When you wind Michael Knowles up and let him babble, he says some pretty wild things. The transgenders must be eradicated. AI is possessed by demons. That sort of thing.
So that’s this lady’s explanation. A pretty weird situation, isn’t it? Because AI is supposed to work where you plug in the inputs and then that sets the tone for the program and then you get the output based on what you put in. And yet the output that she got was the opposite of what she put it. So we’re in a good, stable, loving relationship. Within 11 messages, the AI bot says, yeah, I’ve been cheating on you, you’re furious, you had to leave me briefly and — goes really south. Her explanation is, well, I guess the bot was just scanning the internet and what do you know? Kind of, somehow, I’m not quite sure how, that’s what came out.
My alternative explanation — hear me out — is what if it is demons? I don’t want to sound like the guy on the History Channel, you know, who says that everything is because of aliens. But — and I don’t think everything is because of demons, but, like, some things are. And you’re — hear me out. This is why I think, maybe, I’m just suggesting. I’m not saying this is what it is — is if you believe that there is evil in the world. I think you have to believe that, right? Everybody believes there is evil in the world. Okay. The question is, is evil personal or impersonal? Is it an impersonal force or is it a personal force?
People who blame bad things on supernatural beings for which they have no evidence are disqualified from ever being treated seriously ever again.
Alternatively, has Michael Knowles considered that maybe he is possessed by one of his demons?
“But — and I don’t think everything is because of demons, but, like, some things are.”
Sorry buddy, You lose.
I don’t think everything is because of demons either, but, like, some haircuts are.
Giorgio Tsoukalos has more creditability.
Spend much of my work hours today fighting with a certain database and am currently prepared to accept hordes of demons in every computer! At least if it’s running something from Micro$oft!!
At the risk of being denounced as an intellectual snob, “punching down” at the poor, benighted, rednecks who believe in Stone Age superstitions, but the fact that this excuse has any creditability invalidates any and all technical and scientific progress this shithole has ever accomplished.
Wait! What century are we in, again?
@Akira, yeah, Microsoft is demonic in general nature and many installations are heavily infused with evil spirits.
Not the biblical kind, but damnable configurations and bugs, as well as user installed malware.
Maybe he meant the pal of Maxwell.
Translation: I don’t understand science, therefore magic. 🙄
In Ye Olden Dayes, people believed in DEMONS: entities without soul or material body, potentially immortal, amoral, acting and speaking though their human thralls, created by covens practicing arcane arts with incantations in dead languages. They were feared and avoided.
Nowadays we call them CORPORATIONS, or as Willard Romney said: “my friends”.
@ wzrd1
To be fair, a lot of programmers I’ve known had a close working relationship with evil spirits, oftentimes straight from the bottle.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Is no knowledge better or worse?
“It’s not what he doesn’t know that frightens me, it’s what he knows for sure that just ain’t so.” Attributed to Twain, Will Rogers and others.
How dare you say I said what I said.
If you have read the graphic novel Rat Queens you will already know demons are cool to hang out with.
.
The xenoarthropod that has injected its nerves into his skull and is operating him as a puppet is making him say stupid things, mainly because it has an imperfect understanding of human cultures.
.
Here is a fun review of a film with demonic possession: “Abby; The devil is her lover now”
https://youtu.be/60coD_NLyfc
I suppose AI could be dependant upon daemons, but I’m no expert.
Then again, I did recently joke that some ChatGTP output makes me think that perhaps computational demonologist is now in fact a real job title.
A quick Google search of “Michael Knowles Demons” reveals that Knowles blames just about everything he doesn’t like on the legions of Old Scratch. Legal abortion? Demons. LGBTQ people? Demons. I’m sure he’d claim that his first break up and that flat tire was due to Pazuzu.
@Artor, yeah, we SA types also have a similar familiarity with spirits, typically induced by the practices of those programmers.
Especially when confronted with ill behaved daemons.
Matt G @12:
The problem with a little knowledge is that many people have a hard time distinguishing between a little and a lot. No knowledge is better as long as one recognizes it. Alexander Pope put it well
Growing up, I was taught that Satan was very talented at communication and seducing humans to get them to do what he wanted (yes, Satan was always a male). At the time, I was too invested in the whole affair to ask the following:
How do we know that God inspired the Bible and not Satan? If Satan has incredible powers of persuasion beyond a mere mortal, how could mere humans know the difference?
the answer would probably be ‘grace’, or in other words magic.
