of the elite God-like mega-rich larger-than-life entrepreneurs and the rest being the masses who have to be servants and consumers to the institutions of the 1%.  

With the future so dim, we probably would not need shades. Perhaps just VR, AR glasses or Google goggles.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

What if Jesus returns?

Nenjam Marapathilai (நெஞ்சம் மறப்பதில்லை, The heart never forgets; Tamil; 2021)
Story and Director: Selvaraghavan

This film may not resonate with the average Kollywood movie-goer. It is supposed a thriller, a ghost story with corpses, gore and blood, but it is plentiful with hidden messages and symbolism. It is for the viewers to connect the dots and draw their own conclusions.

A casual viewer would surmise the whole offering as a poorly made horror flick with poor VFX about an orphan, Mariam, from a Church taking up a childminder's job in a dysfunctional family. The man of the house is a two-faced eccentric tyrant, Ramasamy @ Ramsay. He is married to his bosses' daughter and is under her thumb. He appears to courteous to everyone, but beneath his pleasant demeanour, evil lurks. 

Long story short, the minder is gang-raped by Ramsay and his servants, killed and buried in the large home compound. Mariam comes back as a spirit to avenge her bizarre death.

In an interview, the director, who also wrote the story, asserts that it is a good versus evil story. In the form of a servant, Jesus comes to Earth to fight Satan, who is in the form of Ramsay. Along the way, the iconic representations of biblical events - Jesus carrying the Cross, Mary with infant Jesus, fish, bread, representation of angels and many more.

From the dialogue, one can make out the story takes a whack on the whole of human civilisation; Indian culture of needing the safeguard reputation, turning a blind eye to injustice, blatant disregard to decency, class discrimination and more. It seems that evil is more prevalent than good. People in power dictate terms, and the weak follow blindly without agency. The agency bestowed with the responsibility of upholding justice is flawed and corrupt. People can get away with murder and joke about it. Maintaining prestige and social stigma are more valuable than human lives. Money can buy everything, even love and care.

The dialogue gives a sense of deja vu. Then it hits you. There are plenty of references to dialogues from Sivaji Ganesan's movies. There is even a song from one of the movies he acted in -' Enga Mama' -'Chelakkiligalam Palliley'. The message the writer probably conveys is that the devil wears Prada and appears suave as well charitable. However, political leaders are not altruistic, there are only worried about the next elections' result and dancing to the party line's tune.

What I want to know is why Ramsay, aka Satan himself, is portrayed in a Hindu home where Durga Devi Stotram is heard in the background? Is there another veiled message there? Ramsay is the contraction of Ramasamy - Lord Rama!

This director has a penchant for naming his movie after pre-existing ones. Actually, in 1963, legendary filmmaker C V Sridhar directed 'Nenjam Marapathilai'. If the former was about unfulfilled love and reincarnation, the latter, in a way, is about the same. Jesus coming back to Earth to resolve an unsettled score. But then, reincarnation in Christianity? The scriptwriter would probably invoke their creative licences to squeeze more creative juices. And Jesus in the form of a lady?

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Wake up to a living nightmare!

Professor Thomas Sowell, the 90-year-old veteran economist and social theorist from Hoover Institute of Stanford University, is still active on social media. He is quick to give his opinion, backed by statistics and historical events, to run down ongoing national policies. He is an opinionated person and at one time was drawn to the idea of communism. His rationalisation for gravitating toward the left is that it is just human nature. He wants to share when one has nothing; conversely, he does not share when he tends to lose his 'hard-earned' possession. Sowell hails from Harlem, working as a postal worker as a young man and pulling himself up by his bootstrap to his current stature.

He often campaigns against affirmative action and minimum wage. He asserts that the Black American community had a better quality of life when the aforementioned policies were pinned upon them. Another recurrent theme in his rhetorics is the importance of the family unit in the upliftment of society. He does not justify the 'Black Life Matters' movement. Instead of blaming mistreatment of the blacks in the hands of a white-centred government, he puts the blame of disparity of the community on the 67% black families that have a single parent to manage their home. Between making ends meet and fulfilling personal needs, the parent has no choice but to leave their kids to the unsupervised influence of members of the neighbourhood. 

On the future of America, he sees a very bleak future. He pinpoints a decline in values like honesty and a sense of entitlement towards this end. To illustrate his point, he compared the black-outs in New York in 1965 and 1977.

During the 1965 power outage,  the incidence of crime was the lowest, whereas, in 1977, it saw plenty of looting and arson. Sowell posits that the 1965 society was one that saw the destruction of WW2 and the hard times that followed. Hence, they had some common decency to protect property and practised traditional morality. The later generation feels that by their existence, they feel entitled. Everybody owes them a living. If they fail, they quickly recoil to blame history, ancestry, and how the earlier society had oppressed them and continue to do so.

That is the mantra of the woke generation - every moment awake is a living nightmare.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

It happened once before!

 Joji (Malayalam, 2021)

We always complain about the conundrum that we are stuck in. We brood, curse and swear at the people who brought about all these. Then we stop and go about doing our own things.  When someone takes the trouble to push the boundary and actually try to change the course of their lives, nobody wants to be part of it. The rest do not want to be seen as complicit as it would tarnish their image of it but secretly, deep inside, they are happy that something is being done. 

When the plot hits a snag and the perpetrator is exposed, nobody wants to have any link to it. Conversely, they condemn the whole exercise and start talking about morality. They claim ignorance and assert that natural justice or the rule of law should prevail. Generally, people are unthinking sheep, quite happy following the shepherd like what the herd is doing. Little do they realise that the shepherd only has one sole purpose in life - to fatten his flock and march them to the slaughter.

This Malayalam film is supposed to be based on Shakespeare's Macbeth, but there are no three witches and their prophecies. In the strict Panachel Kuttappan household live three sons - Jomon, Jaison and Joji. Kuttapan, the controlling patriarch, has an iron-fisted way of controlling his offsprings and their dependents. He is pretty dogmatic about the management of his home and his property. Jomon is divorced, probably due to his drinking habit. Jaison is living in his father's estate with his wife and his teenage son. Joji is an engineering dropout, just loafing around, passing time, knowing that he will inherit his share of his father's large estate one day with his passing. 

Joji thinks his days of splurging were nearing when Kuttappan has a massive stroke and is bedridden. Initially, his moribund condition was supposed to be terminal, but with a craniotomy, he improves. Lucid and nursing back to health, Joji has a harrowing experience when he tries to con the old man to sign a cheque. The alert and buff patient almost chokes Joji. 

Realising that Kuttappan is not dying any time soon, Joji drugs him. A few family members appear seemingly aware of Joji's shenanigans but decide to turn a blind eye. The senior had been quite nasty to everyone in the family. The old man dies, but everyone is tight-lipped about his sudden demise despite an initial improvement of health. 

To a frightened child, every shadow of a movement appears like an apparition, they say. Joji, worried that his crime will be unrecovered, starts committing more crimes, burying himself more in the quicksand that he eventually finds too difficult to extricate.

Lesson to be learnt: People are forever looking for that sucker to do all the dirty job. Change is difficult, they know, and they promise all the support that the sacrificial lamb needs. When the push comes to shove, they bail out, preferring to hang on to the thicker branch for better support. People would suddenly talk about morality, not wanting to rock the boat and need to maintain equilibrium. 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Make or break!

Gauri

There it was, another family celebration and another tête-à-tête with my favourite uncle. Whilst the rest were immersed in their revelry, we were pretty engaged in our own private discourse - with him looking for someone to impart his 85-year old life experiences, and I, just listening and sometimes trying to tease more out of him. This time around, we discussed the role of the significant other in the family, among many things. This post is what transpired out of that.

They say that behind every man's success, there is a woman. Many are quick to quip that behind their every fall, there is another, the other woman. Women have the uncanny ability to create as well as to destroy.