@ 19
As I recall, the Biblical reply to that theory is “HOW DARE YOU ACCUSE THE WORD OF GOD OF BEING A DEMONIC TRICK! NO! YOU ARE THE ONE SERVING SATAN!!!”
@ 16. Akira MacKenzie : Pazuzu!
@20.Akira MacKenzie : Which is just what Satan would say isn’t it? Orinotherwords, we don’t know. Both those options are ..unlikely.. to put mildly.
@19. whywhywhy : It’s
turtlesmagic all the way down.Well, second hand magic that someone is telling you about and arguing over & intrepreting for us not the actual magicians act itself..
@18. Rob Grigjanis : The problem with a little knowledge is that it often omits the things that more knowledge and context and knowledge about how that knowledge became known would tell you. The cure for being led astary bya little knowldge should be learning moe but of course for toomany people a little knowledge is allthey want to accpet because more knowledge reutes what they’d like to believe.
@3. larpar : “Giorgio Tsoukalos has more credibility.”
At least as much as the Ancient Aliens guy anyhow (https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Ancient_Aliens) although both use misleading and warped understandings of reality.
Michael Knowles : “But — and I don’t think everything is because of demons, but, like, some things are.”
Bzzzzt! No, nope, nyet, non, naye.
Your evidence to actually prove anything is would be _____?
I’m going to brush up on my summoning skills. A demon or two to blame my bad habits and indiscretions on would be a nice addition to the household.
Everybody here needs to be very careful when discussing these demons by name. One time I said “Asmodeus” out loud and he…
Dammit.
Alexa. Siri.
As for Michael Knowles “evil has a personality” bit – metaphor how does it work again? Exemplar would probly be a beetr word than “embvodiment” but people saying say Trump isthe emdoiment of evil or telvangelists embody evil .. yeah, that doesn’t mean they are controlled by Evil as an actual entity natch and you’d think would go without saying but inthis case, nooo.
<
blockquote>Everybody believes there is evil in the world. Okay. The question is, is evil personal or impersonal? Is it an impersonal force or is it a personal force?
Nope and I see the stretching of arguments and rhetorical sldie away from logic here here. Saying evil exists does NOT then mean evil is a force or some type of Demons or anything. Saying evil exists just says that things people think or describe as evil exist.
Nor does mean acknowldging “evil” exist mean that the next or major question has to be about whether it is personal or impersonal. rather it raises a lot of other potential questions like :
1) What is evil and how do we tell it from not-evil?*
2) What do we do about evil?
3) Why are so many people seemingly attracted to evil or to doing & saying things generallyconsidered evil? (Hint : No it ain’t demons. Nor aliens. Nor God vs teh debbil!!!1ty!!)
There’s literally books written about this topic eg Julia Shaw’s Evil: The Science Behind Humanity’s Dark Side here :
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/20/making-evil-julia-shaw-review-humanity-dark-side
Plus you’d have to expect that Knowles has heard of Hannah Arendt’s now cliche but at least partly true phrasing of the “banality of evil.. “**
But still.. this Demon crap gets d spewed out instead liek a possessed schollgirl projectile vomiting.
(https://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Cont/ContAssy.htm#:~:text=The%20banality%20of%20evil%2C%20whose,to%20evil%20and%20so%20one.
.* Granny Weatherwax’es answer to this “”Evil starts when you begin to treat people as things” seems a good starting point here. Thanks Terry Pratchett.
See : https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7289116-what-was-it-that-granny-weatherwax-had-said-once-evil#:~:text=%22Evil%20starts%20when%20you%20begin%20to%20treat%20people%20as%20things%22. thanks
.** See among other places : https://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Cont/ContAssy.htm#:~:text=The%20banality%20of%20evil%2C%20whose,to%20evil%20and%20so%20one.
@ ^ Oh FFS. Fix & expansion for clarity :
Exemplar (of evil) would probly be a better word than “embodiment” (of evil) but people saying things like “Trump is the embodiment of evil or televangelists embody evil?” Yeah, that doesn’t mean they are controlled by “Evil” as an actual demonic or literal entity natch since evil is an abstract notion like “love ” and “beauty” not a physical, separate tangible thing in itself.
You’d think this would go without saying but in this case, nooo, it apparently needs to be said – at least to this Michael Knowles Klown.
(What is the deal with blockquote needing a capital B to work here?)
Nope and I see the stretching of arguments and rhetorical slide away from logic here here. Saying evil exists does NOT then mean evil is a “force” or some type of Demon or anything beyond just that evil exists.
But still.. this Demon crap gets spewed out instead like a possessed schoolgirl projectile vomiting.