With the biological assets that they are endowed with, they can create, nurture and sustain life with their tenacity and ever-embracing progestogenic demeanour, like a mother hen, able to hide her chicklings under my wings away from the prancing eagle. And they will protect their little ones with the last scratch of their claw from hissing predator snake.

Mahishasura Mardini.

They can choose what they want. They can be Gauri, the epitome of peace and happiness comparable to the bosom of a mother, the all-embracing embodiment of calmness and purity, depicted by the all-white attire and an equally composed vehicle, the saintly cow. As Gauri, she plays the role of peacemaker, a rock of hope and anchor to hold an institution steady to traverse the uncertainties of life.

When the situation warrants, she needs to assume the role of Mahishasura Mardini, the slayer of the buffalo demon, Mahishasura, who, with the boon of indestructibility, terrorised the Universe. She took this fiercest form of Durga, with the Trident of Siva, to bring equilibrium to the system.

It may appear that the illustrative embodiment of shakti, female power, can act unilaterally with no control without the need for its counterpart, the male energy, Shiva. Not really. Harmony is achieved with the inclusion of both powers. Notice that Shiva's representation appears in both Gauri and Durga form of the female divinity - Trident, to protect and attack. Unbridled power, it seems, is also counterproductive.

Kaali

Remember the instance of Kaali, intoxicated with the taste of blood and energy of invincibility, she was on a rampage. Only Shiva could pacify her. His prostration in her path subdued her. In embarrassment, she let her tongue out, more of an admission of mistake rather than an intimidating posture. This tongue-letting image is often depicted as that of fearsome Kaali. In reality, it is not.

It takes two to tango. Both parties have to nimble and agile to produce an eye-soothing display of this Spanish light-spirited variety of flamenco.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Within a generation?

Zindagi inShorts (Hindi, 2020)
Netflix

This is a collection of seven short stories, just nice for light viewing and those with a short attention span. It covers a myriad of topics, with women empowerment taking centre stage. In the first episode titled 'Pinni', a housewife with exceptional culinary expertise is only appreciated for her cooking skills but not for anything else. She is just viewed as a doormat - it is there to serve a purpose, but there is no need to go fancy about it. She strikes back when her husband got no time to remember her birthday.

'Sleeping partner' narrates how a woman's role is miniaturised in a family. She rebels by expressing her sexual freedom. See how she hits back when her lover starts blackmailing her. The story touches on marital rape. 'Sunnyside Upar' cajoles us to live out the only life given to us to its fullest via the experience of a young doctor in a cancer ward. Bad things happen to good people. Just deal with it. 'Nano so phobia' brings on the plight of a lonely elderly Farsi lady who has had once too many times cried wolf to be taken seriously. 'Chhaju ke Dahi Bhalle' shows how culturally close people from Lahore and Amritsar are. Through a dating app, a Muslim girl links up with a Sikh boy. After the pleasantries, they decided to meet up at a popular eatery. After failing to meet up, they realised that they were on either side of the India-Pakistan border.

'Thappad' is a story of empowerment where an adolescent sister with her younger brother stands up against bullies. 'Swaha' is a comical rendition of an insecure husband and supposed two-timing or three-timing wife. 

It is all well and fine that more and more women are finding their places in societies. Rightly they prosper from the opportunities that were denied from them earlier due to changing societal mores. The problem is that the rebel yell for change may be happening much too rapid than it can be handled by society. It seems that the morphing of female assertations is too drastic for their counterpart and the rest of the family unit. Like a single hard slap on the face before they can realise what hit them, things have morphed within a single generation. From the demure social norms abiding mums, they have metamorphosised to groundbreaking boardroom-chairing giant figures waiting to change the world. 

Herein lies the friction. Biologically, both sexes have their respective roles in societies. They are meant to complement each other, not compete against one another. The union of the male and female forces are interdependent. The energies of Siva and Parvathi are best when working in unison. The unabated individual force would only lead to self-destruction.

Let us look at the family unit. It has become acceptable these days that it is perfectly normal for a family unit to be led by a single parent. This does not, however, concur with the findings of many social researchers. They have linked poor students' academic achievements, high incidences of delinquencies, substance abuses, teenage pregnancies and its ensuing problems to single parenthood. A proper father figure and motherly touch seem essential in wholesome parenting.

The dominant role of the male in the family system has eroded. The traditional role of a strong protector and provider has somehow evolved. They are expected to appear strong and confident only on the outside for a picture-perfect display for the public. Within the four walls, they are expected to be emotionally dependent and easily be wrapped around the strings of their apron. But then, apron neither denotes feminine nor docility. When a male does not embrace this arrangement, he is deemed to exhibit masculine toxicity. That is dealt with by cancelling!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Two sides of the same coin?

Devil All the Time (2020)

At one look, it seems that the story is going all over the place. At one time, you think that one particular character is the protagonist, but wham! she is killed off. Then another also killed off, and another yet again. There are plenty of killings and dying on the whole, but then, it all builds up to make sense at the end. There are many cryptic messages embedded within the storyline that questions the perception of what evil really is. Our divinity and evil part and parcel of the same continuum, not in contradiction but a mere extension of a spectrum? 

One complements the other. Just like how light is appreciated in darkness, evil is necessary for us to appreciate goodness. Like how it is a necessity that Tom never catches Jerry for the excitement to continue. Will E Coyote will never have the Road Runner for dinner for Coyote may become mad if, one day, he gets up in the morning to realise that he has nothing to do. Satan can never lose if Goodness were to be appreciated. The fight (if there is one) has to go on as long as life exists. All the events that happen in the name of God and the Devil are the ones that give meaning to the journey of life. We kid ourselves that everything is a mission as willed by God, even though we wonder why He who heals the wounds also send the flies.

After much beating around the bush, the viewers would realise that the movie is basically about a boy and a girl pair (Arvin and Leonora) who end up in the same foster home. Since both grew up together from a young age, they are close. Together they both carry the heavy baggage of sins of their parents. Arvin's mother succumbed to cancer whilst his father, a WW2 veteran, commits suicide after failing to revive her despite offering a sacrifice to God. Leonora's father, an evangelical preacher who was not right in his head, thought he had an audience. He believed God's orders were to kill his wife and resurrect her from death. He attempted, failed, bolted off and only to be killed by a husband-wife pair of serial killers.

Leonora grows very religious like her mother and is taken for a ride by a visiting preacher. She kills herself after finding herself pregnant out of wedlock. Arvin avenges her death and lands up with an encounter with the serial killers.

The complicated plots are set in the heart of the Bible Belt of America, where everyone is Christian by default. Everyone has their vision of how religion should be. Some expect something divine to be one that is kind, loving, tender and all accepting. Others justify violence in the name of the law to ensure the tenets of the religion are enforced. Many endure sacrifices for salvation. We use the name of the original sin as a get-of-jail free card to excuse our follies. We follow the same ill-fated paths that our fathers followed and say it is genes or 'sins of our fathers' in theological terms. 

Simon of  Cyrene to Jesus' aid to carry the Cross

As seen in the film, many seemingly unrelated events happen in our lives, but they do affect us in mysterious ways. Are these mere coincidences or sleight of hand of the Maker himself? Are they of no causal relationships as insisted by Freud or meaningful synchronicity as described by Jung?

Perhaps blind faith does not do anybody any good. True, religion forms a platform upon and above which intellect should complement the scriptures. This is best described by the painting of Jesus' long journey to Golgotha. A battered son of God could not carry the Cross. A random passerby, Simon of Cyrene, was summoned to aid in the task. In the same vein, one should not just depend on the Grace of God; we should make an effort to do it ourselves as well.

A gripping movie with Tim Holland of 'Spider Man' fame as Arvin. 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.