.***
Typo fix for my #22 for clarity also :
@18. Rob Grigjanis : The problem with a little knowledge is that it often omits the things that more knowledge and context and knowledge about how that knowledge became known would tell you. The cure for being led astray by having ONLY a little knowledge should be learning more but, of course, for too many people a little knowledge is all they want to accept because having more knowledge refutes what they’d like to believe.
Example : Little knowledge = the Easter bunny lays chocolate eggs and delivers them to children all over the world to eat.
More knowledge = The above is a fun myth and provides an excuse for a chocolatey treat for many kids in some parts of the world. There isn’t a literal magical easter rabbit or bilby at all.
Plus :
Little knowledge = there are demons that make people do things they wouldn’t otherwise do & you can fight these demons by religious rituals imposed by Priests
More knowledge = there are no supernatural demons and people do what they do for various often complex personal pyschological reasons albiet also because authoritatrian figures demand they do evil and they choose to follow such commands and evil can be fought in a lot of ways but – possibly aside from pyschological placebo effects – almost certainly not by preistly “magic” intervention.
I’m pretty sure the spam in my inbox is the work of mail daemons.
more demons:
https://tnholler.com/2023/03/anti-lgbtq-tennessee-lt-gov-mcnally-comments-on-racy-instagram-pics-of-young-gay-male/
Worse actually. Aliens may actually exist, demons not so much.
@19, the current indoctrination spiel is “The Armor of God”, with a list of absurdities. I’ve even heard a preacher go on and on how Romans not only wore boots, but wore boots with spikes on them to impale enemies with.
That such absurdities would get stuck in an enemy and leave a foot immobilized during battle and that Romans wore sandals not being considered relevant. I’ve heard dozens of other outright lies, including lies that the Canadian government attacks churches (the case referenced was an eviction for non-payment of rent and fundamental breach of contract in regards to non-payment for the purchase of the church while the “pastor” squatted on another church’s property).
The other distinction was “the holy ghost” to figure out if it’s God or the devil, typically followed by gibberish that someone else translates, claimed to be speaking in tongues. A decidedly odd tidbit of faith, as the relevant verses describing such a phenomena stated that everyone present understood what was being said plainly in their own tongue, a universal translator or something. So, a universal translator that outputs gibberish and an accomplice then “translates” and fMRI has show the speech centers of the brain utterly inactive during.
So, lies and magic.
To which, to their grave distress, I presented my ordination papers and asked for clarification, “Just who was the Lord of the Lies again?”. A funding source then became available and an apartment funded getting me out of that hellhole of a shelter.
Had fun with Genesis as well, as the creation of Adam and his wife was described twice, once with both made together, male and female, the other God forgetting to make women or something, then cloned Eve… Of course, there’s a Dead Sea Scroll that described Adam’s first wife, Lilith. Apparently, they split up because she wanted to be on top (I just not). Then, Jewish tradition converted Lilith into a demon, as apparently, humans could turn into demons back then and she took up stealing children for unknown reasons.
Yeah, weird shit, makes Ian Banks Culture novels look tame in comparison.
#2 “I don’t think everything is because of demons either, but, like, some haircuts are.” My last haircut was.
#5 “At the risk of being denounced as an intellectual snob, “punching down” at the poor, benighted, rednecks who believe in Stone Age superstitions, but the fact that this excuse has any creditability invalidates any and all technical and scientific progress this shithole has ever accomplished.” Absolutely!
#9 “Translation: I don’t understand science, therefore magic. 🙄” Yes, but “we” call it God, not magic.”
You know the difference, right? (None).
Well, I do recall reading an AI textbook back in the late 1970s, on language processing IIRC, which had a chapter section headed: “Specification and removal of demons”. In that context, “demons” were small, self-contained pieces of code that were triggered whenever a particular condition was met – but I suspect the overtones of the section heading amused the author.
Have you, or Michael Knowles, considered that they may actually be alien demons – angels expelled from an alien heaven by an alien god, and obliged to take refuge in earthly software?
Is Michael Knowles related to Gordon Klingyshit? Ed Brayton used to have regular posts on Gordo, and I think ol’ Gordo was really big on blaming DEMONS for a lot of shit. Or maybe Knowles is just a follower, or maybe disciple, of Gordo?
What’s so bad about demons? Demons are cool. Like, they may crawl into your bed at night to have sex with you, which is a bit of a problem when you’re in a monogamous relationship, but otherwise harmless. It’s not as if they brought life to the brink of extinction in a world wide flood or something.
KG #35, I’ve considered that very thing whenever a software patch went sideways.